The Jonestown Haunting

Upon seeing the cover of "The Jonestown Haunting," one might expect a truly frightening experience with plenty of jump scares. However, the film fails to deliver on this promise. The confusion arises from its unclear direction; it is neither a genuinely terrifying horror film nor a documentary-style recount of the tragic Jonestown and Georgetown Temple Agricultural Project incident. This film lacks of coherence and fails to establish a clear identity and for some strange reason most of these low-budget productions proven evidence in limited special effects and the overuse of stock footage, which detracts from any potential suspense or fear. This is a film that potentially should aim more in the direction of a documentary, "The Jonestown Haunting" fails to capitalize on the gravity and significance of the Georgetown Temple Agricultural Project incident. This story is of immense historical importance, yet the film neglects to delve into the wealth of information available to make the production of the film more promising. The overlooks crucial details and fails to honor the complexity of the Jonestown story. Absolutely sad!!!

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.

The Jonestown Haunting is about a survivor's repressed memories and dark thoughts of having survived the Jonestown massacre. And yet, it does sound like it could be interesting, except it not 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. Like yes we know Jonestown became internationally infamous when, on November 18, 1978, a total of 909 people died at the settlement, at the nearby airstrip in Port Kaituma, and at a Temple-run building in Georgetown, Guyana's capital city. The name of the settlement became synonymous with the incidents at those locations but besides that there no ghosts until the end of the movie the ghosts sure be the main bad guys. It sure be called HAUNTING for a reason Like why are all the ghosts good and fine with the main character going back to the place they died So dumb of the ghosts if was too die and become a ghost I would not want people to go back to the place I died like no thanks this is my place of rest so goodbye they need to make a remake of this movie And make it better than this garbage.

This film isn't very good, and it's not due to lack of trying. I can see everyone gave it a good shot, but it has no voice or reason to exist. Jim Jones actor did pretty good, the lead did alright. I think the script just wasn't ready and veered into way to much dialogue that felt straight up written and not natural, there's only so much the cast and crew could do with this material. They need to change their poster to something that actually reflects the film.

I find it so hard to believe this cost $1,000,000, you could make ten of these films for that price (which they should have done). This is the perfect case of "don't make a film just because you can, make a film because you have a hard-on for it!"

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.