Let’s Start a Cult – Review

May 24, 2000. Video interviews: Why are you ready to transcend? The answers vary significantly, but overall, the message of these cultish people is that they are very ready to move on from this plane of existence.

This “family” of people reject their Earthly bondage in order to accept their greater calling. They will return… to Jalanzana! What is this, you do not ask? The promised heaven for this believer group. They pass the suicide goblet. Chip Harper (Halkias) chokes and spits out the liquid. Good thing this is just a practice run, but regardless to the punishment barn is where Chip is sent. Too bad he finds that the raccoons ate his kettle corn and On-the-Go desserts.

In the commune the following morning, moods are high. Cult leader William Davenport (Haney) is ready to join the celestial bosom, since it is the joyous day of transcendence! It’s also Ice Cream Tuesday!! Like damn, what luck. Elizabeth’s name comes up, so she gets to go to town with Daniel.

The rest of the habitat do their usual daily tasks. They ready an “Away They Go” cake and eat an amazing stew for dinner. Chip is given a task of delivering a tape to the mailbox outside the Snack-n-Go. This will head to the Newsline team to show the world why this commune has taken this higher path. Chip is allowed to get a Mr. Slush after the mailing. He gets one before, then slips and douses the tape in red sugar sludge.

He then goes back to the commune to get a new envelope and finds he missed the boat to transcendence. Everyone else is DOA. Shoot! Dejected and alone, Chip heads home to his parents. As news eventually hits about the cult and deaths, it appears that cult leader William is not actually dead. Hmmm. Well, maybe it’s time for Chip to begin anew.

Let’s Start a Cult is full of crude humor, some clever jokes, and themes or elements of doomsday cults, family, brainwashing, raccoon traps, clowns, friendship, suicide, ice cream and the great beyond. The humor in this flick won’t work for everyone, but the brand found can be pretty solid if you attune to it. There is plenty of nuttiness, some violence, lots of mania, which mostly all have fun comedic edges.

I love when my enemies perish.

Hard to compare, so here is my best try, mostly on vibe of movie or type of humor since plot comparison isn’t quite there for anything else I can think of.