What seems like an age-old story (charismatic man convinces outcasts to join his cult, move to a foreign country and take part in world's largest mass suicide) comes to modern times thanks to a new documentary on the Jonestown Massacre.

Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, unveils new survivor interviews with some Peoples Temple members who escaped. It also features recollections from journalists and officials who lived through the final hours of the community's existence (including a woman who survived a point blank shot to the head) and haunting footage from the utopian community created by temple leader, Jim Jones, in Guyana.

The documentary also cites this damaging story as one of the many reasons (tax evasion and abuse included) the cult moved out of country from San Francisco to the northwestern Guyana community in 1977. Once out of the U.S., there were reports of physical, sexual and mental abuse (even reports some members were forced to perform sexual acts on Jim in front of the congregation), sleep deprivation and members working grueling hours in the isolated agricultural community.

Footage then shows the final days of Jonestown, from U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan's arrival with his entourage on November 14, 1978 on a fact-finding mission to images of his dead body on the tar mat. The U.S.-led group tried to hurriedly escape with temple defectors, but were gunned down by security enforcers for the Peoples Temple. Then of course there's the chilling recordings of Jim convincing more than 900 people in succession to commit suicide by consuming cyanide-laced Kool-Aid from a large vat (parents induced their children first, then themselves). For a video re-cap of Jonestown, here's an online video with explicit footage from the massacre.

There's a gathering next week to watch the film in Toronto on Wednesday March 7th courtesy of Hot Docs, tickets available online here.