Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence

As many millennial women do, I love a good cult story. This one takes the cake as far as modern-day (post-2000) sex cults go. This doc gives shocking insight into the events and experiences that took place within a small group of friends on and off the Sarah Lawrence campus starting in 2010 and lasting for over a decade.

Whether or not you are not familiar with this story, watch this series. It gives first hand accounts of what took place and also offers just an absolutely insane glimpse of just how far brain washing can go. The home footage and audio recordings are harrowing and the things these kids were convinced to do is genuinely incredible.

This is a slow documentary. To really see the day-to-day progression from happy college kids to completely brainwashed and mentally broken adults, it has to be told slowly. If you just hear the events listed out you don't get the true picture/feeling of the story.

This is about a man that 1,000% abused these kids and 1,000% had them believing he was the best person in the world and the only one that cared about him. The best part of this documentary is the actual footage. It's mind blowing to see exactly how this man manipulated and molded them into his slaves without them realizing he was doing it. It would be hard to believe all the things he was capable of if someone told you. It is STILL hard to believe while you're literally watching him do it.

The best thing the man ever did was record everything. His recordings are like watching unethical and inhumane psychology experiments, and it's disgusting.

You can't have a low enough score for the subject matter. It's just vile. However, the documentary covered it extremely well. 10/10.

Those reviewing this documentary because they don't like the story are idiots. It's a TRUE STORY!! They didn't make it up. It has shocking audio and video of a lot of the very disturbing parts of the story. It is a cult. They cut off family, gave all there money to him, commited crimes for him and treated him like a God. Using sleep deprivation and withholding food to assert control. They are all main parts of cults like Scientology, people's temple and the recent nixium cult.

The harsh criticism that they could just leave is easy to say when you're not in that situation. No one joins a cult on purpose. That's the point of it. The human condition of conditioning is fascinating, complex and mysterious. Decades of examples all over the world. Why does it happen so often. This documentary really goes into great depth to show the before, during and after the mind control they endured. It's frightening and disturbing. But also an utter compelling story.

This documentary was close to perfect as far as how it was delivered. It was facts: Aftermath interviews with his former victims and audio and video of Larry and his former followers during the cult. There was no sensationalizing and none of that rehashing of the same information over and over like they do in many documentary series. The only thing that is missing is the information they couldn't gain access to because of some people refusing interviews and the timing of when the documentary was made. Watching the documentary made me look up more about it online, because it was so intriguing. I found it extremely interesting, disturbing, and skillfully done. I watch every cult documentary out there, even some bad ones, but I have had to turn some off because they were so poor. I wish every cult documentary was done this well. Some reviewers said it was too long, but I could definitely watch several more episodes.

As Episode 1 of "Stolen Youth" (2023 release; 3 episodes ranging from 64 min to 75 min each) opens, it is "Freshman Year 2009" at Sarah Lawrence College. MGMT's "Time to Pretend" is blasting away, and we are introduced to a group of then18 yo kids, who are now in their early 30s. They bond, and by their sophomore, they move in together in an off-campus house. Things couldn't be better. Then out of the blue, Tania's dad, Larry Ray, recently released from jail, also moves in, "temporarily"... At this point we are 10 minutes into the opening episode.

Couple of comments: this mini-series is the latest from award-winning director Zach Heinzerling ("Cutie and the Boxer", "McCartney 3,2.1"). Here he looks back at the bizarre events that unfolded in the early 2010s in New York involving a group of college kids being manipulated by a narcissistic guy, I mean, you can't make this stuff up! It is at the same time fascinating and nauseating. It's like watching a train wreck happening before you very own eyes. In addition to the many audio and video archive materials, we also hear from many of the people directly involved, looking back at this more than a decade later, some seemingly still shellshocked as they recount these events and how they ended up getting stuck in a cult, because that is what it was. Psychological manipulation in its most extreme form is what happened here. You probably are thinking that this could never happen to you, and that is exactly what this group of kids is now warning you about: if it could happen to them, it can happen to anyone. Please note that this mini-series is NOT titled "Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence". It is simply titled "Stolen Youth", per the mini-series film credits.

"Stolen Youth" premiered on Hulu in late February. I binged the 3 episodes in a single setting, and found this a lot more compelling that I had expected. If you are in the mood for a true crime documentary mini-series that reminds us what a cult is like, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.