Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Darkness within La Luz del Mundo’ on Netflix, a Grueling Documentary About a Religious Cult That Sheltered its Leaders’ Sex Crimes

The Darkness within La Luz del Mundo (now on Netflix) is the second grueling documentary in the last year about the crimes perpetrated by Mexican religious leader Naason Joaquin Garcia. This Netflix original follows 2022’s HBO three-parter Unveiled: Surviving La Luz del Mundo, both of which track the details of Garcia’s serial sexual abuse of minors, and give survivors a platform to share their harrowing experiences. So be aware: the film (a Spanish-language production from director Carlos Perez Osorio) and this review contain some difficult-to-hear, potentially upsetting testimonials, but they carry the weight and power of truth – truth that could potentially topple a morally corrupt figurehead.   

THE DARKNESS WITHIN LA LUZ DEL MUNDO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: “We chose him as our savior.” That’s how the followers of Aaron Joaquin Gonzalez choose to phrase their devotion to the founder of La Luz del Mundo (which translates to “The Light of the World”), a Christian primitivist church founded in Guadalajara in 1926. Curious, considering Gonzalez declared himself to be an apostle of Jesus Christ after saying he experienced a holy vision. But that’s brainwashing for you, the circular “logic” of a cult – a cult that allegedly perpetrated a vast number of sex crimes, including rape, trafficking and child pornography for nearly a century. Allegations came to light in 2019, when five Jane Does came forward to accuse current church “apostle” Naason Joaquin Garcia of abusing them. Their voices lead the way in this documentary, which chronicles Garcia’s church leadership, grotesque deeds and eventual imprisonment – but not the downfall of La Luz del Mundo, which still exists with millions of followers in dozens of countries, so this story of hope has to uneasily coexist alongside cynicism. 

Osorio weaves together the history of La Luz del Mundo via the voices of former and current members; some of their families have belonged to the church for generations. We see archival footage of three generations of self-appointed apostles, preaching to temples packed to the brim with loyal congregants: Gonzalez, his son Samuel Joaquin Flores and grandson Garcia, who took over as figurehead in 2014, and is characterized here as a spoiled, arrogant failson who lacks the charisma of his predecessors. It’s a stereotypical saga of the birth and growth of a cult, where followers toil endlessly to build temples, donate generous tithes and generally live their lives in devotion to the church. Some congregants were chosen to be “unconditional followers,” a deeply unsettling descriptive for the most devoted; they did only as they were told, and went so far as to let the leader dictate when and who they would marry. 

Meanwhile, the leaders live extravagant lifestyles, with followers acting as their servants, doing everything from preparing lavish meals to making sure Garcia’s neckties are the perfect length and putting toothpaste on his toothbrush for him. Congregants believed that all the good things in their lives are the result of their apostle praying for them. They soon learned that questioning the leaders’ assertions in any way was a sin that could result in eternal damnation.

Not surprisingly, female subjugation apparently was one of the church’s key foundations. Women had to wear modest clothing and were often indoctrinated into indentured servanthood as teenagers – and this is when we start seeing red flags. Some of the women interviewed for the film remain anonymous, and others don’t, but their stories are universally ghastly. They describe how Garcia’s handlers groomed them, getting them to dance for their leader, first in a chaste manner, eventually with less and less clothing. The girls would massage and bathe Garcia, then be coerced into sex. Some girls would be pressured to give him the “most precious gift” of their virginity; one woman says he saved the bloodied sheets after he violated her. Garcia allegedly had harems in many of the cities where La Luz temples were built, and he oversaw an entire trafficking system that replaced his sexual “servants” with younger ones, with some staying on as groomers. The five Jane Does risked their security to try to topple this corrupt religious regime, and we hear some of their courtroom testimonials at Garcia’s sentencing. But their limited success just doesn’t seem like enough.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Darkness within La Luz del Mundo shares many thematic qualities with Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, the Remnant Fellowship/Gwen Shamblin Lara saga documented in The Way Down and Jerry Falwell Jr. takedown God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty.

Performance Worth Watching: I’ll just say that the words of survivors will rip your heart to shreds, and leave it at that. 

Memorable Dialogue: One of the Jane Does: “I didn’t exist. I was like an object to him.”

Sex and Skin: Graphic descriptions of sexual violence.

Our Take: The Darkness within La Luz del Mundo isn’t the most narratively concise documentary, but it resourcefully pieces together a profoundly disturbing story of ego, power, manipulation and victimization. It covers a lot of ground – religion, sex, politics – and serves the subject matter the best it can in a little less than two hours. (One senses Osorio stepping around a can of worms when a lawyer representing the Jane Does asserts that Garcia didn’t get a harsher sentence for his plea deal because his victims were Latino.) You may wish it offered more details and analysis, but the doc’s emphasis on highlighting survivors’ voices while diligently summarizing a sprawling narrative renders it informative for audiences who may not have read the headlines and news reports about Garcia’s high-profile sex-abuse trial.

The survivors’ stories function as the film’s centerpiece, and are equal parts powerful, inspiring and upsetting. But just as upsetting are the voices of current La Luz del Mundo members, who remain glassy-eyed and unapologetic in their devotion to their apostle and his movement; they essentially choose not to believe the many independently corroborated testimonies of women who were indelibly traumatized by Garcia. Osorio doesn’t condemn anyone, and current church members don’t necessarily hang themselves with their own words, but reading their tone and body language is revelatory. Any depiction of cultlike behavior inevitably reflects greater societal issues about warped perceptions of reality, which some of the former members acknowledge; as a lifelong La Luz devotee, one woman says she essentially didn’t know right from wrong. That ethical relativity is essentially how cults of personality are born, and that’s the core idea of The Darkness within La Luz del Mundo, which fires a few shots in a battle for truth that may not ever reach a conclusion.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Darkness within La Luz del Mundo is a tough, tough watch. But it’s important in its core journalism and the subtext that spins from it.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.