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
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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?
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07:42 (suspenseful music)
07:45 (heart beating)
07:48 (heart beating)
07:51 (heart beating)
07:54 (heart beating)
07:57 ♪♪