Romney says he won't see movie about Mormons

You can count on one person not waiting in line when the movie "September Dawn" opens on Friday.

Mitt Romney says he will not go see the movie, billed as a dramatic recreation of the Mountain Meadows massacre, the killing of 120 unarmed Arkansas pioneers by Mormon settlers in Utah in 1857. The extent of the Mormon church's involvement has long been debated.

"That was a terrible, awful act carried out by members of my faith," Romney said during an interview today with the Associated Press while his presidential campaign was in Reno, Nev. "There are bad people in any church and it's true of members of my church, too."

Romney's ancestors include Parley Pratt, a prominent Mormon murdered in Arkansas several months before the massacre.

"I hope on average we're better than we would have been as a faith group by virtue of our religious teachings," Romney told the AP. "But there certainly can be some extremes, some very bad people."

The independent feature film (the trailer is linked above) stars Academy Award-winning actor Jon Voight, along with Terence Stamp and Lolita Davidovich. Some critics have complained that the movie is unfairly negative in its depiction of 19th-century Mormons.