Scouts Honor the Secret Files from Netflix is the Scariest Horror Movie Ever. Fact. Bring me another movie, Midsommar, this is worse. Not quite sure what I was thinking when my wife and I started to watch this one. But although I knew it would be rough, I didn’t realize just how rough it was going to be. Turns out, I could have gone my whole entire life without knowing that the Boy Scouts of America had such a thing as the “Perversion Files” tucked secretly in the their headquarter locked cabinets. I mean, right?
Before you even start it, your first thoughts are … APPLE PIE! AMERICAN FLAG! PARADES! Dude! Be careful, because if you attack the Boy Scouts, you are freaking attacking the heart of America. But ANY organization that aids and abets the horrifying, scariest parts of the evil in our society, then we gotta be talking about it.
If you aren’t from America, or have never heard of the Boy Scouts (how?) then it is a youth organization in the United States that currently has upwards of around 2 and a half million kids participating. And similarly, there are also close to 900,000 adult volunteers. But back in 1979, the Scouts had well over 5 million kids participating.
When a KIDS organization that big exists… I can promise you, they are already doing things that will COMMUNICATE that they are safe for new kids coming in. Right? You are a mother, you are taking your son into Boy Scouts, they are probably saying… oh yeah, we have this program, and this training, and these rules that guarantee your little Pauly is going to be 100% safe. And the Boy Scouts were saying all these things. And yes, while they did have these training courses, they didn’t require the volunteers to take them. Heck, they didn’t even ask volunteers for driver’s licenses, or state IDs. Nothing.
The leadership of the Boy Scouts were working so hard to keep communicating that the Boy Scouts was a safe place for kids to be, that they didn’t stop and realize that it was this exact reaction – WE ARE SAFE – that put so many kids in danger.
The movie dives into some of the most horrifying – jaw droppingly crazy – abuses that happened, some within a hundred yards of parents, and other people. Some conducted with numerous kids at once.
Back in the day, I used to be a HUGE Orioles fan. My buddy and I would watch every single minute of every single game for an entire season. (Pro tip? That’s like 162 games a year. Average game length? Basically 3 hours. That’s 500 hours a year.) And many of those games we went down to the stadium, and we’d buy returned season tickets at the last minute. (Cool trick that still works today.) So, amazing seats, for like $15 or $20. On one particularly gorgeous day, I ran back to the bathroom. And while there, I realized I was watching a predator slipping from urinal to urinal near kids, to get a look. Well I punched the guy in the head, and he ran. I spent the rest of the game with two police men hunting that guy down. And when he was caught (in a another bathroom, doing the same thing) I ID’d him to make sure he couldn’t come back to the next game. (All of that to give you this one quote…) So, while the two police men and myself were looking for the guy, one of them says to the other, “These are the sort of guys, that end up tripping and falling and hitting their head repeatedly on the way back to the station. If you know what I mean.” And I did. I did know what he meant.
There’s just something about a child predator that makes me so very angry. And this movie did something similar. I got angrier, and angrier, and angrier at the justifying, and excusing away that officials of Boy Scouts of America were doing. “It’s a part of a larger societal issue… this is endemic in the world around us… it isn’t specifically a Boy Scouts Organizational issue.” PUUUKKKEEE!
Spoiler alert, in 2010, a jury awarded to a boy scout who was abused in the 80’s, $18.5 million. It was the single biggest payout to a sexually abused victim in US history. Then, in February of 2020, in an attempt to protect itself from the coming tsunami (there were over 200 lawsuits coming their way), the Boy Scouts of America filed for Chapter 11 – non-Americans, that is basically bankruptcy protection. They did that to offer “equitable compensation” to the survivors and their families. No. They did that to keep the payouts lower, and to avoid getting sued into oblivion.
And it was during that time that the District of Delaware set a limit date for all survivors to file a claim. Would the number of kids be 10,000? No. 82,000 kids came through and filed notice of their being abused. Those were just the kids/men that could drum up the courage to file. Boys abused by men? The shame involved in that?? Unbelievable, I cannot even imagine the devastating trauma that comes with that. I just thank my lucky stars every day…
Final Thoughts on Scouts Honor the Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America
Scouts Honor the Secret Files from Netflix is the Scariest Horror Movie Ever. That much is clear. Shockingly clear. And right now, after watching it last night, I gotta admit, that I’m just a little bit upset with some of my personal friends who are scout masters. hahah. That’s illogical. I know. Because these guys love their troops. Love their kids. And yet, I sort of feel like the stink of it is on them too.
My wife turned to me mid-watch and asked… “So now that girls are in the Boy Scouts… are they being abused today as well??” My eyes went wide as saucers. Well, yeah, of course they are. Duh. I mean, come on, someone ought to carpet bomb this organization into dust. This is stuff is crazy scary.
Luke 1:79 “God’s Sunrise will break in upon us, shining on those in the darkness, those sitting in the shadow of death, then showing us the way, one foot at a time, down the path of peace.”
Edited by: CY