September Dawn (2007)
Average Rating: 3.4/10
Reviews Counted: 54
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 47
With its jarring editing, dull love story, and silly dialogue, September Dawn turns a horrific historical event into a banal movie.
Average Rating: 3/10
Critic Reviews: 20
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 19
With its jarring editing, dull love story, and silly dialogue, September Dawn turns a horrific historical event into a banal movie.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 9,174
My Rating
Movie Info
Director Christopher Cain takes an up-close look at the devastation wrought by religious fanaticism with this romantic drama set against the backdrop of the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre. As a wagon train of westward-bound settlers makes its way across southern Utah, a confrontation with a congregation of Mormons soon leads to deadly consequences for all involved. Jon Voight, Lolita Davidovich, and Jon Gries co-star in a historical drama centered on the massacre, which continues to stir
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Cast
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Jon Voight
Jacob Samuelson -
Trent Ford
Jonathan Samuelson -
Tamara Hope
Emily Hudson -
Jon Gries
John D. Lee -
Taylor Handley
Micah Samuelson -
Huntley Ritter
Robert Humphries -
Krisinda Cain
Young Woman -
Shaun Johnston
Captain Fancher -
Lolita Davidovich
Nancy Dunlap -
Dean Cain
Joseph Smith -
Terence Stamp
Brigham Young -
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All Critics (56) | Top Critics (21) | Fresh (7) | Rotten (49) | DVD (3)
The villainous turns by Jon Voight (as a hard-hearted Mormon bishop) and Terence Stamp (as a bloodthirsty Brigham Young) would have been more fun if they weren't part of such a clumsy campaign to lay this tragedy at the church's doorstep.
The workmanlike craftsmanship of Cain's filmmaking almost (but never quite) smooths over the ham-fisted way he conceives the story.
A plodding and highly questionable history lesson.
Religious and thematic issues aside, September Dawn is well-crafted as a revisionist Western with a message.
The maudlin, grotesque western September Dawn apes Schindler's List in hopes of creatinga Christian Holocaust picture.
Why does this film even exist?
Massacre movie casts Mormons in villainous light.
Released on DVD at probably the worst time for presidential candidate Mitt Romney, September Dawn is a graphic Western which sheds light on a shameful stain on the legacy of the controversial sect that later became the Church of Latter Day Saints.
Predictable, obvious, often silly.
Drama may benefit from attention to history, but history doesn't always make for good drama.
Contriving a faux Romeo and Juliet romance as a point of entry for the audience shows how unimaginative the filmmakers are, and how blandly and uninvolving it plays shows how fairly clueless they are in going about their game plan.
Muddled, sloppy, and obfuscating.
For all the guns fired in the film, [director] Cain aims the largest one at his foot-and pulls the trigger again and again.
An already thin veneer of historical truth wears off fairly quickly in this surprisingly dull and melodramatic low-budget western.
There was another 9/11 horror. But it happened 150 years ago.
It's a toss-up as to whether September Dawn is more offensive as history, as allegory or simply as lousy self-important filmmaking.
With its complete lack of empathy for early Mormons and simplistic rendering of historical figures, September Dawn is that rare movie that actually deserves whatever condemnation might come from religious groups.
The director's overreaching attempts at social commentary with hackneyed devices weaken the veracity of the source material and leave the film open to interpretation as propaganda.
Often gripping and fascinating, it's bound to create waves of controversy.
An asinine chunk of Mormonsploitation that mixes historical fact with fictional romance and bald-faced anti-Mormon prejudice.
Audience Reviews for September Dawn
Super Reviewer
Granted, the Meadows Massacre was a horrible thing. The movie portrayed the history party true, and partly misleading, but don't all "historical dramas"? Every historical drama, whether it's Braveheart or Gladiator all tell half truths and fill in the rest to fit their agenda and make a story work. I have no problem with that, and I'm not even going to argue any facts. But as for a movie itself, it was awful! They easily could have told the story with a more unbiased viewpoint, which would have been just as interesting. Instead, they had to take as many pop shots at Mormons as possible. I love that the prophet suggests that every man should have 3 wives, even though an incredibly small percentage actually had more than one. I love that an apostle can take a man's wife because it was told to him in a vision (and then kill her later for trying to take her kids> WTF?)
The crowing jewl of this disaster movie is when Jon Gries castrates someone and pins their balls to the wall. Five star laughs there. These people were crappy, and most of it was misrepresented and taken out of context, but they were just a radical group. And there is no proof that Brigham Young had anything to do with, and on the contrary proof that he did try and stop it...but let's not let facts muddle up a good story! Instead lets just put in the end that the church denies it like they're hiding it or something. And this whole doctrine they made up about killing people who do wrong is awesome. I love how in my church we can slit people's throats who do something wrong. The atonment of Christ? What's that? Why do what Christ says and forgive people through repentance when we can kill them? Anyone stupid enough to believes this junk deserves to enjoy this film. Well, I'm getting tired of this review, so I won't even go into how horrible the acting and what not was. I do think however that I want to dress up like the blood covered indian brother for Holloween.
P.S. Jon Voight must have shot JFK, because he is a true sniper with that 1800's rifle.
Super Reviewer
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