If Southern California is the asshole of the country...
Then Palmdale is the festering boil.
Those people are scarier than anything Tobe Hooper could've conceived of. I swear, they eat their dead. 
No Author of screen scripts has ever come close to the real horror in life. The movies just show the outward actions of the players, books delve into the mind of those involved. That is the genius of understanding the unbelievable.
Years ago I heard a most alarming Author who told us that if we can conceive of any atrocity, then we ourselves are capable of under the right conditions do the same.
Sort of like the old incorrect theory that even under hypnoses a person will never commit an act that they find repugnant about.
Wrong, anyone who would never think to do an act of violence if given a reason to, will do anything they are told to do.
Mind control is so powerful, think of all the cults kids find themselves in and refuse to go home. Parents at times have to kidnap their own kids to get them deprogrammed.
Today we have Dentists and Medical specialists that can control their patients to feel no pain for a procedure.
If you search the Web, you will find thousands of sites that for a small fee wish to teach you how to control others minds.
There is one site that got to me big time. A woman that claimed she could hypnotise you through the computer.
As a lark I tried it out as I did not think anyone could do this to me.---
My kids and I tried this out and it was so spooky we had to shut it down half way through.
Mass hyponoses is not uncommon, and some of the hell fire Preachers have it down to an art.
The advertising industry does this every day bringing into our minds that we really need to buy their product.
There will allways be Charlatans amongst us, the trick is to recognise them