What makes God scream? This 1971 film never quite answers that question, but if God has a list of scream-inducing complaints, the cult led by a messiah with the unlikely name of Billy Joe (Michael Sugich) probably ranks pretty high on it. "I made them see that using dope was the way to turn on to You," Sugich tells God at the beginning of the film, shortly before leading his followers through another bizarre ritual, dipping each in water to symbolize their rebirth into a new faith. "They put us down because we're not one of those uptight establishment churches," Sugich continues. He may not be part of the establishment, but he gets plenty uptight when confronting non-believers, and he ends up calling on the services of a hooded, monkish figure he calls "The A-Toner." Meanwhile, in a downtown soup kitchen, an uptight establishment preacher (Alex Nicol) and his wife (Jeanne Crain) have problems of their own. Tired of feeding the unappreciative poor, Crain complains when Nicol spends their money on a huge wooden cross. "Someday we'll have our own congregation, and not these transients," Nicol says, though he never clarifies how he hopes to accomplish this by hitting the road with his new cross strapped to the back of an ancient pickup truck. Unfortunately, Nicol and Crain's missionary work takes them deep into Sugich country. After killing a believer in a baptism gone awry, Sugich, The A-Toner, and company have a bloodlust that even God and dope can't quell. But Sugich learns that there are limits to freedom of religion when he orders Nicol killed and nailed to his own cross. Several months later, Crain is doing odd jobs for a judge, who asks her to babysit his four teenagers while he and his wife are out of town. (He must figure that nothing goes together so well as surly teens and a jittery widow.) Soon, threatening phone calls begin to make everyone wary, and a hooded figure makes them even warier. Many panicky trips down dark hallways ensue, followed by a melee that leaves Crain dead. It seems like Sugich is to blame, but a final twist reveals that the terrorization is not the work of drug-addled would-be messiahs, but of garden-variety no-good teenagers whose attempt to unsettle their babysitter simply got out of hand. Before they can cover up the death, however, another mysterious phone call suggests that they might soon become victims themselves, which presumably prompts God to scream.
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