Heaven’s Gate

The opening title sequence of writer/director Patrick O’Bell’s The Blessed Ones is a quick cutting montage of unsettling stock footage, wherein various known cult groups of the last century perform their rituals of worship. The eery imagery pulled from actual events sets an uncomfortable tone that The Blessed Ones attempts to live up to during it’s 79 minute run time, with a fictional tale of rogue members on the run from the leadership of a suicidal cult. With The Blessed Ones, O’Bell has opted for a film structure similar to The Usual Suspects as a man named Spencer tells his tale of escaping The Polaris Society while being interrogated by police. The mystery as to how Spencer came to be entangled with the spacey leader, Elyon and his eventual choice to go on the run with a female member of the group named Ursa is told out of sequence so as to heighten the tension of the final reveal. However the journey to that point is fraught with peril for