“Is this movement going to be another Jonestown?” a reporter asks Ti, formerly known as Bonnie Nettles Vera Farmiga) in 1979. Ti insists that the followers of Heaven’s Gate will bodily be taken in a spacecraft when they reach “the Next Level” – The Evolutionary Level Above Human. There they will be transformed to immortals able to communicate with God in the heavenly realm. The Ascension is the core tenet of the religion Ti started with Do, formerly known as Marshall Neff Applewhite (Tim Blake Nelson) in the 1970s. No, it won’t be another Jonestown, but it will be the largest mass suicide on American soil when 39 people decided to follow Do to spiritual ascension in 1997.
Michael J. Gallagher’s The Leader is a fictional rendering of how two people managed to create a religious cult with aspects of Christian evangelism, New Age beliefs, and ufology. Not only how it happened, but diving into the personalities of the people who followed two people who claimed to be God’s messengers on Earth and promised them a deliverance that appears patently absurd. The Leader is observant and chilling; boasting one of Vera Farmiga’s most robust performances.
The film begins in media res with an elderly Do on a video tape. “Do you believe me when I say I am here to tell you the only truth that ever matters?” Defending himself from those who doubt his sincerity, who think he is a charlatan and a liar. From those who think he is a cult leader. It’s now 1997 and soon the “truth” will be put to the test. Rewind in time to the early 1970s and a man is wheeled into the hospital where Bonnie is working at a nurse. He has taken an overdose, and Bonnie is comforting him and administering care. This is the moment that two people will devote their lives to each other and their vast fantasy. Bonnie is struggling with her husband’s constant infidelity. She’s looked at the tarot which promises she will find a man, a leader, who will change her life. As she gets to know Herff in the hospital the two decide they were fated to meet. To be partners. Not sexual partners because Herff is gay, but partners in a new light. Bonnie packs her bags, leaves her beloved daughter Terrie (Kaitlyn Kemp), her job, her home, and with Herff journeys into the unknown with faith on their side.
Although, the question is faith in what? God, yes. The existence of aliens, yes. Theosophy, yes. Astrology, yes. Christology, yes. An acid trip reveals to them that the ancients would’ve had no way of recognising an alien and instead would have known it as an angel. Merging ideas from science fiction, pseudoscience, and Biblical prophecy; Herff and Bonnie saw themselves as “The Two” – those who have come to speak of the Book of Revelations – God’s witnesses. Herff supplied the charm as a former teacher and musician. Bonnie provided the backbone, the unshakable core who shaped Herff. The one who (seemingly after catching Herff sexually involved with young male adherents) pushed the idea of celibacy and ascetism. She was also the one who assured that they had money while they preached their ideas across the country, although both were not interested in following “man’s laws” when it came to how they accumulated that money.
The unlikely pair managed to do what seems improbable. They began to gather followers, or their star fleet “crew” who would join them. In fact, their “crew” swelled to numbers that brought them to the attention of authorities they were trying to avoid. Camping in the wilderness, exercises to reach a higher level of evolution, convincing members that family (especially children) were enemies to achieving the level of consciousness required to be part of the “Demonstration” when they would be taken by aliens and delivered to God. Gender was abolished. Rules, many, many, rules were instituted, and for those who remained with Do and Ti, the path to Heaven was with their prophets.
Michael J. Gallagher is fascinated with the mechanisms of how a cult becomes unbreakable. What kind of people yearn so much for spiritual enlightenment and belonging that they will cut off everyone in their lives and submit to a regimented lifestyle where they are monitoring each other for “slippage” and be freed from the “burden of choice.” For the most part Gallagher’s cult members are just ordinary people. Michelle (Grace Caroline Currey) was dealing with the breaking off of her engagement when she spotted one of the many phone booth flyers that had been distributed. David (Simon Rex) is agreeable and perhaps not all that bright. Warren (Jim Parsons) needed purity and control in his life to overcome his addiction to sex and drugs. In most situations none of the members would seem particularly out there – a touch lost and aimless, but ultimately harmless. So how is it that they become self-perpetuating fodder for two obviously insane hucksters?
That’s the question that keeps the film fascinating. The how and the why of it all. Why does David (now given a new nonsense name by Do and Ti so he can further remove himself from his human vehicle) allow himself not only to be humiliated by Do, but to also undergo a “cure” that’s unbelievably grisly. How do Do and Ti manage to keep selling something so obviously bogus? Is it because they truly believe their divinity even after Ti’s vehicle succumbs to cancer in 1985? And how is it that Heaven’s Gate crew film themselves with utter joy at the thought of their alien ascendence even though they now know that it requires the death of their physical vehicle?
The Leader is grisly and horrific, a horror film in all but name as it is fairly faithfully recounting the events that led to a three-day suicide spree that when we see it through Do’s point of view is agony not ecstasy and knowing that 37 people have gone through what he has: phenobarbital to make him sleepy mixed with vodka and then a plastic bag placed over the head. Clear eyed madness remains madness, and Gallagher captures it all with the tension of a bizarre psychological thriller. The Leader is profoundly distressing and ever relevant as people adapt their minds to hold ideas so they can follow leaders whose delusions are far more easily proven as such.
The Leader is playing at MIFF 2026
Director: Michael Gallagher
Writer: Michael Gallagher
Cast: Tim Blake Nelson, Vera Farmiga, Simon Rex, Jim Parsons
Cinematographer: Ben Mullen