Review: Amy Berg's Brutally Unsettling 'Prophet's Prey'

Nestled in a small pocket of Southwestern America, a growing sect of Mormonism makes its home, populating an insular community with true believers, hell-bent (in their case, perhaps “heaven-bent” would be more appropriate) on casting out all apostates. Years ago, author Jon Krakauer happened across the enclave, and it has consumed him ever since. Filmmaker Amy Berg feels similarly, and her “Prophet’s Prey” is (yet another) essential artifact from one of our finest documentarians. A complex and complete exploration of the The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and its criminal leader Warren Jeffs, Berg’s latest film is concisely put together and relentlessly honest in its depictions of what really happens within this Mormon offshoot — a “religion” where polygamy, child abuse, and rape run rampant — and the lauded leader responsible for perpetrating some of its worst transgressions. The film opens with an animated history lesson that briefly lays out the...