Blinded by the Light (1980 TV Movie) User Reviews

Too-bland vehicle for the McNichol siblings

[moonspinner55 · 4/10 · 20 March 2001]

Kristy McNichol (looking wan in a short, boyish hairdo) strives to get brother James Vincent (no longer Jimmy) out from a religious sect, which is dramatized as something akin to a revival meeting. She reaches out to him, tries to talk sensibly with him, but the cult has made James vacant and sullen. He is so morose, in fact, it's a wonder the culties don't just ask him to take his bossy sis and scram. By the end, the sect may have gotten to Kristy as well (in the final shots, the filmmakers seem to be asking, "Will they take her too?"). This TV-movie from Robin F. Brancato's book panders to the lowest common denominator: the viewer who knows nothing about the subject matter but who may be willing to swallow what's being delivered simply because it's competently made. This scenario should be much more sinister--who were director John Alonzo (also the director of photography) and writers Robin Vote, Stephen Black and Henry Stern afraid of offending? *1/2 from ****

I never knew that the man from glad was the leader of a cult.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 14 January 2022]

This isn't a bad film, but it is unintentionally funny in spots, especially when a bunch of brainwashed teenagers start chanting father, father over and over again, then continuing with go with love. Kristy McNichol looks on as if she's thinking to herself, "What a bunch of freaks!", and she's there trying to get her brother, Jimmy McNichol, out. She's there for the entrance of the Big Kahuna, Keith Andes, looking like he's just flown in from touring as Daddy Warbucks in "Annie", having earlier escaped from the summer camp where they indoctrinate cult members. The kids are manipulated simply out of being tired of their parents controlling them, and they think that the group they are in is going to solve all of the world's problems.

Coming very soon off of the Jim Jones headlines (1978) and with memories of the Charles Manson cult still fresh on everybody's mind, this was definitely a warning to youngster of my generation to avoid such Ridiculousness and focus on reality. The performances are truly very good, with excellent work from Kristy and her TV parents, Michael Maguire and Anne Jackson who see things in a different way and argue over how to handle it. Jenny O'Hara is also very good as the mother of another cult member, frantically searching for her son who has been carried out of the high school boys shower room and ends up indoctrinated against his will. Certainly the issue with explorers is a dangerous one, manipulating vulnerable youngsters and turning them into soldiers who think they are doing good but eventually turning to possible evil.

The script is often silly and over-the-top, and some of the supporting players within the cult tend to overact. I could not figure out how to dramatize a story like this without making it melodramatic, so it's easy to forgive the scriptwriter, but the way this is done only taps at the dangers of cults that have only gotten worse through social media and other modern manipulations that seem completely legal on the surface but are more destructive to vulnerable minds than drugs and alcohol.