The Cult

Not that high hopes were ever had, but it's too silly, nonsensical, repetitious, & soap-operatic to be entirely enjoyed. They cover the same territory and reinforce so many stereotypes over and over just starting from episodes 1 to 3. Hammering on lazily-established interpersonal conflicts and over-stating the obvious is rampant. The acting is mostly O.K., but with such cheesy/heavy-handed dialogue, it would be difficult to do any better. The cult lessons/gatherings were so painful to watch that some fast-forwarding was required. They even did the 'bundle of sticks' = strength routine. The actor playing the cult leader is uncharismatic, wooden, and smarmy, which doesn't fit the bill. By EP09, it deteriorated into intolerable childishness and ridiculousness. It proposes that you ask which of all the characters are the worst. They're all awful, so why look at it?

At some points, it comes off as an afterschool special-a poorly done, low-budget, over-generalizing morality tale for youths. At others, it's guns & knives galore. These things aside, the music is O.K., and it does have a sort of semi-original premise deep in it's core-although it takes virtually the entire season to get to it.

Love the characters, the music, the well done cinemtography and a great and interesting Concept of Parents rescuing their loved ones from a cult in New Zealand.Also, they do explore the more human side of the characters instead of just straight good and evil stereotypes. However, I think because New Zealand is such a peaceful country, they are not smart on how truly evil people can be and how smart they can be when they are committed either for good or evil purposes. My god at about Episode 7, the series writers seem to have gotten lazy on making the characters more clever and more "intelligently devious". For example, the "rescuers" live in a house very near the cult compound and the cult people know it and don't seen to go after them very much. Another simple example is when Sophie and Michael draw a gun first on the cult security guy named "Saul" who has a rifle and ask him to throw it in the bushes, then run off to do their rescue without getting Saul's rifle from the bushes. It keeps getting worse too, but, I am forgiving all the silly stupidity of both sides b/c I do Love the characters and do want to know what happens. I've got a crush on Sophie and Cynthia. The KIWI women are BEAUTIFUL!!

It's good in parts and I agree that it starts slow but it's well worth sticking with it for the scenery alone (although that makes it sound as if nothing else is worth watching. I don't mean that, it is)

Actors some New Zealanders know and love, mainly from soaps, feature here which makes it interesting locally and the tension level is maintained by some good cliff-hangers.

I don't agree with another reviewer that the acting is terrible, though some of the script can verge on the corny but who takes this sort of thing entirely seriously anyway?

I have a vested interest in this series though, I own one of the white coffins used in the series :-)

I'm only 3 episodes into the series as I write this, but I feel the series is building in mystery and suspense nicely. I thought the first few episodes were a little slow, but I'm intrigued to see what's around the corner. It's a great script, with some fantastic actors. It's shot superbly too and looks fantastic (especially in HD).

I think the music score is brilliant. It's so atmospheric and spooky, and really helps build the tension throughout. The music is atmospheric and subtle.

All in all I think The Cult is turning out to be a fantastic thriller... I'll keep watching for now.

Recommended viewing.

8/10

I'm a big fan of unfolding the story/ back-story as you go along style of drama but the unraveling is happening so slowly in The Cult that I'm finding it pretty unengaging. So technically the series looks great, the performances with a few exceptions are fine, but the pace of the story telling is killing the story.

There's some good stuff in there but it's so snuggly wrapped up in the 'mystery' that it's hard to watch. Too much set-up people.

Also the music is all wrong- if only they'd gone for something warmer... it would have been a lot more watchable. It's a small thing but I think it makes a huge difference.