"'September Dawn' commemorates the Mountain Meadows Massacre of Sept. 11, 1857, in which a party of Mormon militiamen murdered 120 settlers bound for California. True believers probably won't like it, but the sins here are more against good filmmaking than religion. Can a moviegoer ask for blood atonement along with a ticket refund?� — Ty Burr, Boston Globe

�Its Christian settlers are bathed in such a flattering glow of sanctity, and the Mormons portrayed as such inhuman zealots, that the project has the appearance of melodramatic sectarian propaganda. . . . The film is rife with scandalized references to polygamy and proto-feminist indignation about the status of Mormon women, while director Christopher Cain makes it clear where he stands by photographing Mormon characters from the most menacing angles he can find . . . The film feels less like historical drama than a venomous religious tract printed on celluloid.� — Minneapolis Star Tribune

�Writer-director Christopher Cain and co-writer Carole Whang Schutter seize upon the coincidence of the incident at Mountain Meadows having occurred on a previous 9/11 and run with it, trying hard to twist those events into a parable of religious fanaticism and zealotry. Cain and Schutter want so desperately to frame their story with clear-cut heroes and villains that they steam-roll over much of the nuance that not only leaves the events open for interpretation but also shows the futility of retrofitting the world into absolutist terms of black and white.� — Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times

�Though some have accused the movie of carrying an anti-Mormon agenda, it seems mostly preoccupied with connecting the dots between past and present-day fundamentalist violence — as if the coincidence of the massacre's date with another mass killing 144 years after weren't enough emphasis. The point is hammered so loudly and insistently that your head feels like the inside of a drum long before the bloody climax, whose impact is likewise blunted by its heavy-handed excessiveness. It's plausible that 'September Dawn' is overbearing enough to re-open spirited, honest debate about these events. But it's more likely such debate will be delayed while the audience clears the pounding and the soap scum from its ears.� — Gene Seymour, Newsday