The tension in this film centers around the dialectical contradiction between traditional ways of life and the idea of so-called modernity or even post-modernity. It takes place in an area owned and worked by the Hittites, a fictitious religious Utopian community named after a Bronze Age Anatolian people. The Hittites are based on the Amish. According to Deadly Blessing, directed by prolific genre director Wes Craven, beneath the surface of these seemingly peaceful and harmonious communities is a profound authoritarianism and a fire-and-brimstone type demonology. Ernest Borgnine is classic as the antagonist in the film recalling his role in The Devil's Rain (1975) opposite Tom Skerritt.
This view of Utopian Christian communities is somewhat negated by the documentary The Devil's Playground (2002). It depicts teens and young adults at a particular Amish community on their Rumspringa. The Rumspringa is the time in an Amish youth's life where they are tasked with discovering the outside world and deciding whether or not they want to rejoin and Amish community and become baptized, official members of the Amish church. Many of these youths behave as somewhat typical adolescants in ways, getting into drugs, technology, video games, sex, dancing etc. Definitely worth a watch.
Watch the first part of it here:
Here is the trailer:
Here is the trailer for the Devil's Rain:
This view of Utopian Christian communities is somewhat negated by the documentary The Devil's Playground (2002). It depicts teens and young adults at a particular Amish community on their Rumspringa. The Rumspringa is the time in an Amish youth's life where they are tasked with discovering the outside world and deciding whether or not they want to rejoin and Amish community and become baptized, official members of the Amish church. Many of these youths behave as somewhat typical adolescants in ways, getting into drugs, technology, video games, sex, dancing etc. Definitely worth a watch.
Watch the first part of it here:
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