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Screens August 10
In this shocking and assured documentary, Oscar-nominated director Amy Berg (Deliver Us From Evil) extends her fascination with the intersection of religion and sexual deviancy to the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints (the polygamist counterpart to the mainstream Mormon Church) and its leader, Warren Jeffs. From former Church members, siblings and one of his 20 wives, we hear of Jeffs’ ruthless rise to leadership and his systematic abuse of his flock. These testimonies are overlaid with Jeffs’ own voice, delivering sermons and repeatedly murmuring the Fifth Amendment upon his arrest. With elements of the expose, the taut detective thriller and the courtroom drama (and even an opening animation that's narrated by Nick Cave), Prophet’s Prey thoroughly and incisively captures the predatory nature of its monstrous subject. Set amid vast desert plains and sun-dappled mountain ranges, Prophet’s Prey lays bare a troubling paradox: it's the premium placed on liberty in these wide open spaces that permits a pernicious brand of radicalism to survive, even as a strict adherence to rules within those radical communities allows monsters to thrive.