Suicide Cult | 1975 | USA | James Glickenhaus

Shot under the title The Astrologer after the novel on which it is based, this film was the debut directorial credit of James Glickenhaus, who would become much more well-known for his vigilante movie The Exterminator. Alexei runs the tech company InterZod, who have managed to refine astrological processes and planetary movements enough to be able to determine any person’s ‘zodiacal potential’, or their potential for good or evil. Finding out about an Indian man named Kajerste whose evil potential is the highest, InterZod’s agents try to assassinate him, only for him to turn the tables on Alexei and declare a much higher objective to covet, the Second Coming of Christ, forcing Alexei to confront the truth about his young wife Kate. Very rich in long exposition and chock full of ambitious ideas, the film is actually fairly innocuous in terms of violence or sexuality, but it is suspected that during a scene depicting Kajerste’s atrocities, real stock footage of corpses and war crimes were used.