Cult

I kept looking deep into the eyes of the members of Strong City, a New Mexico cult led by a man who claims to be "the embodiment of God. " Would I see a profound hunger for existential truth, the philosophical longing of 1960s acid casualties, hints of the commune that T.C. Boyle portrayed in his novel "Drop City"? Would I see steel clockwork and springs, the cold innards of 1950s movie robots? During "Inside a Cult," tonight at 10 on National Geographic Channel, I kept looking, and I saw nothing.

Mexican prosecutors have formally charged eight people in the grisly cult slayings of two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman. The suspects are mainly members of an extended family whose purported leader has said they killed the victims as an offering to "Santa Muerte," or Saint Death, between 2009 and 2012. The idol is usually depicted as a robed skeleton, and her followers include criminals and drug traffickers. Sonora state prosecutors' spokesman Jose Larrinaga says the eight will face charges of first-degree homicide, robbery, conspiracy, corrupting minors and illegal...

"Plan 9 From Outer Space. " "The Rocky Horror Picture Show. " "Mommie Dearest. " "Showgirls. " Through our dark, irony-colored glasses, we laugh at their tortured performances. We mock their crippled plotting. We memorize their every line of clunky dialogue. These films have become campy classics precisely because the filmmakers floundered on their way to producing serious art - stupendously so. Writer-director brothers Brandon and Jason Trost desperately want "The FP" to become an instant cult hit. Yet their inane movie (originally a short painfully stretched to feature length)

Hmm, a cult figure making an album of another cult figure's songs? It's not common, but this one works very well. Todd Snider is a skilled maverick whose first idol was Jerry Jeff Walker, the 1970s cosmic cowboy who scored a hit with "Mr. Bojangles. " Snider saw Walker perform once in Austin and that was the turning point of his life. He persuaded producer Don Was to oversee this ragged-but-right disc of Walker tunes limned with a fresh energy. It's intensely devotional, but intensely satisfying.

"Grey Gardens" mania appears to be nearing its peak. Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore are poised to play the mother-daughter eccentrics in a Hollywood movie, and the off-Broadway musical sensation, with Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson, is Broadway-bound. Wisely, the Brattle Theatre jumps the gun this weekend with a double feature of the Maysles brothers' 1975 classic cult documentary that started it all, and a separate collection of scenes (we won't call them outtakes) that didn't make the original picture's final cut. Titled "The Beales of Grey Gardens," the newer movie is...

Mexican prosecutors have formally charged eight people in the grisly cult slayings of two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman. The suspects are mainly members of an extended family whose purported leader has said they killed the victims as an offering to "Santa Muerte," or Saint Death, between 2009 and 2012. The idol is usually depicted as a robed skeleton, and her followers include criminals and drug traffickers. Sonora state prosecutors' spokesman Jose Larrinaga says the eight will face charges of first-degree homicide, robbery, conspiracy, corrupting minors...

Neil Marshall's "The Descent" is a British horror movie that leaves us exactly where we want to be with a film about six women stranded in a cave several miles underground: afraid of how in the dark we are. It all begins with a lack of promise. Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) loses her husband and daughter in a car accident. A year later she joins some friends, a group of outdoorsy types, for spelunking and rock climbing in North Carolina. The women giggle about one friend's pajamas, talk about men, and throw food at each other.

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Police in eastern Nigeria discovered body parts, skulls, and more than 50 corpses, some partly mummified, in shrines where a secretive cult was believed to have carried out ritual killings, officers said yesterday. Some victims may have died after swallowing poison. Two religious leaders and 28 others have been arrested in connection with the cult, which was feared and obeyed by people living near wooded areas where the 20 shrines were situated, police said. Investigators are searching near the town of Okija...

Eight people have been arrested for allegedly killing two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman in ritual sacrifices by the cult of La Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, prosecutors in northern Mexico said Friday. Jose Larrinaga, spokesman for Sonora state prosecutors, said the victims' blood was poured around an altar to the saint, which is depicted as a skeleton holding a scythe and clothed in flowing robes. The grisly slayings recalled the notorious "narco-satanicos" killings of the 1980s, when 15 bodies, many of them with signs of ritual sacrifice, were...

Hmm, a cult figure making an album of another cult figure's songs? It's not common, but this one works very well. Todd Snider is a skilled maverick whose first idol was Jerry Jeff Walker, the 1970s cosmic cowboy who scored a hit with "Mr. Bojangles. " Snider saw Walker perform once in Austin and that was the turning point of his life. He persuaded producer Don Was to oversee this ragged-but-right disc of Walker tunes limned with a fresh energy. It's intensely devotional, but intensely satisfying.

Is the young, beautiful blonde woman truly a time traveler from a war-torn future, promising safety and enlightenment for a chosen few? Or is she merely a con artist who knows how to use her looks and magnetism to manipulate people for her own gain? This is the question at the heart of "Sound of My Voice," one that you'll be asking yourself until the very end and even afterward. Brit Marling follows up on the promise of last summer's "Another Earth," another sci-fi thriller that makes the most of its meager budget with intimate settings, well-drawn characters and steadily...

HERMOSILLO, Mexico - Eight people have been arrested for allegedly killing two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman in ritual sacrifices by the cult of La Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, prosecutors said Friday. Jose Larrinaga, spokesman for Sonora state prosecutors, said the victims' blood was poured around an altar to the saint, which is depicted as a skeleton holding a scythe and clothed in flowing robes. The slayings recalled the notorious "narco-satanicos" killings of the 1980s, when 15 bodies, many of them with signs of ritual sacrifice, were...

Eight people have been arrested for allegedly killing two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman in ritual sacrifices by the cult of La Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, prosecutors in northern Mexico said Friday. Jose Larrinaga, spokesman for Sonora state prosecutors, said the victims' blood was poured around an altar to the saint, which is depicted as a skeleton holding a scythe and clothed in flowing robes. The grisly slayings recalled the notorious "narco-satanicos" killings of the 1980s, when 15 bodies, many of them with signs of ritual sacrifice, were unearthed at a ranch...

"Plan 9 From Outer Space. " "The Rocky Horror Picture Show. " "Mommie Dearest. " "Showgirls. " Through our dark, irony-colored glasses, we laugh at their tortured performances. We mock their crippled plotting. We memorize their every line of clunky dialogue. These films have become campy classics precisely because the filmmakers floundered on their way to producing serious art - stupendously so. Writer-director brothers Brandon and Jason Trost desperately want "The FP" to become an instant cult hit. Yet their inane movie (originally a short painfully stretched to feature length)

A classically trained violinist and eclectic folk stylist, this master musician epitomizes a curious 21st century phenomenon - the understated cult rave. Bird's pensive placidity has always counterbalanced his whimsy and complexity, making his genius sound just genteel to everyone not inclined to listen close. But on his 12th official album, the 38-year-old's impressive work habits have both loosened and deepened his craft. From the simple lope of "Give It Away" to the breathless whirl of "Orpheo Looks Back," the disc often locks into the kind of relaxed intensity heard on classic Van...

"The Cult of LEGO" (No Starch) is a guide to the imaginative creations fans have constructed using the humble toy found in 75 percent of Western homes. Even a short list demonstrates the potential of the toy building bricks created by a company whose motto is "Only the best is good enough": a full-size harpsichord, a functional ATM, a 15-foot-long stegosaurus, and a robotic hand. Coauthors John Baichtal, a contributor to Wired's GeekDad blog, and Joe Meno, founder of BrickJournal, a LEGO fan magazine, wisely chose to go heavy on photographs and keep their words to a minimum in this fascinating...

Is the young, beautiful blonde woman truly a time traveler from a war-torn future, promising safety and enlightenment for a chosen few? Or is she merely a con artist who knows how to use her looks and magnetism to manipulate people for her own gain? This is the question at the heart of "Sound of My Voice," one that you'll be asking yourself until the very end and even afterward. Brit Marling follows up on the promise of last summer's "Another Earth," another sci-fi thriller that makes the most of its meager budget with intimate settings, well-drawn characters and steadily...

One nuclear family meets another in "The Hills Have Eyes," a giddy and horrifying remake of Wes Craven's '70s cult slasher by the same name. When a tightknit clan of suburban Americans gets sidetracked on a driving vacation, they wind up stranded in the middle of a desert that secretly crackles with life -- and death. Newly retired detective "Big" Bob Carter (Ted Levine) and his brood drive off the beaten path on their cross-country trip, landing themselves in the middle of a wasteland of abandoned atomic test sites.

New releases ** Anonymous Roland Emmerich's soap-opera thriller contends that the actual author of William Shakespeare's plays was one Edward de Vere (Rhys Ifans), the Earl of Oxford. Emmerich is so delighted to expose Shakespeare as a hack and a fraud that it feels like the work of a sleazy lawyer throwing the book at a corpse. Some of the acting is fun. Rafe Spall plays Shakespeare with exuberant dashes of paprika and Vanessa Redgrave plays dotty Queen Elizabeth I as a Golden Age Golden Girl.

Peter Thiel , co-founder and former CEO of Paypal and present-day hedge fund manager, has a great, opinionated article in the new issue of National Review : In " The End of the Future ," he argues that the last fifty years have seen the end of genuine technological progress, and that we are now feeling the consequences. The problem is that, nowadays, we simply take technological progress for granted -- we assume that it will just happen, the same way we assumed that housing prices would always just go up. It doesn't work that way. We need high-paying jobs to avoid thinking about how...