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Review

Low-budget exploitation cinema has offered a catalogue of luridly opportunistic quick-buck dramatizations of real-life tragedies and crimes over the decades – from thinly veiled Manson family shockers to the recent spate of Tartan-produced serial killer dramas – but prolific Mexican director Rene Cardona, Jr.’s ghastly 1979 docudrama Guyana: Crime of the Century (a.k.a. Guyana: Cult of the Damned) might just be the B-movie-star-studded sensationalist sleazefest to end them all.

Made less than a year after the horrific mass suicides-cum-murders that destroyed Reverend Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple religious cult compound in the South American country of Guyana in 1978 – a tragedy that left over 900 people dead – Cardona’s seedy, sweaty shocker changes the names of those involved (as portrayed – quite effectively – by character actor favorite Stuart Whitman, Jones has been rechristened [no pun intended] “James Johnson,” for example), but generally Guyana follows the events of the Jonestown tragedy with reasonable (albeit broad and simplistic) accuracy, if not necessarily sensitivity or insight (there is little or no analysis provided for how Jones/”Johnson” was able to seduce these multitudes into following his increasingly bizarre dogma). Guyana is undeniably exploitive, but it also traces the horrific Jonestown events with an oddly riveting, Fuller-esque tabloid intensity that – like it or not – often makes for engrossing viewing.

From the church’s abandonment of its original San Francisco locale to its relocation in a Third World country, and from the initially minor grievances of Jones’ followers to their gradual shock at the torturous punishments and aura of madness that consumes the compound, Cardona’s film is a largely artless reportage that still captivates due to its rapid-fire pace and the surprisingly strong performances from its slumming American cast (Whitman, Gene Barry, Yvonne DeCarlo, et al). Those searching for the true story behind this legendary atrocity would be best served by seeking out a decent book on the subject, but those searching for vivid Mexican-Panamanian-Spanish true-crime sleaze – with an appropriately harrowing climax that still packs a punch – may have just hit pay-dirt. Note that, while letterboxed (though not 16X9-enhanced), the DVD transfer leaves much to be desired.

 -- Travis Crawford