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The Clearing : Inspired by true events and featuring sizable servings of creepy. Based on a real-life cult called The Family in Australia, which then inspired a novel by JP Pomare, the eight-episode mini-series is unlike other shows about ominous cults. For starters, its leader is a woman: Adrienne — whose character is based on the real-life Anne-Hamilton Byrne — believed she was Jesus reincarnated as a woman. And apparently, she had the charisma to be believed by some. Her calling, she claimed, was to find children and raise them with the principles of purity, untainted and unsullied by the corruption of society. And her methods were harrowing, all in the name of absolute compliance. Miranda Otto delivers a bone-chilling performance that made us feel like hapless children in the face of a cold-blooded monster — which, we think, is precisely the point the creators of the show wanted to convey.

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