BELIEVERS (UNRATED EDITION) (2007)

Believers (Unrated Edition) (2007)

Actors: Kyle Adahl, Nino Aldi, June Angela, Daniel Benzali, Elizabeth Bogush Directors: Daniel Myrick
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only)
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Number of discs: 1
Run Time: 103 minutes

Movie: * * ½
Disc: * * ½

A woman and a child attempt to escape from a freaky suicide cult out in the desert. In the attempt she gets hurt however and the child phones 911 for help and two young paramedics are dispatched. However, while trying to help the woman (who seems to be dead already) cult members armed with guns appear and kidnap the two paramedics and take them back to their compound. On the surface the cult seems to be your standard UFO Heaven’s Gate style cult. Their leader called “the Teacher” is in possession of a complex mathematical formula that not only predicts the end of the Earth (in a couple of weeks’ time) by fire falling from the sky, but also a way to transport the cult members to right across the galaxy to another planet where they will carry on humanity.

Soon it becomes apparent that maybe everything isn’t as it seems: the cult leader knows things about the kidnapped paramedics that they can’t possibly know. Plus they somehow manage to save the escaped woman from certain death. Is the cult for real maybe? One of the paramedics comes to believe that they are and the other is not so convinced. Time is however running out as the cult members have to “transcend” soon — and we all know what really means . . .

Believers is a made for TV movie by Daniel Myrick, director of the original Blair Witch Project. This unrated version contains one sex scene obviously not featured in the version screened on broadcast TV. The cast of unknowns acquit themselves quite well, and the film does okay with its limited resources in terms of budget. However, the problem is that the movie ends exactly the way you think it will. As far as “surprise endings” go, it isn’t too big of a surprise. Watching the movie one somehow wonders whether the makers will know that audiences will expect the surprise ending and maybe do something else with it. This is alas not to be.

THE DISC: A somewhat dull audio commentary by director Myrick and writer Julia Fair. There are some deleted and extended scenes, but it obvious why these scenes were excised as they are on the boring side.

WORTH IT? Believers is a welcome respite from all the gore-drenched and sadistic horror fare that make it straight to DVD nowadays (Return to House on Haunted Hill comes to mind), but what could have been an intriguing concept is let down by a somewhat predictable screenplay.