21st Annual Virginia Film Festival

Aliens! 30 Oct - 2 Nov 2008


Trapped By The Mormons (2005)

“We all know Mormons are evil, but, good God, THIS?!!”

Devout zealots use their mesmeric powers to ensnare young recruits into their pseudo-religious culture that blends science fiction and religious fervor. No, we’re not talking about Scientologists, but frenzied views of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wrongly but almost universally known as The Mormons. Almost since the church’s inception, lurid stories have abounded of hypnotic missionaries luring young virgins into polygamous retreats from which they cannot escape. Even Arthur Conan Doyle got into the act in his very first Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet by suggesting that Danites, the Avenging Angels of Mormondom, were steeped in the assassination of apostates and that polygamy was white slavery.

Hollywood also responded with a series of cautionary and exploitive films warning about the “dangers”Â? of “Mormonism”Â?. In 1922, the original Trapped By The Mormons was released and it has since acquired a cult status as –Mormonism’s answer to REEFER MADNESS”Â?. In 2005, a troupe of D.C.-based actors remade the film in all of its silent black-and-white glory (”Even your screams will be silent!”Â?), recasting it as a zombie horror movie.

Isoldi Keane, the top recruiter in all of Mormondom, is using his mesmeric powers to ensnare the young, delightful Nora Prescott into his evil web of passion, polygamy, and pamphlets. Can Nora withstand Isoldi’s wicked-sexy Mormon wiles? Will Isoldi marry Nora and take her to where the Great Salt Lake meets the Crystal Temple. . .or is something darker lurking in her future? Slavery! Polygamy! Death!! Cherry Red Productions and Jeff Goode Entertainment conspire to present this hauntingly hip and hilarious remake of the 1922 cult horror flick Trapped By The Mormons.

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