Cults

In the predawn darkness, the floodlit cathedral looms like a snow-covered mountain over this poor neighborhood. Inside, 15,000 faithful have been waiting for two hours, but they show no sign of fatigue. They are expecting their Moses. Suddenly, a pudgy preacher in a brown suit strides up the marble stairs to the altar, a golden tree trunk. Thousands of worshipers break into chest-heaving sobs. Others furiously wave white handkerchiefs and cry "Glory to Christ!" Samuel Joaquin has arrived.

Iggy Pop was living in an efficiency apartment near the Whisky a Go Go when a gangly Brit visited him, seeking a theme song for his first movie. The filmmaker was Alex Cox, a graduate of UCLA film school, and the movie was "Repo Man," which would, after a brief initial release, achieve cult status for its punk bona fides and its comic sci-fi vision of Ronald Reagan-era Los Angeles. In an interview that's one of the welcome extras in a new, high-definition restoration of the feature (available Tuesday from Criterion Collection)

Incense lingered heavily in the air as cult members wearing silk headbands, caftans and long, long hair swayed to the sounds of YaHoWa 13, a three-man jam band rocking out with guitars and a large gong. The crowd talked about mind expansion and a new era of consciousness, while swirly visuals and flashing lights shone above them. At the end of the night, Sky Saxon, the singer for a psychedelic garage band called the Seeds, took the stage and sang "Give Peace a Chance."

It looks as though the TV season is about to claim another casualty. The CW officially removed the low-rated thriller "Cult" from its schedule, replacing it with reruns of "The Carrie Diaries" and "Oh Sit!" While the network hasn't actually canceled the series, about a journalist, played by Matt Davis, who investigates the devoted and murderous fans of a TV series titled "Cult," the fact that it's gone from the network's schedule for the foreseeable future does not bode well. Davis, who tweets under the name Ernesto Riley, seemed more than a little bitter about the news, writing , "Good news Cult fans!

At high noon Thursday, the 13 devotees of the Sagrado Corazon Senor religious cult fell to their knees in the detention area of a military camp here and prayed for strength to resume their holy war against communism. For 15 minutes, they mumbled sacred incantations, fingered amulets that they believe make their bodies bulletproof and invoked the power of their master, a bearded Filipino religious zealot who claims to be a reincarnation of Jesus.

L. Ron Hubbard enjoyed being pampered. He surrounded himself with teen-age followers, whom he indoctrinated, treated like servants and cherished as though they were his own children. He called them the "Commodore's messengers." " 'Messenger!' " he would boom in the morning. "And we'd pull him out of bed," one recalled. The youngsters, whose parents belonged to Hubbard's Church of Scientology, would lay out his clothes, run his shower and help him dress.

MUSIC KCRW helps ease audiences into 2012 with a double-bill of indie rock, featuring Jenny & Johnny's fast, ultra-melodic pop and New York City's joyous pop duo Cults. Standard Hotel West Hollywood, 8300 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. 8 p.m. Sat. $75-$125. (323) 822-3111. http://www.kcrw.com.

MUSIC Bob Mould Best known as frontman of the hard-core punk band Hüsker Dü and the alt-rock outfit Sugar, he is now a published memoirist, having recently released "See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody. " Mould will read from the book and perform songs from his deep catalog. Largo at the Coronet, 366 N. La Cienega, L.A. 8 p.m. $25. (310) 855-0350. http://www.largo-la.com. Cults The New York duo's blend of '60s girl group pop and modern indie productions has made them a much-buzzed act. But their sweet sound is laced with creepiness and evil edges — check the video for "Go Outside," which finds them digitally grafted into a scene from the Jonestown massacre.

People looking with disdain at the 39 disciples of "Do," who committed suicide so that they could board a spaceship, should check some statistics: 43% of Americans believe in UFOs, 90% believe in angels (who should also be classified as UFOs). There are 1,700 religions in this country. Which is the right one? There should be more teaching on cults and religions in our schools; we need sects education. WILFRED COUZIN Laguna Niguel

In "A Nation of Cults: The Great American Tradition" (Opinion, April 6) Sean Wilentz confuses the formation of religious sects, such as Shakers, Mormons and Seventh-day Adventists, with cults. The use of the pejorative word "cult" may be inevitable, but its use implies a judgment on the group's religious beliefs. If used at all, the term cult ought to be reserved for those religious groups that require members to surrender their independent judgment and autonomy to the group, or to a charismatic leader, or to groups employing mind-control techniques.

Among the household items put to unintended use in the new film "Evil Dead," a playfully reverent if not-overly-so remake of Sam Raimi's 1981 cult favorite horror movie, are a nail gun, an electric knife, a jerry-rigged defibrillator, and, in an obvious nod to the original, a chain saw. The feature debut of Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez, discovered via a short on YouTube, "Evil Dead" has a gleeful exuberance of its own analogous to the mad invention...

When Santa Monica publicist Kevinie Woo got the word of a looming shortage, "at first I was a little bit panicked. " The product in question: yoga pants. But not just any yoga pants. Lululemon Athletica Inc., the purveyor of pricey athletic wear, is warning of a squeezed supply of its signature black yoga pants, form-fitting women's garments that have developed an almost cult-like following nationwide. The news came after the company announced it would be recalling thousands of pairs from store shelves because of a manufacturing defect.

The gig: Greg Koch, 48, and Steve Wagner, 54, are the founders of Stone Brewing Co., one of the largest brewers of craft beer in the United States. The company is best known for its hoppy, high-alcohol beers, including Stone IPA, Stone Ruination IPA and Arrogant Bastard Ale. Koch and Wagner started experimenting with home brews in Koch's Solana Beach, Calif., condominium in the early 1990s and opened a brewery in a San Marcos, Calif., warehouse in 1996. Stone has grown from 400 barrels that year to 177,200 barrels last year, developing a cult-like following among craft beer enthusiasts.

No art form is more sensitive to social media than television. Over the years, shows as disparate as "Grey's Anatomy," "Mad Men" and "The Colbert Report" widened and intensified their fan bases through Twitter, Facebook, network websites and YouTube, making devotion just as important as ratings in defining a show's success. But there can be a dark side to this intensity; a fan's feeling of ownership can erupt in vitriolic hysteria when a beloved character is killed or an episode doesn't deliver - the social-media furor over the first season finale of "The Killing" almost got the show canceled.

Magnus Walker steps between the scarred carcasses of Porsche 911s lining his garage wall. He pauses and points to a gaping hole where the car's front hood should be. "Cars in here have to die," he says, "so others can live. " With a chest-length beard and finger-thick dreadlocks, the 45-year-old English immigrant doesn't look like a prototypical buttoned-down Porsche collector. But for more than a decade, Walker has worked in downtown L.A.'s arts district, transforming scrap heaps into one-off custom 911s, earning him the nickname "Urban Outlaw.

Click here to download TV listings for the week of Feb. 17 - 23, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies       SUNDAY So the Lakers are having a lousy season. But teammates Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard will be hitting the court with the rest of the league's best at the "2013 NBA All-Star Game," where singer Alicia Keys will rock the halftime show. (TNT, 5 p.m.) Billy Campbell has the unenviable task of following in two-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis' footsteps when he portrays our nation's 16th president in "Killing Lincoln," a new docudrama based on the book by Bill O'Reilly.

Ten days after fugitive cult leader Tony Alamo was arrested in Tampa, Fla., and jailed without bail, WRFA-820 in nearby Largo, an AM radio station featuring religious programming, broadcast its regular 1 p.m. show, "The Watchman." "This is Tony Alamo, rightly divining the word of the living God," said the prerecorded voice of the jailed preacher.

The FBI said these nine members of the Branch Davidian sect escaped the blaze: Jaime Castillo, age 24, citizenship unknown; Clive Doyle, 52, of the United States; Misty Ferguson, 16, citizenship not given; Derek Lovelock, 37, of Britain; David Thibodeau, 24, of the United States; Renos Avraam, 29, of Britain; Ruth Riddle, 29, citizenship not given; Graeme Craddock, age not given, of Australia. Unidentified black woman

Growing up in a big, bubbly, close-knit family with six brothers and sisters, Robert Suchan's role models were his beautiful mother Janene ("like Barbara Eden meets Grace Kelly meets Carol Brady and June Cleaver"), whose picture he keeps in his wallet, and his Aunt Barbara ("Eve Arden meets Jo Anne Worley meets Mrs. Roper, with a touch of Bea Arthur"). In time they would provide the ruggedly handsome Irish Catholic Long Island native - he looks like a cross between Alec Baldwin and Vince Vaughn - inspiration and a livelihood.

In an alarming bit of synchronicity, or what some might call a lack of cultural imagination, two new series premiering on network television nearly within a month will revolve around serial killings, and serial killings by proxy: "Cult," which begins Feb. 19 on the CW, and the similarly titled "The Following," which starts Monday on Fox. BBC America's period procedural "Ripper Street," meanwhile, began its eight-episode run Saturday not with the Jack...