Showtime Presents World Television Premiere of PROPHET'S PREY Tonight

The highly-anticipated documentary PROPHET'S PREY will make its world television premiere tonight, October 10th at 9 PM ET/PT on SHOWTIME. The film, focused on the tyrannical cult leader Warren Jeffs, debuts theatrically nationwide under the Showtime DOCUMENTARY FILMS® banner on September 18th in New York and on Friday, September 25th in Los Angeles, followed by additional cities including San Francisco, Chicago, Denver and Salt Lake City, among others, on Friday, October 2nd. An official selection of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and directed by Academy Award® nominee Amy Berg (Deliver Us from Evil, West of Memphis), PROPHET'S PREY is a unique and intricate look inside the world of one of the largest cults currently operating in the United States, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS).

When Jeffs assumed leadership of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints in 2002, he brought his dictatorial and sadistic desires to bear on a community ripe for exploitation. The FLDS was already a paternalistic religion with a history of polygamous and under-aged marriage, and Warren incorporated and expanded these illegal practices using his power to religiously justify rape and pederasty. Though he was placed on the FBI's most-wanted list and, eventually, captured and sentenced to life in prison, Jeffs continues to prey on the FLDS community in absentia, his power largely unchecked and unchallenged to this very day.

PROPHET'S PREY is written and directed by Berg who also serves as an executive producer. The film is based on the book by Sam Brower, Prophet's Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints. Dustin Lance Black, Shannon Costello, Anna Culp, Geralyn Dreyfous, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Erica Huggins, Jon Krakauer and Regina Scully also serve as executive producers. Brower and Katherine LeBlond serve as the documentary's producer with music by Warren Ellis and Nick Cave, longtime collaborators with Berg. Cave leant his voice as the narrator, and he and Ellis composed the haunting score together.

SHOWTIME is a premier destination for original documentary programming, developing films under the SHO: CLOSE UP® banner and the Showtime DOCUMENTARY FILMS banner. These documentaries offer an uncensored look at the lives and legacies of some of the world's most fascinating and controversial figures. LISTEN TO ME MARLON and PROPHET'S PREY join previous award-winning SHO: CLOSE UP films: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO DICK CHENEY, RICHARD PRYOR: OMIT THE LOGIC, KOBE BRYANT'S MUSE and LOST SONGS: THE BASEMENT TAPES CONTINUED, which features new music from long-lost lyrics penned by legendary songwriter Bob Dylan.

Photo courtesy of Showtime