# Pray, Obey, Kill (2021)

> A six-part Swedish documentary investigates a religious group in a small town whose members have been involved in murder and attempted murder.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/89111

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 6
- Episode runtime: 58 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: documentary, crime
- Created by: Anton Berg, Martin Johnson, Henrik Georgsson
- Network: HBO Nordic
- Cast: Anton Berg, Martin Johnson, Helge Fossmo, Sara Svensson, Janna Yngwe, Ashley Adler
- TMDB rating: 6.6/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13848098/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: graphic
- Tone: sober, grim, unsettling, investigative, haunting

## Synopsis

Pray, Obey, Kill (2021) is a Swedish true crime documentary miniseries created by Anton Berg, Martin Johnson and Henrik Georgsson for HBO Nordic. Across six hour-long episodes it returns to a small Swedish town where a religious group became known for murder and attempted murder, both by and against its own members. Rather than dramatizing events, the series assembles testimony from people connected to the group, including the participants Janna Yngwe, Ashley Adler and Helge Fossmo, and lays out the chain of violence step by step. Its engine is the question of how devout people came to commit and endure such acts, and what a community does when its faith turns against it. The tone is sober, grim and investigative, with an undercurrent of unease as accusations of psychic and physical control by later leaders surface. Each episode adds another layer of evidence and recollection, so the viewing feels patient and cumulative rather than sensational. Fans of Making a Murderer, Wild Wild Country and The Keepers will find the same mix of local detail, real people and a slowly tightening sense of how a closed community failed its members. The series is a single contained story, not a case-of-the-week format.

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- [The Congregation (2021)](https://ember.film/tv/113259)
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