When reduced to its narrative essence, this deplorable offering from the director of the slightly less deplorable Night Creature is a dull trapped-in-an-isolated-house-by-a-madman horror flick. The phone lines are cut, the power goes out, blah blah blah blah blah. What makes the experience all the more excruciating is that the isolated house-horror story is the best part of the film, and it doesn’t get going for forty-five minutes.
Instead, we have to suffer through a series of ecclesiastical disagreements between a wannabe priest and a wannabe Jesus, the former arguing that only through raising money can a man truly find a way to save the masses, the latter convinced that smoking dope is the only true path to the lord (at one point he even infers that God is pot). Of course, this being a lame attempt at a horror movie, these disagreements take the form of fake preacher telling fake Jesus that he is going to hell, and fake Jesus crucifying fake preacher (literally).
When fake preacher’s wife testifies that fake Jesus killed her husband, fake Jesus and his loyal band of potheads (or is it Godheads?) declare that vengeance shall be theirs. It’s no surprise, then, that when fake preacher’s wife gets a high paying babysitting gig (fifty big ones for the weekend), the disturbing phone calls, inexplicable power outages, and creepy whisperings kick in. And just to add another dash of incredulity to the proceedings, the woman’s charges for the weekend are none other than the offspring of the very judge who sentenced fake Jesus to death.
The fact that so much of this screenplay was dedicated to the irreconcilable differences between rebellious youth and stodgy adults, represented by each group’s unwavering devotion to its religious views, leads me to believe that the writers of this tripe had some half-baked message they felt it necessary to impart. If only they had realized that moviegoers – particularly horror moviegoers – want mindless mayhem, not lame social commentary, and put some thought into making the isolated-house horror more interesting, we may have had something worthwhile here.
by Thomas Scalzo | Source: Trans World Entertainment VHS
11 Oct 2008 6:47 PM | Submit Comment
