The Jonestown Haunting

I could see this as a film school final project, because it has everything that a film requires, but none of it works at the right time. The acting was a bit wooden, although the actor who portrayed Rev. Jim Jones was fairly good. There are no supernatural elements present, save for the inward journey that Sarah takes to make peace with herself and sense out of a horrible tragedy. The roadside preacher could be seen as a literary Virgil, guiding the viewer through the mindset that the People's Temple hope to encompass, but ultimately strayed from. The story was original, in a sense, but at the end, they jumped the shark.

This 2020 movie's low IMDb rating should have been taken seriously. Yeah, I know. But still, I opted to sit down to watch "The Jonestown Haunting", as it is a movie that I hadn't already seen. And it being presented with a rather interesting cover, of course I was interested.

I should have avoided this one, mark my words.

This movie was boring, hands down. And truth be told, it was in fact the movie's cover that was the most interesting part about the entire ordeal. And that cover actually didn't really have much to do with the contents of the movie, so talk about false advertisement.

"The Jonestown Haunting" is about a survivor's repressed memories and dark thoughts of having survived the Jonestown massacre. And yeah, it does sound like it could be interesting, except writers Andrew Jones and Sharron Jones managed to turn 1 hour and 25 minutes into absolutely nothing. Trust me, this movie was so pointless and boring that you could watch the first 15 minutes, then leave and come back for the last 15 minutes, and you would still be up to speed with events in the movie.

The storyline in "The Jonestown Haunting" was just horribly boring, mundane and pointless. I was sorely disappointed with what this movie turned out to be.

As for the acting in the movie, well it wasn't award-winning material, nor was it abysmal performances either. I suppose the acting was adequate enough, taking into consideration the limitations imposed with an inferior script and storyline.

I watched the movie because I wanted to be entertained and watch something interesting. Turns out that "The Jonestown Haunting" was neither of those things. So take heed.

My rating of "The Jonestown Haunting" lands on a two out of ten stars.

This was definitely...a movie. Unfortunately, one you might remember for a while.

On the Eighteenth of November 1978 over nine hundred died in Jonestown, Guyana. A remote settlement created by cult leader Jim Jones and his followers. Some committed suicide, others were murdered. This film is centred on fictional survivor Sarah Logan. Ten years after the massacre she is still haunted by the events and is seeing a psychiatrist. When she decides to visit the site, hoping to confront her fears, he advises against it but she goes anyway. Intertwined with this we see flashbacks to events before the massacre including Sarah joining the group and later becoming concerned about how it is being run.

If you are looking for a scary film one might think the events at Jonestown would provide good subject matter... unfortunately this never manages to be scary. The flashback scenes showing events leading up to the massacre are interesting although our protagonist isn't there for the infamous mass-poisoning; she gets away during a shooting. Things start well enough but go off the rails later as it gives voice to conspiracy theories about the events. The acting isn't great but is good enough for a low budget film. At no point does it feel like we are in Guyana; the flora and fauna look and sound distinctly British... not surprising given that it was filmed in Wales. Overall I'd not recommend this to those looking for a horror film; it isn't too boring but I'd rather have watched a more factual reconstruction of the events than this fictionalised version.

The Wikipedia Article for The Jonestown Massacre is actually far creepier than this movie is. Do yourself a favor and read that instead of watching this. I did give it a few points for some of the historical accuracy that they tried to convey, but it's mostly a waste of time.