Honestly this was a great horror film about the deconstruction of faith and rebuilding it on one’s own interpretation through life experiences. It’s also absolutely maddening.
As someone who has a little bit of experience with the LDS church— my ex’s family was LDS and I met many people on their mission, and I still regularly read people’s experiences with departing from the LDS church— I recognized it right away. A mission is two years of proselytizing and getting closer to the Heavenly Father, learning to understand and really get into the nitty gritty of what it is to be Mormon. People are sent out to their wards to “save” people, and sometimes they really believe in what they’re doing. Other times people are uncertain and the pressure has sent them into the field to do what is expected of them.
These kids get put into situations all the time where they are facing people who may or may not want to do them harm, getting into situations where people can easily take advantage of them, and having to have these debates all the time with people who want to poke holes in their faith. It isn’t that I stand behind the LDS church— I very much feel that it is a cult built on a conman’s claims— it’s that I’ve met these people and I sympathize. I sympathize greatly with the pain that some go through and the regret many end up having when they leave the church. Some of these people were truly kind to me, and really meant the best despite believing something that I believe is… well. Not good.
So watching this? Yikes. Here is a man who knows everything he can get his hands on, everything from the present book of Mormon to the redacted messages from past Prophets. He hits on one of the most controversial points most people know of in Mormonism: polygamy, makes a point to talk around their arguments for not entering the house, and takes advantage of their ignorance to trap them somewhere in order to quiz and debate about religion. It’s tipping the scales from the usual narrative: a pair of missionaries trapping a vulnerable individual to convert them to their own belief system by challenging the beliefs the other person holds.
The goal of Mr. Reed is to convert Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton to his religion— the “one true religion”, he calls it. The worship of control. Because he is unable to control Sister Barnes, and is able to identify in her a bit of doubt and hypocrisy, she ends up dying because she is fighting against his system. He turns to Sister Barnes, tries to manipulate her further, but finds her able to pass all his asshole tests and interpret what he wants her to understand. He tries to frighten her into bowing her head and accepting his “religion”, but she stands firm in her faith not in the Heavenly Father but her own personal religion of kindness. Of being there for others.
The movie has a lot of moving parts. I think it certainly deserves a rewatch for me to properly analyze. Mr. Reed is a strange character, an unreliable narrator of his own story. He’s built his own church, his own descent into hell, and he keeps doing it, over and over and over. He worships at his own altar while trying to pry others from their own faith and their own journeys.
There’s a lot to take in, and I haven’t even covered the butterfly motif…
