Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

jaxla Fans of psychedelic trash claim to love this movie, but it is largely unwatchable. Shot in the wake of the success of "Wild in the Streets," which Robert Thom wrote, AIP allowed Thom to write and direct his first film. His freaked out ambition led to something that was barely released. The basic story is like Tennesee Williams' "Orpheus Descending" or Pasolini's "Teorama" -- a hot, vaguely homo erotic stud comes into a wealthy household, sleeps with everybody and DESTROYS them baby!! Destroys them! Tripped out with psychedelic fashions and bad rock tunes, this sounds like fun; but Thom has absolutely no sense of pace and the movie just bumps from one poorly directed scene to the next.The cast is at sea through out the film and no wonder: Holly Near, now a famous lesbian singer and activist, plays a fat girl who gets raped by the rock star. She must hide her head in a pillow when this comes on TV. Jordan Christopher comes on like Jim Morrison lite and Roddy McDowall and Lou Rawls are cringe worthy as "groovy" sidekicks. Camp lovers may relish Jennifer Jones' degradation as a wealthy nympho/porn star who lusts for the stud, but her dialogue ("You bloody sadistic dyke!") resists rational delivery.The most interesting thing about the film is the homoeroticism; quite explicit for its day. But that would hardly sell it in 1969. In fact, after previewing the film as "Angel, Angel Down We Go," AIP realized what a dog it had and shelved it. A year later they rushed it out on a cheap double bill, changing the title to "Cult of the Damned," and giving it an ad campaign that implied it had something to do with the Manson murders. Even that did not do the trick. AIP's cutting may account for the film's bumpy narrative, but what is left on screen is truly unsalvagable.The "high" point of all this madness comes when the fat heroine gets "high" and sees the other cast members SITTING ON THE CEILING!! The scene continues as if nothing odd has happened. Utterly bizarre! It's too bad after the pop-comic book psychedelia of "Wild in the Streets," that Thom fumbled this film so badly. The rock star lead was obviously created as a follow-up role for Christopher Jones, but he escaped to A films like "Ryan's Daughter" for a few years before surrendering to drugs. No one escaped this mess unscathed. Only for the morbidly curious. You have been warned.

rosscinema There were so many hippie movies being churned out during those years and most of them were awful but a few of them attained cult status. Unfortunately this film is just one of the worst pieces of nonsense ever made and watching the actors wallow about in this made me feel sad for them. Story (such as it is) is about a very wealthy couple who have an overweight daughter who's completely miserable. Jennifer Jones is the mother Astrid Steele and her past includes making stag films. Charles Aidman is the father Willy Steele who is bi-sexual and he tries to make his daughter Tara Nicole (Holly Near) happy by giving her expensive gifts. One night after a party Tara runs into Bogart Peter Stuyvesant (Jordan Christopher) who is the lead singer of a rock band and he seduces her. Tara meets the other members of his band which include Joe (Lou Rawls), Anna Livia (Davey Davison) and Santoro (Roddy McDowall). *****SPOILER ALERT*****The four members of this band/cult start playing games with Tara and fill her gullible head with all sorts of psychedelic mish-mash and finally she brings them back to meet her parents. Bogart puts the heavy moves on Astrid and eventually he seduces her as well. They talk her into going sky diving and play keep away in mid-air with one of her expensive necklaces until she plummets to her death. The film ends with Willy being killed by Bogart and Tara completely brainwashed.This film was directed by Robert Thom who is primarily known as a pretty decent writer of low budget films and he never directed another film again after this. I don't mind hippie films if they're done with some sort of tongue in cheek approach like my favorite "Candy" but this film is just a mess and one with a totally narcissistic attitude. With all of the "Groovy" editing going on it was very difficult at times to figure out what exactly was real and what was just another fantasy sequence. The casting is the most interesting thing about this effort and you had to wonder what Jones was thinking. Did she need the money that bad? Did she think she was going to cash in on the new young and trendy way films were being made? She spouts lines such as "I made 30 stag films and never faked an orgasm". I will say one positive thing, though. Jones looks great! I'm not sure how old she was when she made this but she still maintained her sex appeal and looked very beautiful. But this brings me to McDowall and Rawls who have at best secondary roles and have practically nothing to say. Every once in a while Rawls would mutter something about "Afro-American Negroes" and shoot that big grin on his face. McDowall doesn't come across much better and at one point he stares upward with a glazed look on his face and warbles about being turned on by a carrot! Someone hand him a chimpanzee mask and let him really act! This film was doomed right from the start as it came out fairly close to the time when Sharon Tate was murdered. A shame the script for this wasn't destroyed instead.

Aussie Stud What "THE BIG CUBE" was to Lana Turner, "CULT OF THE DAMNED" (aka "ANGEL, ANGEL, DOWN WE GO") is to Jennifer Jones.Ms Jones, a beautiful actress, usually playing serious roles in respectable films such as "LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING" and "DUEL IN THE SUN", makes her grand entrance into the twilight of her acting career with this extremely tasteless garbage.Here, she is the bored, restless and needy wife of a tycoon who welcomes home her 18-year old daughter who has been raised abroad in a Swiss school. The actress who plays her daughter is pretty bad, but who could have imagined that Jennifer Jones could be worse?I don't think anyone could have imagined as to how bad this movie would turn out. The director must have had liberating visions on the issues of homosexuality, nudity, obesity, drugs, sex and free love. Jumble them all into one movie and headline it with an Oscar-winning actress in the twilight of her career, and you have "CULT OF THE DAMNED".Was it Jennifer Jones who insisted that every 'close up' shot of her face be filmed directly under a spotlight with as much base plastered over it so that it looked like matte? Was it Jennifer Jones who wanted to 'step out of character' by playing a completely unlikeable lush-of-a-woman with a background in stag films? Either Ms Jones was completely into the "LSD-era" if you get my drift, or her agent was.Ms Jones not only steps completely out of character for this movie, but she takes a giant leap into a whole new "Twilight Zone" dimension where most of her fans would be scratching their heads as to how and why she chose to star in this. I remember I got the same feeling when I saw the beautiful Ms Katharine Hepburn dragged out of semi-retirement for a small cameo in Warren Beatty's "LOVE AFFAIR" where she was encouraged to utter the "F" word amidst completely embarrassing dialogue.Watching Ms Jones confess, "I MADE 30 STAG FILMS AND NEVER FAKED AN ORGASM!" while badly acting amid Fellini-inspired scenery filled with smoke and harsh red tones, is just bizarre.How this film became retitled as "CULT OF THE DAMNED" is beyond me. There is no "cult" in this movie. The original title "ANGEL, ANGEL, DOWN WE GO" is more appropriate as it is featured in a rather appalling set at a pool party that is supposed to conjure the likes of Jim Morrison, but instead invokes laughter.Everyone from Lou Rawls to Roddy McDowell look completely stupified as to how they ended up in this film. There are even times where their faces look like deer frozen in a set of headlights.I must say that after watching this movie, I now know where Jennifer Jones got the inspiration for her look that she carried with her to the set of "THE TOWERING INFERNO". There is one scene in this movie where Jennifer is sitting in the back of a limo sharing a conversation with Jordan Christopher. She is wearing the exact same white dress with choker and hairstyle that she had in "THE TOWERING INFERNO"! I honestly thought that she had stepped right out of this scene and into the glass elevator as Lisolette Mueller.Thank God this movie would not be her final film. It would be absolutely depressing if this was credited as her last movie. She redeemed herself in her next and final feature "THE TOWERING INFERNO", and hopefully fired her agent in the meantime.Only watch this movie if you, like me, were dying with curiosity to see Ms Jones spit, "YOU BLOODY SADISTIC DYKE!" to her maid while getting rough-handled during a shoulder massage. Other than that, avoid this dreck at all costs.My Rating - 0 out of 10

Phillip A weird and hopeless mishmash of elements which will make you wonder how on earth this film ever got made and also why stars such as Jennifer Jones signed on in the first place. The plot revolves around an overweight young girl named Tara ("you know, after Gone With The Wind") whose life has been distorted by her rich parents who never loved her in the first place. She becomes involved with a rock singer and he and his group ingratiate themselves into her home and family. It is obvious that the film is supposed to be symbolic because we are continually shown a painting of the characters in morbid poses with their eyes gouged out, etc. but you would have to be on an acid trip to grasp them). Most of the lines are thrown in for shock value, and it is indeed shocking to hear Jennifer Jones (as Tara's mother) utter such lines as "I made 30 stag films and never faked an orgasm" or call her maid a "bloody sadistic dyke". A must see to believe it all but very bad cinema indeed.