With seemingly thousands of documentaries flooding the market every year, it takes something special to stand out. A gripping topic, fresh P.O.V., or notable interviews might do the trick, but nothing makes a doc pop like jaw-dropping footage. Holy Hell has some of the former and a crazy amount of the latter. Helmed by Will Allen, who was both member and videographer to the West Hollywood cult Buddhafield for over 20 years, Holy Hell features wild home videos of bizarre ceremonies, early 90s commune living, ecstatic weeping, and all-around madness.
It’s usually very creepy, sometimes oddly alluring, and always completely riveting. Allen, via his personal recordings and interviews with many fellow members, traces Buddhafield’s descent from functioning community to a shadowy entourage reduced to catering to the increasingly outrageous whims of its enigmatic leader, Michel. Michel, a distinctly unsettling new-age guru with a mysterious past, would seem too over the top in a fictional story. He strolls through the film adorned in a speedo, promising divine healing and frequently staring into the camera lens with an empty malevolence that gave me a case of what David Foster Wallace called “the howling fantods.” As Allen depicts him, he is both magnetic and chilling, a wolf from outer-fucking-space in sheep’s clothing.
While Michel is pure nightmare material, Holy Hell portrays cult members with a sensitivity and understanding rarely found in any media coverage. You may not be able to rationalize or understand their decisions, but Allen allows us to see them as real people, with all the virtues and flaws that generally entails.
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