UnowPriceless hyped garbage

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Ben Larson Religious fanatics exist everywhere: Mormons in 1857, Christians in the Crusades, Irish Catholics & Protestants, Muslim fundamentalists; no time in history has been without the fanatics, and they exist today.It has been said that more people have died in the name of religion than in all the wars. It should be obvious that that is, on it's face ridiculous. However, the fact is that many people have been killed in religious conflict as this case here that is documented in history. The fact that it is true should not mean it is not to be told. The fact that is is a church involved should not give a pass. Death is death and bigotry is bigotry. We see both here in spades.Jon Voight and Terence Stamp portrayed the hatefulness of the fanatics better than anyone I could imagine. Trent Ford was excellent as the son who could not accept that death was the answer. Tamara Hope was also excellent as the "gentile" woman that Trent loved.The was a beautiful film about love and gentleness amidst evil and hate. It is nothing new, but it was done beautifully.

ironhorse_iv Yes, before Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack, Sept. 11 was somewhat known by a few historians as the date, where the Mountain Meadows Massacre took place on Sept. 11, 1857 by another fanatic religionists group. The film, September Dawn directed by Christopher Cain tells the story how a group of religious intolerance Mormons end up attacking the Baker-Fancher wagon train. The wagon train was passing by Mormon's Utah territory on their way to California when they were attack. It's a barely known historic event, even those who study American history, might not have heard of it. The question of whether the attack was carried out by local Paiute Indians or by a renegade sect of the Mormon Church remains unresolved to this day. The reason why the real life events might have not been told is because the modern Mormon organization doesn't want to share light of this tragic time in their early history. Mormons are just outright made to be evil in this film to the point, it seem anti-Mormonism propaganda. I really doubt, every Mormon went along with this massacre plot. It seem really over the top one dimensional and unbelievable theatrical acting out to make early Mormons look like a crazy cult. It is saved to say, September Dawn was not produced with the support of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Without anybody really talking about the real life event, there was very little fanfare for a film like this being made. Not a lot of people saw this, because first off, they had no clue what it was about, and second off, it's a part of history most people wouldn't want to enjoy watching on the big screen. It's tragedy without a positive outcome. It's depressing. The movie is a western disaster of a film that is tragedy cliché, it hurts the film. September Dawn follow too much to the Romeo and Juliet love tragedy story by having the love interests being from two different groups about to rip into each other. One is Johnathan Samuelson (Trent Ford), the son of an extremist Bishop Jacob Samuelson (Jon Voight) who fall in love with a 'gentile' minister's daughter, Emily Hudson (Tamara Hope). His father, Jacob become convinced that the gentile are out to kill all the Mormons, and so he wanted to take first action. He negotiates with the Paiute tribe to executed Emily's people. The movie tries to make the film watchable, I give them that. But, adding a love story to it, wasn't going to help one bit. By adding a fictional love story against a controversial historical interpretation of the tragedy event makes the audience focus more on the lovers than the victims of the crime. I hardly remember anybody else in the Wagon train besides the Hudson family. In real life, the Hudson's family didn't really shown up in Utah. They left the wagon trail way before the massacre. While the characters of the Samuelson's family are fictional characters, it took away so much from the real life Mormons. I had no idea who was telling this film. The film felt lost in time as it jump around way too much in history, as it start out with in 1877 as Utah governor Brigham Young (Terence Stamp) presents his side of the story of the events of 1857. The narrative then returns to 20 years before, and starts with Jacob's story. We get flashbacks of how the Mormons came to be with Joseph Smith (Dean Cain) through Jacob. Cut back to the present, enter Johnathan's story, and back to Jacob, then to Jonathan. Honestly, whom are we supposed to follow here? Why even, start a film with Brigham Young when most of the film isn't about him? Why not, start the movie with Jacob or better yet, his son, Jonathan? This movie would have work better, if it was produce as a documentary, not a live action piece melodrama. The melodrama doesn't match the history. The movie acts like Joseph Smith was murder in Missouri, when in true life, he did in a jail-house in Illinois. Missouri had little to do with Joseph Smith's killing when you think about it. Plus, all the wagon folks were from Arkansas. If any, the movie should have shown that the massacre could be vengeance against the people of Arkansas for the death of Parley Pratt who was recently murdered in Arkansas at the time, not Joseph Smith. The acting was alright for the most part, but Terrence Stamp really mess it up. Brigham Young sound like a deep British accent guy. The film is controversial, representing the view that Brigham Young had a direct role in the massacre, while the LDS Church maintains that historical evidence shows that Brigham Young did not authorize the massacre. The movie tries to say that the massacre was because of blood atonement. Anyone who knows anything about blood atonement in early Utah know it referred to sinful Mormons, not gentiles. Still, the Mormons were not actually killing each other to atone for their sins. The violence is pretty bad, but the blood and gore is fake looking to be too graphic. A good example of this is the removed scrotum scene. If you concerned with nudity. It's pretty tamed. The shaky camera is ugly. I don't know how many people want to see a movie where a lot of children get shot and killed in slow motion shaky cam. Overall: the movie gives you a sour taste with such a disappointing ending, inaccurate, and predictable propaganda-like plot. The only good I see coming from it is greater attention for the massacre, but even then the film mess that up. If you want to learn about the massacre then read the books Juanita Brooks, Will Bagley, and Ronald Walker. I cannot recommend watching this film

revsolly I must commend the stark reality portrayed in this movie.One has to remember that the Mormon church has always had shifting teachings, values & morals. Their stance, as portrayed for this time period, was that their "prophet" spoke directly from God (just as the Islamists claim that Mohammed spoke directly from their god, Allah). While there have been, and can be, those who prophesy what the Lord has given them, Christians have never created a whole religion around any of them. That is the key difference between Christianity & cults like the Mormons.This movie shows the terrible rift between Mormons & actual Christians & how, when man is involved, such a rift can end in bloody tragedy. The mere fact that the LDS group moved with such deception against the wagon train is proof enough of the waywardness of their stance.It is, indeed, a shame that one person was made the scapegoat of this whole affair, while his own father & the elders of their sect refuse to help him. Again, this is illustrative of the heart of this particular cult.I commend the son who attempted to stop the massacre. Although unsuccessful, his attempt was honest & properly motivated. His disillusionment was his own, personal greatest tragedy.

Hick_N_Hixville Do a Google search for the words "Mormon" and "castration" and you'll get links to variations of a story about an old Church Bishop who, during the 1850s in Utah, took a fancy to a young lass in love with an LDS buck near her own age. She naturally spurned the old fart's advance because of her love for this boy who also steadfastly stood by his own affections for the girl. Now a powerful Bishop in a Patriarchal religion such as Mormonism, you might expect, is not easily denied matters of the flesh, regardless of how many wives he may already possess. Soon the young man is set upon by allies of the aged and horny Saint, and roughly de-manned. His severed genitals were nailed to some wall in a public locale as a crude warming to men and women alike of the consequences in disobeying one of God's chosen representatives. Welcome to the world of the Latter Day Saints as depicted in "September Dawn." This exact storyline in not the main subject of this movie, though the film graphically depicts in one interesting scene such a castration by the early Mormon pioneers of Utah as part of its overall message. That message is that the Mormons started out as little more than a creepy Branch Davidian style blood cult led by psychotics and perverts that has somehow managed to metastasize into a major universal world religion. Interestingly enough, this isn't meant as a comment on religions in general (i.e. they all started out this way, we just have better source material on this one since its only a little over 150 years old), but rather that, no matter how innocent and clean cut those young men in black ties and white shirts riding around on bicycles may seem today, the "family friendly" modern LDS church has a really nasty, violent, and eccentric legacy that it will stop at nothing to cover up.The major violent legacy the movie focuses on, of course, is the "Mountain Meadows Massacre" of September 11 (ugh), 1857. This tragedy actually occurred, actually on that date, and actually involved Mormons killing "Gentile" pioneers passing through Utah bound for California. The level of involvement of Brigham Young and the Salt Lake Patriarchy in the incident has always been hotly debated, and "September Dawn" is unambiguous in presenting the case for complete premeditated culpability.Whether or not Mormon founder Joseph Smith was a con-man, delusional, or a sexual deviant, or Brigham Young a Taliban style fanatic are all matters of debate based on evidence, but the melodramatic way this flick presents both sides invites some snickers, and of course, angry attacks from modern Mormons. Most reviewers tend to focus on the way the Mormons are presented, but equally intriguing is the way the female screenwriter of this movie depicted the "Gentile" wagon train. Its denizens are, for mid 19th century Arkansans, the model of broad minded, peaceful tolerance and liberated gender roles. Their minister and his daughter sound more like Unitarians than say, 19th century Southern Baptists, and some of their women slap rawhide and confront the bewildered Saints with as much authority as the menfolk. As a cinematic device, this is a compelling counter mythology to that of Mormon repression, and in a weird way actually makes the film rise above its melodrama.The real Arkansans likely inspired as much fear among the then persecuted Mormons as they did hatred, and it ain't just because some of the womenfolk might have ridden shotgun and worn pants..If 19th century Mormons were fanatics, and perhaps driven to even more fanaticism in response to persecution, how do today's Mormons compare to the likes of the Taliban? If you are talking about Warren Jeffs' fundamentalist Mormon cult that still practices polygamy (and has been in the news recently because of the high profile raid on one of its Texas communities), then this movie play like a documentary, at least as to gender roles. As for the "mainstream" variation Mitt Romney belongs too, well, genealogy is partly my profession (having nothing to do with any religious beliefs), and I have frequently availed myself of the rich resources the LDS church maintains in this field, and which they make available to anyone. Never once has anyone of these volunteer librarians ever approached me with any missionary efforts, let alone death threats, and the one time I engaged one of the librarians on duty at a "stake" branch about the religion, he quickly informed me he was a lapsed member and basically regarded the religion as a bunch of nonsense. And they were letting him work in their library.The castration scene in"September Dawn" is emblematic of the bizarre production values that make this movie, in many ways, an unintentionally hilarious piece of historical camp. It occurs early in the film, during a cinematic collage of images crosscut between topical examples of church "discipline" and crazed sermonizing by Brigham Young about blood atonement. Night riders swoop down on the cabin of an unsuspecting church member who has committed adultery, or some sort of sexual "sin." The riders drag the hapless man from his cabin bed, and in moonlit silhouette they lift up his nightshirt. One of them raises a knife and goes right for the groin. Next scene is a close up of what is supposed to be the unfortunate fellow's severed scrotum and testicles being tacked to his cabin door with the knife that just emasculated him. The organs appear to be of the grade you expect would be marketed by Johnson Smith, Honor House, or similar comic book novelty merchant around Halloween. Basically a piece of obvious rubbery smooth plastic completely without pubic hair. Nineteenth century men cutting each others testicles off for vicarious thrills masked as religious duty I can believe, but not them "manscaping." . The effects person really should have glued a little fuzz to those Play-Doh plumbs.