Children of God

Excellent and tragic portrayal of a particularly destructive group that still exists. Thank you to the Padillas for such openness. Truly.

I think a lot of people cursing the mother and questioning the impact of the documentary don't seem to have experience or knowledge of abuse and manipulation to this degree.

Some question how a mother can let this happen for so long and even the interviewer kept asking them why they didn't leave. The worst thing to ask an abuse survivor.

Manipulation can be so strong where it doesn't occur to you and your reality is completely shaped by the abuser.

The fact this was in the 80s when seeking therapy and connection to the outside world was limited made it that much harder.

The documentary gave us a glimpse of the world of Children of God. But it was flawed. The ending was very unfinished and it felt like half the picture was missing. I wasn't surprised no male members were willing to be interviewed...the church served them well.

It's a worthwhile beginning to the cult but needs a follow-up.

I love s good documentary about a cult, and the Children of God always sparked my interest . But this documentary made in 1994 has the feel of a educational film in the 50's. I wanted to know this family and their psychic struggles in cult life and leaving. We never hear from the father of the family or the sons, and we get no sense of how these folks were seduced into this cult. When the mother left the cult, what happened to her other children. One does not leave a cult without severe psychic damage- PTSD,. This mother left and joined a charismatic church and seems to have no problems? How do leave a cult with 3 daughters and reclaim a life. There is no real explanation on how this cult claims to be Christian, yet the Bible is not taught . Don't waste your time on this dated film which would have been dated in 1994. Very little clarity on Moses Davis the cult leader. I left the film feeling like this family may have left the formality of the cult but got no help in joining society, especially the mother who shows no emotion even over her dead daughter.

How did this Mother and father escape prosecution? This was an admission by the Mother allowing her underage children to be abused. The Mother laughed while telling her story. I seen nothing funny about it.

Children of God (1994) is a documentary about the cult of the same name, who's disturbing practices have been reported to include extreme sexual abuse. This documentary was informative, however it felt lacking and quite bland. Although, I do suspect this is because it came out in the 90s.

This film included a heavy subject matter and it's a cult I've been reading about for a while. The documentary successfully shows the horrors of being manipulated into a cult and how controlling they can be.

It was well and clearly narrated, but got hard to pay attention to at times. It ended very abruptly and I would've liked the documentary to be longer in order to add more detail and delve deeper into the history of the Children of God.

There was a lot of archive footage and photos used, which was interesting to see, but the documentary itself wasn't exactly well edited and didn't flow well. However, the archive footage used was unsettling and really showed how much of a sick individual David Berg was.

It also used face to face interviews for most of the film in which we focus on a family that luckily was able to escape the cult. I liked these parts a lot, and it made me feel so sorry for all, especially the children, abused in this cult. The words from the ex-members hit very hard, and I hope they're doing well nowadays. But, some of the interviewer's questions were rather insensitive and the questions could've been approached better.

This was really the only techniques I saw used in this documentary, which leads me on to my final point. This doc was most likely considered good for the time it came out, but it shows how much documentaries have changed and progressed since then. For me, this format hasn't really aged well.