Cult Doc Fan? Here are 5 TV and Film Docs to Keep On Your Radar

Megan McLachlan highlights 5 TV and film documentaries that capture the spectrum of cults.

With cults on the rise, so are cult documentaries. But how we define “cults” can differ from person to person, including the veneration of dolls, saunas, soul mates, and purpose. The following documentaries and docuseries are some of the most compelling ones to take on the idea of “cults.”

Billion Dollar Babies: The True Story of the Cabbage Patch Kids

Smoke Sauna Sisterhood

 

A cabin, some smoke, a group of women making weird noises. From the trailer of Anna Hints’ Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, it looks like what the next season of Showtime’s Yellowjackets could look like (sans cannibalism). But instead of something sinister, Estonia’s entry for Best International Feature serves as one of the most thoughtful, remarkable documentaries of the year featuring women sharing their stories at their most vulnerable: naked and in a sauna.

The tradition of saunas in Estonia dates back to the 13th century and is believed to invigorate both the body and the soul. The audience doesn’t learn the names of the women who are speaking, nor do we even know what they look like (many times, we’re glimpsing their legs or skin and only hear their voice), but each woman takes us on a journey through individual vignettes from their lives, including topics on abortion, coming out, miscarriages, and more. For as devastating as some of the stories can be, the film uplifts the audience by acknowledging this safe space for women to come together and reflect on their complicated pasts. You don’t need to know their names or what they look like to be moved by their stories. Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is such a special film, unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.

Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is now playing in select theaters.

Escaping Twin Flames (Netflix)

Director Cecilia Peck tackles the next generation of Keith Ranieres in her three-episode docuseries Escaping Twin Flames, which introduces audiences to Jeff and Shaleia Divine, the husband-and-wife team who found each other as “Twin Flames” and want to help other people find their spiritual soulmates through $1,000+ class packages. Like NXIVM, bankruptcy and lawsuits ensue, but the Twin Flames Universe’s fresh twist involves forcing people to change their genders (because Twin Flames can only be masculine and feminine). Plus, virtually all of the manipulation is done through Zoom, which adds an additional layer of intrigue and power.

Peck includes familiar cult doc talking heads, like coercion expert Janja Lalich, to provide insight into the group’s cult-like MLM strategies and clearly has the expertise in this area, especially with her excellent NXIVM doc Seduced. If you find yourself wanting to learn more about TFU, there’s another doc that dives a little deeper.

Escaping Twin Flames is streaming on Netflix. 

Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe (Amazon)

If Escaping Twin Flames whets your appetite for more TFU, then Desperately Seeking Soulmate is your next step (I like to think of the two as working together like Godfather and Godfather II—you can’t see one without the other!). This captivating doc takes you back to the beginning, including what both Jeff (Ayan) and Shaleia’s (Megan Plante) childhoods looked like and what they ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner while crashing with a friend (spoiler alert: It’s hot dogs).

With insight from investigative reporter Alice Hines (who gained significant access to Jeff and Shaleia and their home), this doc links the rise of cults to the loss of religion in the United States, and how even though the younger generations have rejected organized religion, they’re still looking for a higher power to guide them and their decisions. Escaping Twin Flames and Desperately Seeking Soulmate work in tandem to answer many of the questions that remain in each doc, but ultimately, little resolution since TFU is still in operation. That might be the chilling part of all, thinking about the people who are still funding Jeff and Shaleia’s million-dollar lifestyle to take classes with no accreditation other than “the proof” of happiness you see on social media.

Desperately Seeking Soulmate is streaming on Amazon. 

Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God (HBO)

Love Has Won starts with a doozy of an introduction. A cop’s body cam footage captures a welfare check in a dilapidated house, and in the back bedroom, beneath a lump of blankets and Christmas lights, is the mummified corpse of Amy Carlson, aka Mother God. Unlike many documentaries that rely on experts to help tell a cult’s story, Hannah Olson, director of Baby God, astutely lets the not-yet-deprogrammed believers narrate, just three weeks after Carlson’s death takes place. It humanizes these individuals and allows you to get to know them in a very intimate way, especially since they still believe.

“Who are we to judge?,” says believer Hope (real name Ashley). “It’s like, what’s a cult? People not believing what’s mainstream, that god is a man and you find him in a church that wants money?” For as much as Love Has Won shows individuals struggling to find purpose, it also provides a fascinating character study of a woman who’ll forever remain a mystery. When you learn that Carlson walked out of a dinner with her mother and sister and never looked back—leaving behind three children—it makes the “Mother God” moniker she acquires even more interesting. What did developing this cult do for her? What did she gain from motherhood with strangers that she didn’t have with her children? The biggest mystery of Love Has Won might not be how Amy Carlson was able to charm her believers, but the void she hoped to fill by having them.

Love Has Won is streaming on MAX.