THE AVIARY (2022)

Studio:     Saban Films
Director:    Chris Cullari, Jennifer Raite
Writer:     Chris Cullari, Jennifer Raite
Producer:  Jessica Rhoades, Andrew Miller, Marcei A. Brown, Jeanette Volturno
Stars:     Malin Akerman, Lorenza Izzo, Chris Messina, Sandrine Holt

Review Score:

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Summary:

Two women escape from a manipulative cult leader who brainwashed them but, while lost in the desert, they discover their minds may still be under his influence.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Jillian and Blair escape from Skylight, a self-help program that became a manipulative cult with a New Mexico-based compound, and make their way into the desert. After 24 hours of hiking toward a town named Gallup, the two women camp for a second night.

Jillian talks about her mentor Delilah, who was Skylight’s lead engineer before Jillian took the role, and who brought Jillian into the cult in the same way Jillian did for Blair. Delilah warned Jillian that the cult’s leader, Seth, was becoming more paranoid and dangerous by installing cameras and forcing women to undergo punishments as part of his program. Jillian blames herself for reporting Delilah to Seth instead of listening to her friend, which led to Delilah being ostracized before she disappeared altogether. That night, Jillian has a haunting vision of Seth while sleeping.

The following morning, the women discuss how Jillian’s relationship with Seth was based on intellectual ideas while Blair was in love with him, although they later learned Seth slept with multiple cult members. Jillian claims Seth tried to carve Skylight’s symbol into her flesh as a symbol of loyalty and devotion, but that attempt led to her realizing she needed to escape. Jillian and Blair share a tense exchange as they come to terms with the trauma Seth caused each of them. A vision of Delilah causes Blair to fall and injure her ankle.

Blair reveals she stole Seth’s laptop when they escaped because she doesn’t want anyone to see her incriminating videos from Seth’s “Barrier Training” sessions. Blair tells Jillian she wants to destroy the computer to free everyone from Seth’s blackmail. Jillian counters that she would rather take the computer to the police and use its files to destroy Seth’s life. Jillian and Blair agree to at least let Blair erase her personal videos. Jillian deduces that Seth’s password is “Synthesis,” although she doesn’t tell Blair what that word means. The women unlock the computer, but it immediately dies from a dead battery. Jillian dreams of Seth again later that night.

The women make it to a ghost town that they initially believe to be Gallup. However, they realize they are actually in Calvary Hill, which is in the opposite direction of where they thought they were going. Blair plots how to ration their remaining food and water supply since they have to restart their journey.

That night, a vision of Delilah leads Blair to a door where Seth waits on the other side. Jillian snaps Blair out of her trance and leads her away from falling down a stone staircase. Jillian passes off the event as sleepwalking, but Blair claims something else was happening.

Over the course of discussing what they want to do when their ordeal is over, Jillian mentions she wants to find Delilah so she can apologize. Blair says she wants revenge against Seth by erasing his influence from the earth. Blair is shocked when Jillian seemingly says some of Seth’s teachings were still beneficial to them. Blair later accuses Jillian of talking like Seth, but Jillian contends she never said the things Blair accused her of saying.

Blair seemingly hears a buzzing cellphone. The noise leads Blair to an illusion of Delilah’s dead body, but Blair refuses to tell Jillian what she thinks she saw.

Somehow, the women end up hiking back to Calvary Hill. Having to ration the food again causes Blair to become suspicious of Jillian. Blair wonders if Seth is somehow controlling what is happening, but Jillian points out it is impossible to control geography or the position of the sun.

Blair hears buzzing again while Jillian sleeps. Blair seemingly finds a cellphone in Jillian’s coat pocket with text messages from Seth warning her about Blair.

Jillian enters a sudden trance. Blair follows her outside where Jillian puts mud on her face while repeating Blair’s name under Seth’s disembodied direction.

When Jillian regains consciousness, Blair demands to know what is going on. Jillian tells Blair she is being paranoid. Blair is unable to find the cellphone. Blair also finds their food missing and discovers that their map contains directions back to the cult in Blair’s handwriting.

Blair ultimately convinces Jillian that Seth is somehow influencing their minds. Blair suggests that the only way to break the loop is to leave Seth’s laptop behind. The women leave the computer in an abandoned church and resume hiking.

Blair’s ankle worsens. Jillian leaves Blair behind to rest while she looks to see if she can find Valentine Rock, a landmark that will indicate if they are finally headed in the right direction. While Jillian is gone, Blair finds the rations mysteriously reappeared in Jillian’s backpack. Blair eats what she thinks is a protein bar.

As she surveys the landscape, a hand grabs Jillian’s ankle and tries to pull her over a ledge. Jillian kicks the person, who falls to the ground below. Upon checking the body, Jillian discovers she seemingly killed a doppelganger of herself.

Jillian rushes back to Blair to find Blair actually ate poisonous prairie berries. Jillian forces Blair to vomit.

Blair laments that leaving Seth’s laptop behind didn’t break the cycle. Jillian lies and says she found the landmark they were looking for, indicating they are now going the right way.

That night, Blair finds Jillian standing entranced in her underwear. Blair sees a Skylight brand carved into Jillian’s back. Seemingly speaking through Jillian’s voice, Seth taunts that Jillian was unable to leave the laptop behind and now Blair fears Jillian will find out who she really is. Blair searches the backpack and discovers Jillian secretly kept the computer.

When her trance breaks at daylight, Jillian catches up to Blair. Blair angrily accuses Jillian of lying about the laptop as well as receiving the Skylight brand on her back. Jillian confesses that she is the reason why Blair can’t escape Seth’s influence.

Jillian explains that after Delilah’s defiance, Seth created a new program called “Synthesis” to make Skylight indoctrination faster and more foolproof. Jillian agreed to oversee the secret project. Jillian’s initiation involved being dosed with an unknown drug and wearing masks while repeating words Seth said. Seth ended up reprogramming Jillian’s mind. Jillian then helped Seth program Blair’s memory so that Seth could have unconscious influence over them. Jillian proves her claims by showing Blair that she has the same Skylight brand on her back too. Horrified, Blair says she cannot truly be free with Seth still in her head. Jillian counters that she and Blair can break his control with food, sleep, love, joy, and freedom.

Jillian and Blair each hallucinate Seth joining them on their journey. Jillian and Blair find food and shelter at an RV camper in the middle of the desert.

While Blair cooks on the grill outside, Jillian plugs in Seth’s laptop. Jillian searches videos from Barrier Training sessions Seth conducted with Delilah and learns how she planned to turn him over to authorities for illegally drugging cult members as part of his Synthesis technique. Subsequent sessions with Blair reveal Blair tearfully took it upon herself to kill Delilah in order to protect Seth, which actually surprises him.

Blair walks in on Jillian watching the videos. Unable to process Blair’s confession that she beat Delilah to death, Jillian goes outside and seemingly encounters Seth.

Jillian accuses Seth of killing Delilah and forcing Blair to bear the blame. Seth admits he made a mistake by letting things get out of control. However, another look at the videos reveals Jillian actually killed Delilah, and Seth used Synthesis to reprogram the memories of both women so Blair would carry the guilt instead of Jillian. Seth invites Jillian to rejoin his cult so they can figure out what went wrong and fix Synthesis.

Jillian suddenly stabs Seth in his neck. However, Jillian soon realizes she imagined Seth and actually killed Blair.

Seth arrives at the RV to find Jillian in a daze and unable to remember what happened to Blair. Seth tells Jillian that Blair simply left. He then buries Blair’s body out of Jillian’s view and brings Jillian back to his compound. The RV is seen mystically burning behind them. Seth and Jillian go on to open a new self-help programming campus together called “The Aviary.”

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Review:

When news of Keith Raniere and NXIVM first broke, I, like everyone else who instantly raised incredulous eyebrows while silently mouthing “WTF?”, anxiously awaited deeper details. Meaningful information was scarce at first. So for several days straight, it was the first topic I checked on news sites and social media, hoping to hear more. The story, which revolved around a self-help program that transformed into a manipulative sex cult involving branding, blackmail, and brainwashing, was fascinatingly bizarre. Not just because the scandal was salacious in nature, but because “Smallville’s” Allison Mack and several similarly statured celebrities played primary roles in recruiting and indoctrinating victims.

Right away, I wanted to watch every media profile and dramatic adaptation I could possibly get my eyes on. I knew it would take a while of course, years in fact, but my brain needed to understand how something with the scope of NXIVM happened, how it endured, and how it was undone.

A couple of documentary projects came out over time, most notably HBO’s 2020 series “The Vow.” 2022’s “The Aviary” however, is one of the first fictionalized thrillers to come out of that real-life ordeal. The movie certainly makes no effort to hide its influence, not that it wants to, nor that it should. I’m inclined to believe writers/directors Chris Cullari and Jennifer Raite even named “The Aviary’s” cult leader Seth because that’s only two letters removed from Keith.

But a key difference between “The Aviary” and what you might instinctively think of when you hear “cult-connected chiller” is that the spotlight doesn’t shine on an enigmatic egomaniac mesmerizing the minds of his/her followers. Instead of getting into the cult’s inner workings or seeing it through the gaze of a crazed leader, “The Aviary” follows two escapees who’ve already broken the spell and are fleeing on foot. This makes “The Aviary” more of an on-the-run survival drama, or a road movie where two people bond during a character study, rather than a horror film where a murderous sociopath with a Manson-like messiah complex controls the show.

Malin Akerman plays Jillian. Lorenza Izzo plays Blair. Chris Messina plays Seth, the Raniere-modeled man they’re fleeing from, but you only see him in brief hallucinations that haunt their heads – or maybe they’re pre-programmed visions planted by Seth since he still has a psychological hold over them. That’s part of the mystery motivating Jillian and Blair’s worsening inability to trust what they see and what they can believe.

“The Aviary” echoes insights highlighted in the aforementioned “The Vow.” Chief among those tenets, the idea that no one intentionally joins a cult. They just realize they’re in one long after it’s too late. Seth put his hooks into Jillian and Blair, and an untold number of unseen women, using typical tactics. He creates his own language by inventing unique terminology for his self-help systems. His signature inquiry of “What’s in the way of your joy today?” sets the stage for “Barrier Training” sessions where humiliating admissions are recorded for leverage.

But again, “The Aviary” doesn’t center on Seth. He’s not exactly the true villain, either. Rather, his influence is. Jillian and Blair got out of his compound, yet they aren’t even close to being out from under Seth’s specter. Escaping the cult is a physical sprint into the desert as they desperately search for safety that’s supposedly three 10-mile hikes away. Escaping Seth’s unconscious control over their behavior is a far longer marathon.

Or is it subconscious control? As the women wander, openly discuss their guilt for roping in new members, and struggle to believe they can detect the truth after listening to lies for so long, they come to wonder if Seth somehow burrowed so deep in their brains, he can sway them even when he isn’t there.

Although “The Aviary” is an exploratory journey of the immediate aftermath that comes in the wake of breaking free from a cult, the movie still features traditional trappings of typical thrillers. Jillian and Blair are both prone to waking nightmares as well as sleeping ones, so there are dreamlike creeps of suggestive suspense. A hypnotic hum persistently pulses on Zac Clark’s moody score to heighten the dreary, draining desert atmosphere where mirages bleed into reality. “Traditional trappings” also means a few predictable bits, such as an impaired ankle hindering progress, an inexplicable “how did we wind up walking in a circle?” loop, and a computer-cracking scene where they correctly guess a password within three tries. (Scriptwriters would be screwed if characters ever used auto-generated passwords like 9Ju-7&4%-Ply6^.)

Not unlike an actual cult, it’s important to know what territory you’re entering before getting into “The Aviary,“ since expectations set for an action-oriented adventure won’t align with the movie’s psychologically-grounded approach to illustrating emotional terrorism. For minds open to the latter theme, it’s intriguing to see this story from the practical perspective of victims struggling to overcome their paranoia, and how their unreliable psyches continue to fracture at a time when they should be changing directions. “The Aviary’s” ultimate implications aren’t as chilling as “The Invitation’s” (review here), though its tragically horrifying ending hammers home the notion that a cult’s ongoing influence may be even deadlier than any individual deeds perpetrated by its leader.

NOTE: There is a mid-credits scene.

Review Score: 65

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