by Mike Romero
Photos By Weber Griffiths | Production Stills By Erik Robinson
"I think there’s a lot that we can learn from the past when we really listen and allow our expectations to be subverted."
Mormons are all the rage right now. From Heretic and American Primeval to The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, the onslaught of films and shows exploring the mysteries of Mormon culture don’t seem to be slowing down.
However, one project stands out as particularly unique — The Angel. A Mormon pioneer folk horror, it’s a short film that has been making the rounds in the film festival circuit, featuring horror veteran Doug Jones as the titular angel. The story follows two wives who receive a mysterious visitation amidst the blood-red stone of Southern Utah.
The Angel serves as a proof of concept for an award-winning feature script called The Third Wife. Taking a page out of Robert Eggers’ book, these filmmakers explore the history of the Mormon pioneers, which is replete with rich stories that are unexpectedly strange, scary, and supernatural.
Mormon folk history is filled with possession and poltergeists, foreboding visions, and particular handshakes to detect evil spirits.
The filmmakers did painstaking research to ensure the historical accuracy of this world, which also involves one of the most famous, fascinating, and misunderstood practices in Mormon history — polygamy.
One other aspect that makes this film especially unique is its cultural authority — though produced for a general horror-loving audience, and exploring controversial, hidden aspects of the religion’s history, the producer, the writer, and the co-directors are actually all practicing Latter-day Saints themselves. Releasing together under the Burgindie Pictures banner, we sat down with the four of them to discuss their radical new folk horror, starting with its producer, J Celene Anderson.
J Celene Anderon is a homegrown Utah girl. She has produced for several Burgindie Pictures films over the years, including The Next Door, CRYO, and Java Jive. Her credits span both indie and larger studio projects—including coordinating work on Mountainhead, Horizon: An American Saga, Fallout, Gonzo Girl, and Disney’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. She’s also been a behind‑the‑scenes coordinator on Food Network specials, Hallmark films, and The Promised Land. In addition to The Third Wife, Celene is also developing a feature version of Martha, Martha, a film about domestic abuse based on an award-winning play by her cousin Emilee Simkoo, with director and AFI alumn Ysabeaux Ng attached to direct.
In The Angel, when Doug Jones’ specter appears on the scene to instruct the plural wives on how to be free, we aren’t totally sure whether he’s from heaven or hell. Doug brings something classical and ethereal to the role. It's gentle, but uncanny and ghoulish – even haunting. Still, this isn’t totally unbiblical. Ancient stories of angelic appearances describe the visitees as being afraid. Those who are more schooled in obscure Mormon myth and doctrine know what signs to look for, but to the average viewer, the nuance and ambiguity are exactly what directors Jessica and Barrett Burgin were looking for.
Coming from a background in acting herself, Celene has a vested interest in casting the right character. It was she who proposed Doug to play the titular angel.
“One of our directors, Barrett, and I were at one of the evening parties at FilmQuest," she recalls. Coincidentally, FilmQuest happened to be where the team would later premiere the short.
"Doug happened to be there. I spotted him across the room. Doug has such a striking physique—he’s tall and thin and has a kind of otherworldly quality to him."
As she observed him and his interactions with other attendees – including intently looking at them and reaching out to their faces with his hands – it occurred to her that he'd be perfrect for the role. "I made the suggestion to Barrett, as he had previously been thinking about casting a much younger angel, but he pretty immediately caught the vision and realized Doug would be absolutely stunning in that role. We figured we might as well shoot our shot and see what he says."
The two approached him and introduced themselves. "I remember looking up at how tall he was, and then he reached out and touched our faces as he listened to us," she laughs. "You’d think that would feel super weird, but he had such a kind and attentive look in his eye, it felt extremely natural. I idly wondered if he did it because he was so tall. It was a way of feeling like we weren’t so far away from each other. Barrett took the lead and told him we had a film we were making and thought he would make a perfect angel."
"Doug’s face lit up and he said intently to Barrett, 'You’re never going to believe this, but I’ve always wanted to play an angel.' It was so insanely serendipitous. We pitched the film to him and he was extremely interested."
Having built such a remarkable career in iconic creature roles under layers of costume and make-up, Celene firmly believes he deserves more screentime with his actual face. "I’m so grateful we got to be one of those projects for him; his scene is so remarkable, I don’t think there’s anyone else that could have as perfectly captured what the film needed from the titular character."
Not only was Doug Jones perfect for the role – he was the perfect team player and great to have on set. "Doug is truly one of the most gracious and kind actors I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with," says Celene. "Making arrangements for the shoot with both him and his manager, Bruce, was a wonderful experience and it was extremely important to me that he have a good experience with us as well. And I was really happy that it seems like he did. One of his best friends lives in Southern Utah, so he loved visiting the area, and he later told me that he’d be willing to be in any film I produced, which is one of the highlights of my career so far.”
In addition to her own work, Celene has leveraged her deep Utah roots to champion creatives locally. She is on the board of Motion Picture Association of Utah, which has successfully lobbied for regional film incentives, and actively supports emerging talent in the state by organizing private retreats for emerging producers and directors. Celene also regularly produces for tmrw – having led photo and video shoots for GUNNAR, Florian Picasso, Ronen Rubinstein, mynameisntjmack, Scotty James, JP Saxe, and Natacha Karam.
As a result of diving into the historical research on The Third Wife, Celene discovered the forgotten voices of the women who practiced polygamy. She was surprised to find that, unlike the patriarchal infamy of today’s Mormon fundamentalism (i.e. the splinter group infamously led by Warren Jeffs), the 19th century practice was a lot more nuanced and progressive than she had anticipated.
She began re‑examining and reclaiming the narrative of the Church’s history of plural marriage through a feminist lens—sharing her research at the Journal of Mormon Polygamy Conference and various podcasts, sparking important dialogue around women’s agency and choice. Combining her media background with scholarly research and advocacy, Celene is now becoming a rising influential voice on grappling with gender issues in the Latter-day Saint community.
“Barrett first pitched The Third Wife to me at a time where I was really lost in my career. I was making my living in the film industry, which was fantastic, but I was definitely working for a paycheck, not a passion. I was starting to forget why I even went into film in the first place. I didn’t care about the projects I was working on and I felt really adrift," she explains.
"When I first heard the pitch, it was like lightning. The project immediately spoke to me and managed to evoke my deepest fears. It was so rooted in the ideology and history of my culture and my faith; it was kind of overwhelming. It was such an effective story, I felt like I had developed all the skills I had in my education and career just to get that film made."
Diving into the development process was life-changing for Celene. "Early Utah history was not something I was well-versed in despite spending my entire life in this state. I was absolutely floored when I discovered that women in Utah were the first women in the United States to vote—a full fifty years before the 19th amendment. No one had ever taught me that. So, while I’m digging into this history full of these highly religious and polygamist women, it was suddenly paired with them also being on the cutting edge of women’s rights at the time: voting, holding careers, attending medical school, accessible divorces, owning property, running publications, engaging in organized political activism that was simultaneously advocating for polygamy and women’s rights. It was absolutely mind-blowing and I felt I had discovered an entire hidden world."
Now, in addition to her work in film, she's started working to reframe and reclaim the history and the voices of these incredible women she's discovered.
"I have a real passion for gender issues, at large, and also within my community of Latter-day Saints. I think there’s a lot that we can learn from the past when we really listen and allow our expectations to be subverted," Celene says.
"I also think there’s a lot to be innovated and studied and learned in the future. I am a strong believer in nuance. I don’t think things are usually black and white. There’s something really exciting about challenging and stretching your presuppositions and expectations. And honestly, I think that film does that better than any other medium. I’m excited to see how The Third Wife will haunt and twist audiences in ways they aren’t expecting.”
Follow Burgindie Pictures on Instagram for updates on The Angel and its forthcoming feature adaptation, The Third Wife.