There is some comfort to be taken in the fact that the odious figure at the center of “Prophet’s Prey,” Amy Berg’s deeply disturbing documentary about polygamist cult leader Warren Jeffs, is now behind bars.
Jeffs’ offenses, as meticulously laid out by Berg, include child molestation, rape, financial chicanery, mind control and, it is strongly suggested, the murder of his own father, Rulon Jeffs, who previously had led the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Known as the FLDS, the polygamist religious sect split from the Mormon Church after its renunciation of plural marriage in 1890.
The reassurance of Jeffs’s confinement is a small balm in a film that feels horrifyingly urgent, even as it is, at times, nearly impossible to watch without squirming. Among the litany of mounting atrocities recounted by former church members, Jeffs’s estranged relatives and author Jon Krakauer and investigator Sam Brower (on whose book the film is based), Berg intersperses audio of the jailed “prophet,” as he called himself, taken from recordings of sermons and legal depositions. Jeffs’ voice, which has a reptilian cold-bloodedness to it, is chilling to listen to, even without the horror-movie soundtrack that accompanies it.
It’s hard to say what is most difficult to digest about “Prophet’s Prey.” Is it the testimony of Janetta Jessop, identified as Jeffs’ wife No. 63 — and no, that’s not a typo — as she describes what life is like after leaving the church? It’s heartbreaking to hear her describe the estrangement from her mother, who is still under the thrall of the FLDS (now run by Warren’s brother, Lyle, who, the film argues, is merely a proxy for the imprisoned leader). The film’s toughest moment could be the audio recording of Jeffs raping the 12-year-old he had just taken as his bride. Berg seems to holds her nose as she presents that particular obscenity, but present it she does, as I suppose she must.
There isn’t much here that isn’t public already. Yet among many appalling things cited by “Prophet’s Prey,” the most troubling conclusion may have nothing to do with Jeffs at all. It’s the sinking realization, as Krakauer points out, that there are still thousand of FLDS faithful who continue to revere Jeffs, even after his conviction.
