When the violent actions of Peru's Shining Path guerilla cult prompted a savage response from the country's democratically elected government in 1980, the resulting power play by Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori laid the groundwork for a corrupt political institute that used the threat of terrorism as a means of maintaining absolute power. The resulting cycle of violence proved to many who witnessed the situation firsthand that the situation was only exacerbated by the use of continued force, and that democracy, not more violence, was the most effective means to taking on terrorism. Twenty-five years later, filmmakers Pamela Yates and Peter Kinoy use this Peruvian political nightmare to paint a cautionary picture of the potentially damaging effects of the seemingly unending global war on terror.