Cult-ure: The Recruitment of ‘Cult Horror’ in Today’s America

Midsommar (2019) / A24

Ari Aster’s sophomore feature, Midsommar, just hit theatres with the anticipation of a sledgehammer hitting a carnival bell. A captivating opus, Aster’s film aligned with the morbid fascination horror has with cultism. Even Hereditary imbued itself with mystical cult identities, the actions of a demon-worshipping tribe driving the narrative to macabre conclusion. In fact, looking back at the past couple years, films about cults are peaking as genre successes, spreading a latent fear of underground groups bent on usurping the status quo. Mostly, cults are creepy. But moreover, cults represent a serious cultural shift in post-2016 mindset – one that has harnessed our imaginations and promoted an us vs. them dichotomy just asking for catharsis – the bread and butter of horror cinema.

“Cult” films are nothing new, and many of the genre greats focus on this unique subsect of people possessed. Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Wicker Man (1973) immerse their main characters in an inescapable reality of worship, manipulation, and demise. More recently, House of the Devil (2009) and The Sacrament (2013), both by director Ti West, captured both the secrecy of latent cultists and the uneasy grandeur of something on the level of Jonestown (a direct and unapologetic inspiration for the latter film). And even with those notable titles, cult films haven’t quite received the saturation or production value of what we’ve seen in recent years. We’re falling into something as a society, and horror films are trying to help.

Starting in 2015, Karyn Kusama drew a slow-burn portrait of the scenes to come with The Invitation. It’s a stirringly realistic portrayal of how cults are born and bred, feeding on those with low self-esteem and offering absolute answers to life’s unknowable questions. A year later, the surreal underground literally shook with the Lovecraftian take off of The Void. The next level of cult terror, the faceless, nameless group had no intention of asking you to join – only asking for a sacrifice. They’re starkly different films with a colliding message that the homes and places we know aren’t safe anymore, and even our friends could be trying to kill us (sometimes in the guise of mutant, outer-dimensional monsters).

Then, in 2017, the productions wrapped on one of the most prolific years “cult” movies have produced. Jordan Peele’s smash hit Get Out cultified white liberal privilege with Polo-wearing yuppies determined to live forever with upgraded bods. The Ritual tossed the hail mary of creature fx at a small, reclusive commune and some hikers. The Babysitter ran roughshod on “the killer is inside the house” home invasion trope with an added flair of cult worship. The Endless throws back to Heaven’s Gate with a science fiction fear fest of UFOs and extra-culty activity. Then, there’s two heavy hitters – from slasher and tortureploitation – with The Cult of Chucky and Jigsaw, both featuring freaky, fervent followings and more deadly dolls than there are Puppetmaster films. It was an explosion, surrounding horror fans in a myriad of great genre pieces focused on cult obsession.

In cult creationist terms, they call this a “love bomb.”

When someone is recruited to a cult, or a “commune of absolute love and trust,” they often receive what is known as a love bomb. This is the period in which new recruits are lauded with compliments, praise, and affirmations that train a recruit’s brain to associate the cult with love and acceptance. They are treated in a family way, encouraging openness and shared secrets that lower the guard of an anticipated new member. Horror’s “love bomb” was a shared collective idea of how cult mindset had manifested in society at large and it was getting harder to know who the cultists really were, connecting us to these movies in a unique way that brought us closer to them than other films at the time.

In a cult, it isn’t long before this love in manipulated – usually by the cult leader – to “share” and “let go of the past.” Usually, this means sitting in front of everyone and divulging your worst possible moments. It’s public humiliation, and often times leads to the opportunity of blackmail. Threaten to leave? Look what we know about you – we’ll tell everyone. And no one will ever accept you like we will.

So why is this important? Well, because in 2017, society was in a tailspin. Groups were forming left and right, showing up at rallies and starting riots. Everyone had a tribe, and everyone thought they were right. America cut a clear line between left and right, Democrat and Republican, and the division of the country hit like a mammoth earthquake. The other group, the one that wasn’t with you, was a cult. Brainwashed and willing to do anything to protect itself and destroy you. And it hasn’t let up very much. Cults maintain power by promoting “us vs. them” mindsets, cutting off people from their previous life and holding themselves as “superior” to what you knew before. And you can be superior too, just follow us.

In 2018, we swapped quantity for quality (not to say some of the 2017 films weren’t heart-stabbingly excellent). Hereditary was a bolt of lightning sent by Paimon himself. A deeply personal, mind-bendingly exposed debut, Hereditary’s cult conspiracy drew back a curtain on paranoia and emotional pain that knocked our heads off. Further, the who-the-hell-knew-this-was-coming Mandy destroyed horror websites for months. When a film develops a cult following, you could say Mandy drew out some die-hard members. As an audience, we were gasping for these two films. They were a reckoning of acquiescence, of catharsis, that couldn’t be stopped with The Reaper and some laced LSD. Hereditary made us feel hopeless against the supposed other, and Mandy made us feel like we could snap ‘em with a ten foot chainsaw.

Related Article: Hereditary Is Brilliantly Horrifying (Review)

So far in 2019, the cult campaign continues. Peele’s follow-up Us generated an entire underground of others decidedly engaged with taking over our lives. Aster’s Midsommar is a haunting engagement rife with the loving acceptance of losing everything. As I mentioned before, horror is telling us something indelibly ingrained in our psyche. In the 1950s, atomic monsters grew to ginormous proportions mirroring the size of our Cold War fears. In the 1980s, slashers run amok in our suburban sprawl reminding us that the home isn’t as safe as you think. Torture Porn popped up right around the same time the news was showing photos of Abu Graib. It’s not a coincidence that we’re obsessed with making and consuming horror films centered around cults in our present moment, as we see ourselves surrounded by cultists, the “other side,” no matter which side you’re on.

So, you may be asking yourself, what does it all mean? Well, it means we’re operating as we should. Horror cinema is a playground of the psyche. It’s reactionary and symbolic to the times and we love these films all the more because we feel it so much more. The anxiety of cultism is division and paranoia – and the horror genre is using our Jungian collective unconscious to remind us that this division doesn’t get us anywhere. It’s locking us in a standstill, a society divided. We’re desperate for real connection, in a world only superficially, digitally connected by social media. We’re feeling tribal right now, or we’re feeling like there are tribes and we’re not in one, and that’s frightening too. Cults offer that companionship, that family, we’re looking for. At least I know one cult that I’ll never be afraid to be a part of: the Horror Cult.

One of us. Gooble Gobble.


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