In April 1989, cult leader Jeffrey Lundgren and his followers led all five members of the Avery family into a barn where they were executed. The youngest victim was just six years old. Lundgren was executed three years before this documentary was released, but Ronald Luff, his second in command, escaped the death penalty, and as the title suggests, he is the centre of attention, including mostly an interview with psychologist N.G. Berrill.

Luff never actually took part in the killings, but has never denied culpability, indeed he turned himself in months after them and cooperated with the authorities, realising too late how he had been brainwashed and manipulated. At one point, Lundgren told him that he was personally responsible for a famine in Africa; if a man will believe that, he will surely believe the slaughter of five innocents will save the world.

In spite of the enormity of his crime, it is difficult not to feel sorry for Luff, who realised too late he had thrown away his own life as well as those of the Avery family. It is clear that Berrill feels sorry for him too, although he cannot of course actually say so.

Cult Documentary

MSNBC

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