Holy Hell

There's a brief moment in the 1968 classic horror film Rosemary's Baby where a Venezuelan-born bit actor by the name of Jaime Gomez appears. Around that same time, Gomez also starred in several gay porn movies involving some fairly gymnastic sex scenes. But this fringe performer's most significant role came in the 1980s, as a real-life messianic leader who went by the name of Michel and drew over 100 passionately faithful followers to his West Hollywood cult called Buddhafield. The documentary Holy Hell serves up a powerful and often tragic chronicle of what took place over two decades in the closed circle of Buddhafield. The filmmaker, Will Allen, served as Michel's boosterish, in-house videographer for 22 years—a veritable Leni Riefenstahl championing a charismatic megalomaniac. Initially, Allen's vintage footage of young adults caught up in rapturous exercises of emotional catharsis and the release of old traumas looks like something out of group therapy retreats such as the Esalen Institute. Michel declared that he could reveal God directly to his followers, but as extensive interviews with 14 veterans and survivors of Buddhafield attest, there was much more going on behind the scenes: rampant paranoia and extensive sexual abuse by Michel, among other things, which lasted for years. The question of why his acolytes put up with this—and in many cases were well aware of Michel's hypocrisy and their own misery—is a case study in brainwashing and groupthink. An interesting portrait of cult dynamics, this is recommended. (T. Keogh)