The title of scariest movie ever made is often debated by fans of horror. Films like Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Shining and The Exorcist are often brought up in these debates, however I would like to propose a new contender for this title, namely this film.
A Little Piece of Heaven is not just a scary movie because it is about a man who drugs and kidnaps children, tells them that they are dead and then forces them to slaughter his pigs at his farm under the pretense that they are in heaven and this is God's work, but because it plays up all these horrible acts of life threatening and traumatizing crime as a good and inspirational thing.
Infamous actor Kirk Cameron plays this "likeable" young man named Will Loomis, who with his mentally handicapped sister have to take over the family farm after the death of their grandfather. After finding out that working a farm while taking care of his sister is hard work, he decides that what they need is more children on the farm, and after seeing a young, black, orphan boy be told he has to move to a much worse orphanage than the one he currently lives in, Will finds out the best course of action is to kidnap the kid. Somehow.
But oh no, just kidnapping this child isn't enough for him. He first drugs the boy against his will, before then coming back during the night, vandalizing the orphanage by breaking their chicken coop (that they have for some reason) to distract the other children and care takers, before he sneaks in and takes the boy away. Then, when the boy wakes up, Will is unable to come up with a good explanation for why he kidnapped him and instead comes up with a lie about the kid dying in a house fire, and that he is now in heaven.
What follows is a horrifying display of mental abuse, gas-lighting, child labor and downright racism. The kid is told lie upon lie about every question he understandably have about this unbelievable situation, while being forced to work against his will on the farm (which, yes, includes slaughtering pigs) and being berated for the way he talks. Now you might say, "gee, a bunch of white people kidnapping a black child only to abuse him, force him to work and try and erase his culture kinda sounds like slavery doesn't it?" and yes, yes it does. This is basically a less gory 12 Years A Slave if we were supposed to root for the slavers.
On top of this disturbing display of human suffering is also the portrayal of Will's sister, Violet. From everything I could find it doesn't seem like the actor playing her is mentally handicapped in real life, and oh boy does it show. This stereotypical portrayal makes Forrest Gump seem like a sensitive and realistic portrayal in comparison, as it piles up every possible stereotype on top of each other into a big pile of offensive. While I know a lot of people have these symptoms shown in real life, it's just so obviously exploited to up the drama of the situation for maximum supposed audience pity without caring about being sensitive to actual people with mental disabilities here.
The acting of her character is also responsible for this feeling of not giving a damn about real mentally handicapped people. In fact, it's so bad I honestly though at first this was the worst case of Dawson Casting of all time and that her character was supposed to be a child despite being played by an obvious adult. Top this off with a constant use of the r-slur and it's downright despicable.
The movie does at least show some signs of maybe getting better at one point, however this is short lived. After dressing up as an angel to kidnap another child, this time a white girl who lives in an abusive household, which still doesn't justify the kidnapping and lying about her being dead, the cops finally start thinking there is something weird about these missing children and starts investigating. At this point, more and more people start showing up at the farm to ask questions, and after a while Will packs all their things and moves everybody to a new location to try and escape the cops. Now finally the movie will show it's true colors as a psychological thriller about an evil cult leader right? Wrong!
Instead, after being caught by the cops and the truth coming out about the kids not being dead, he is sent to court, but the black kid is used as a mouthpiece by the writer to have a sappy speech about how "they are a family!", which the judge swallows hook line and sinker, and instead of giving Will the life sentence he deserves he is instead given the order to look out for more children for a year!
The man who drugs, kidnaps and puts kids into slavery.
I don't think anything else I can say about this movie could possibly showcase more about why this is so disturbing. Other than all this really messed up stuff, the acting is stiff, the filming looks like a 70's grindhouse production, the sound design abysmal and the story absolutely unforgivable. This movie is not an inspirational movie about Christianity and family as it claims to be, it's a movie that glorifies death cults, slavery and child abuse, and quite frankly unintentionally paints religion as a tool of evil.
No matter if you are Christian, Atheist, something in between or belong to a different religion entirely, this film is still a mean-spirited, disturbing, exploitative piece of work, and unless you are just out to see something really gruesome for the sake of morbid curiosity I would advice you to stay far, far away.
