Horror. A police officer investigates a missing child on an obscure island of Puget Sound, only to discover the island is controlled by a mysterious pagan cult. This is a story that shows Feminism/neo-paganism/Gaia Earth worship as evil. Hollywood always shows patriarchy as the oppressive subjugation of women by abusive men. But this movie is rather unique in that it communicates the opposite: that matriarchy is the oppressive subjugation of men by abusive women. In this story, little school girls are taught to recite that the purist form of the male is the phallic symbol. Men’s tongues appear to be cut out and they are reduced to breeders and physical laborers who are forcefully uneducated. These men-haters of this isolated isle disparage patriarchy and then attempt to replace one form of perceived oppression of women with their own oppression of men. The writer/director, Neil LaBute uses this commune to make his point that the “earth” religion that Wiccans, witches and radical feminists all point to as the glorious original pristine Garden of Eden is actually a Garden of Snakes that is rooted in the same human sacrifice that all paganism is ultimately rooted in. A sacrifice that is a twisted parody of the need for atonement that the living God has embedded into the universe. This is a unique and original voice. Put into Pomo lingo: This story is a subversive narrative that delegitmizes radical feminism and its neopagan counterpart as gynophilic male-hating imperialism.
