Review of Dancing for the Devil, directed by Derek Doneen

If you’re new here, hello! My name is Ashley and I run a book, movie, and television blog here on this website. Check it out if you’re into those kinds of content. I’m writing this little intro sentence because as of late, at the time of typing this, a lot of my blog posts are backlog from when I was preparing to go to South Korea for two months and was funemployed for about a month after finishing my master’s degree.

During this little period of time, I ended up watching an insane amount of movies and television shows. I was also reading a lot, as I no longer had a schedule to confine myself to when it came to multiple part-time jobs, taking in-person classes for my degree, or writing an insane master’s thesis on Korean women’s literature around the colonial period.

This is how I watched documentaries like Dancing for the Devil. I had never heard of any of the people the documentary was talking about, but when it came out on Netflix, I was scrolling through what to watch that day. This had appeared right at the top, as it was just released, and I was thinking about that little tagline synopsis it had given.

So I decided to watch the series over the course of multiple days. And man, this was a wild ride throughout each episode. As I thought it couldn’t get more insane, it kind of did.

Let’s get into the review before I ramble too much!

The real impacts of social media famous dancers getting sucked into a potential cult.

This is a documentary series that largely consists of interviews with the family of the main girl it focuses on: Miranda Derrick. We see how Miranda and her sister Melanie, who they describe as being very tight knit and close while they were growing up. As they began posting their dancing and performances on social media, they blew up as the Wilking Sisters.

These two were really popular on social media, and they even left behind their family to go to Los Angeles and try to pursue more opportunities out on the West Coast. It was there that Miranda and Melanie’s relationship began to fracture, especially as Miranda became involved with the Shekinah Church.

Shekinah is what the documentary says is a cult, and the family members believe that too. Not only is it a church, but it also serves as a form of a talent agency. Allegedly they take up to 80% of the dancers’ profits, saying that it is a donation to God and the church, and it has methods of slowly cutting off its members from the outside world.

Not only do they live with other members of the church, but they all cut off contact with their family. The documentary interviews several family members of the other church members, as well as some of those who managed to get out and realize what was happening. They deliberately isolate these young people and basically control their lives.

So the deeper Miranda became devoted to Shekinah, the more she withdrew from her family. The first rupture is when she did not come home for her grandfather’s funeral, but the ruptures grew deeper as she blocked her family members and then ceased contact with everyone. They had to find out through social media that she got married to her boyfriend.

We also get candid interviews with former members of Shekinah that were apart of the local Korean community. There’s one woman who got out when she was younger, and she describes the conditions her and her sister were living inside of; she left her sister behind in the church, and did not have contact with her to this day.

The production managed to find the other sister, and we begin to see how Shekinah has been rupturing families long before they ever recruited the dancers. I found it interesting that this began with a Korean American community in Los Angeles.

As someone who has been to Korea and studied its shamanism and cults, the fact it was imported to the States and implemented in this manner is absolutely fascinating. The fact that it’s non-Koreans largely joining and young people implies that these particular group of people are more susceptible to influence.

Overall Thoughts

This was an interesting watch, especially as someone who had never heard of any of these people involved. I’m also not interested in dance generally, but this was a glimpse into that world and how people are making a living as dancers on the Internet.

The actual focus of the docuseries was also compelling. As I wrote before, it shows how young people are susceptible. If it’s true that Shekinah is taking away their incomes in such a drastic manner, it’s taking away one of their only financial opportunities to get out of the church. Their poor families too; they’re clearly in a lot of pain.

That said, I do wonder why they released this as three episodes and not as a single documentary. It seems a bit odd for a Netflix show to do that, but that’s what they chose to do at the end of the day. It’s something minor, but I do wonder what happened in the decision and editing processes.

Regardless, go watch this one if you’re interested. It’ll make a good Friday night watch when you don’t feel like going outside, and it’s not too much of a time investment in the long run.

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