Disturbing Interviews with Cult Leaders

WatchMojo

These interviews with cult leaders will give you the creeps. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Most Disturbing Interviews with Cult Leaders

Transcript

00:00 You love the world you live in.

00:02 - Most assuredly, it's me.

00:04 - You love all the pain that you've caused people.

00:06 - Welcome to WatchMojo,

00:08 and today we're counting down our picks

00:09 for the most disturbing interviews with cult leaders.

00:12 - You gotta sometimes take people

00:13 and let 'em throw up on you.

00:15 - Keith Ranieri.

00:18 Something especially disturbing about cult leaders

00:20 is how normal they can pass themselves off as,

00:23 relatively speaking.

00:24 - I normally speak of science and creativity

00:26 as sort of being somewhat opposite,

00:30 but they're not real.

00:32 - That certainly describes NXIVM co-founder

00:34 and convicted felon Keith Ranieri,

00:36 who in 2020 was sentenced to 120 years in prison

00:40 on an array of counts,

00:41 including trafficking, racketeering, and forced labor.

00:45 In this interview with actress

00:46 and fellow NXIVM member, Alison Mack,

00:49 Ranieri initially might just seem

00:51 like a rambling pseudo-intellectual.

00:53 - So if I look at a sculpture or a picture,

00:56 there is, okay, wow, that's a nice sculpture.

00:58 Wow, it's really done well, et cetera,

01:00 but it has more than that.

01:02 It has the distinct feelings that human hands did this.

01:07 - But when you see how much he has Mack

01:10 hanging onto his every word,

01:11 in spite of their incoherence,

01:13 it becomes all the more apparent

01:15 how he was able to have so much dangerous influence

01:17 for so long.

01:18 - What's the sound of one hand clapping?

01:21 You know, tree falls in the woods,

01:23 no one's there to experience it.

01:25 Does it make a sound?

01:26 All of these things, do they have an answer?

01:28 They go many ways.

01:30 - Rod Ferrell.

01:31 As a teenager in the late '90s,

01:33 Rod Ferrell was part of a group known as the Vampire Clan,

01:36 claiming that he himself

01:38 was one of those mythological bloodsuckers.

01:40 - I have nothing left on Earth.

01:42 - After a shocking home invasion

01:43 in which he brutally murdered the parents of a friend,

01:46 Ferrell was arrested and eventually pled guilty.

01:49 In interview footage taken from the HBO documentary,

01:51 "The Vampire Murders," Ferrell speaks about his crimes

01:55 with a chilling deficit of remorse.

01:57 - What the hell was, what was your motivation exactly?

02:02 - Well, that's quite simple.

02:03 Every individual has that point in time,

02:07 at least once in their life,

02:08 where they can cross this line.

02:10 - If anything, he seems to be reveling

02:11 in the carnage and trauma he caused.

02:14 He might've not been an actual vampire,

02:16 but Ferrell's actions were, shockingly, inhuman.

02:19 - Like I've said before, I've always accepted death.

02:21 It's just now I long for it.

02:25 - You think you're going to hell?

02:27 - If I would have to answer that truthfully, yes.

02:32 - Shoko Asahara.

02:33 In 1995, the world was shocked after 13 people were killed

02:37 and hundreds, if not thousands more,

02:39 were harmed by a chemical attack

02:40 inside the Tokyo subway system.

02:42 - Someone said, "Oh, he's in a coma."

02:47 The guy was like shaking his body.

02:49 - The culprits behind this devastating act was Om Shinrikyo,

02:53 a doomsday cult led by Shoko Asahara.

02:56 This 1991 interview, taken from the talk show "TV Tackle,"

03:01 gives a glimpse into Asahara's mind.

03:03 (speaking in foreign language)

03:07 When he talks about death in particular,

03:12 it's hard not to be shaken considering the fatalities,

03:15 including ones before the Tokyo attacks,

03:17 that he was responsible for.

03:19 (speaking in foreign language)

03:23 (speaking in foreign language)

03:27 He speaks with measured calm,

03:35 but his actions and influence led to utter chaos.

03:38 (speaking in foreign language)

03:42 David Koresh.

03:46 Another infamous doomsday cult leader was David Koresh,

03:49 who led the Branch Davidians until he was killed

03:52 following a 51-day siege at their compound

03:55 just outside of Waco, Texas.

03:57 - I failed school.

03:58 I quit in ninth grade

03:59 'cause I had other things I had to do.

04:01 - Like what?

04:02 - I had to learn some things.

04:04 I'm a student, you see?

04:07 - What did you learn?

04:09 - I learned about people.

04:10 That's what I do, I learn about people.

04:13 - Koresh promoted himself as a prophet,

04:15 and his fascination led to the deaths of 86 people.

04:19 In an interview with Australian news program,

04:21 A Current Affair, we get to know Koresh from his own words,

04:24 and it's disconcerting to say the least.

04:27 - People would kill me.

04:28 Fanatics, people that revolve around tradition,

04:34 that are not gonna have their mind unsettled

04:36 in regards to what they believe or how they feel.

04:39 - He speaks brazenly about his supposed divinity,

04:42 and his likening himself to Jesus Christ

04:45 only becomes more unsettling

04:46 when considering what it eventually led to.

04:49 - Are you going to fight back?

04:50 Am I gonna fight back?

04:51 You know, it's funny that Christ on the cross,

04:55 you know, they say he laid down there, you know,

04:57 and he just took it, but Psalms 22 doesn't say that.

05:01 - Jim Jones.

05:02 As the leader of the People's Temple,

05:04 Jim Jones had an insidious influence

05:06 that led to the death of 909 followers,

05:09 the greatest number of American civilians

05:12 killed in a single act until the 9/11 attacks.

05:14 - Fingers, are your fingers numb?

05:16 You're alive.

05:20 Reach the fingers out that are bothering you.

05:22 Now, does the pain go?

05:28 - There isn't much in terms of available

05:38 interview footage of Jones,

05:39 but what we could find paints a disturbing picture.

05:42 When confronted by a reporter about his organization,

05:45 Jones swiftly gets defensive and starts deflecting,

05:48 speaking out against negative claims about Jonestown,

05:52 the settlement he established in Guyana.

05:54 - People play games, friend.

05:57 They lie, they lie.

05:58 What can I do about lies?

05:59 - Knowing what would eventually happen to his followers

06:02 only makes his statement all the more frightening.

06:05 - If it's so damn bad, why is he leaving his son here?

06:08 Can you give me a good reason for that?

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06:26 - Charles Manson.

06:29 Perhaps no cult leader from the 20th century

06:31 has inspired more fascination and revulsion

06:34 than Charles Manson,

06:35 whose influence led to the deaths of seven people,

06:38 including actress Sharon Tate.

06:40 In his first interview from prison,

06:42 conducted in 1981 with Tom Snyder for "The Tomorrow Show",

06:45 Manson is combative and unrepentant

06:47 as he's asked about the horrifying acts

06:50 committed by his followers.

06:51 - That's what the DA gave you for reality.

06:53 - Okay.

06:54 - He stood in the courtroom and said,

06:55 "This man did this and this man did that

06:57 and you all believed him."

06:58 - Though Snyder does his best to control the interview,

07:01 it's clear that Manson isn't looking to cooperate

07:03 in any way.

07:04 - A man that was once your associate said that of you

07:07 and now you sit here and say, "That's not true.

07:09 That's all make-believe."

07:10 - You got a stone wall there.

07:11 Why don't you take it down a little bit?

07:13 - Subsequent interviews give even further indication

07:15 of just how disturbed he was.

07:17 But the scariest part of any of them

07:19 is realizing just how much coercive power he seemingly had.

07:23 - I'm still 10 years old in your world.

07:26 Your world, I'm still a kid.

07:27 I'm not gonna grow up.

07:28 - Which of these interviews disturbs you the most?

07:31 Let us know in the comments.

07:32 - I never thought I was normal.

07:34 Never tried to be normal.

07:35 - Did you enjoy this video?

07:37 Check out these other clips from WatchMojo

07:39 and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell

07:40 to be notified about our latest videos.

07:42 (suspenseful music)

07:45 (heart beating)

07:48 (heart beating)

07:51 (heart beating)

07:54 (heart beating)

07:57 ♪♪

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