"Prophet's Prey" is a riveting, disturbing documentary about systemic abuse in an FLDS - Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints - organization.
Using interviews with people involved in the church and those who saw it from the outside, the documentary makes a case against Warren Jeffs, the "prophet" who headed his church in a compound away from the world's eyes - a distance that allowed him to take many young girls as wives.
We hear from victims both male and female, and the private detective who became obsessed with seeing Jeffs behind bars. There is a particularly disturbing recording of Jeffs' voice as he speaks to a young girl, presumably during or after a rape. Jeffs is heard intoning Bible verse with his alien, emotionless voice, that becomes all too familiar by the movie's end: this voice, and his adeptness with scripture, are the two weapons he uses in keeping people at bay so that he can carry out his molestation. The voice must sound to the flock like the voice of God when it comes over a loudspeaker; to us it is the voice of a psychopath.
Jeffs was jailed for life, but he is still leading the church from his cell, and the movie's ending makes you wonder how many more like him there are out there. While it is immensely vindicating to see the man locked up, the movie paints the picture of a much larger problem.
It's disturbing viewing, but compulsively watchable, and highly recommended.
Using interviews with people involved in the church and those who saw it from the outside, the documentary makes a case against Warren Jeffs, the "prophet" who headed his church in a compound away from the world's eyes - a distance that allowed him to take many young girls as wives.
We hear from victims both male and female, and the private detective who became obsessed with seeing Jeffs behind bars. There is a particularly disturbing recording of Jeffs' voice as he speaks to a young girl, presumably during or after a rape. Jeffs is heard intoning Bible verse with his alien, emotionless voice, that becomes all too familiar by the movie's end: this voice, and his adeptness with scripture, are the two weapons he uses in keeping people at bay so that he can carry out his molestation. The voice must sound to the flock like the voice of God when it comes over a loudspeaker; to us it is the voice of a psychopath.
Jeffs was jailed for life, but he is still leading the church from his cell, and the movie's ending makes you wonder how many more like him there are out there. While it is immensely vindicating to see the man locked up, the movie paints the picture of a much larger problem.
It's disturbing viewing, but compulsively watchable, and highly recommended.