SEPTEMBER DAWN — * — Trent Ford, Jon Voight, Terence Stamp; rated R (violence, gore, brief nudity, slurs).
Audience fears going into "September Dawn" are that the film might depict Utah and the LDS Church in a negative light and therefore prove to be a tremendous embarrassment.
And as it turns out, this heavily fictionalized drama about the 1857 incident known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre does depict Utah and the church in the worst possible way, and it is indeed a tremendous embarrassment — for the filmmakers.
And that includes the cast. For many of them, this film represents a career low. In fact, the filmmaking here is so incompetent and laughably awful that it recalls the work of schlockmeister Ed Wood ("Plan 9 From Outer Space").
Trent Ford ("How to Deal") stars as Jonathan Samuelson, the son of Jacob Samuelson (Jon Voight), a local LDS Church official.
Jonathan and his family have apparently "welcomed" some new arrivals into their valley, a wagon train of more than 100 settlers from Arkansas. But his father is naturally suspicious of the newcomers, and he asks Jonathan to keep an eye on them. As fate would have it, Jonathan winds up falling in love with one of them, Emily Hudson (Tamara Hope).
So Jonathan finds his allegiances torn when paranoia drives his father and the other locals to employ violence to rid their valley of the wagon-train settlers.
Co-screenwriter/director Christopher Cain ("Young Guns," "The Next Karate Kid") clearly has a negative agenda here, although he has no clue how to go about making his point. And hilariously, he casts his son Dean Cain (best known as Superman in the "Lois & Clark" TV series) as Joseph Smith in brief flashback scenes.
If that miscasting isn't enough, British actor Terence Stamp — who barely tries to disguise his accent — plays Brigham Young. And in this film, Young is directly implicated in the massacre.
As for Voight, he plays with hilarious ferocity that recalls his over-the-top performance in the now cult-favored "Anaconda."
"September Dawn" is rated R for strong, violent imagery (shootings and stabbings, including some violence against women and children), some graphic gore, brief, full female nudity, an implied sex scene, and racial slurs. Running time: 108 minutes.
E-mail: jeff@desnews.com