Monday, June 08, 2020

The VelociPastor (2018)

Now that I have access to Amazon Prime, I’ve been finding all sorts of new movies to watch.  This includes a lot of the lower-quality movies.  I’ve watched Birdemic and Manos: The Hands of Fate, both of which were pretty bad.  I do think each movie was honestly trying, though.  Both wanted to create a quality product that just didn’t measure up.

Then, there’s The VelociPastor.  It would appear to not take itself too seriously.  It doesn’t necessarily poke fun at other horrible movies.  Rather, it revels in its own incompetence.  Rather than aim higher than it can achieve, it asks what it can do with what it has.  It may not be the funniest you’ve ever seen, but it is good for a smile or two.

The movie is about a pastor named Doug Jones.  (No relation to the actor of the same name.)  When he sees his parents killed in a fiery car crash, he loses his faith and goes off to China to see if God can still find him.  Instead, a dinosaur claw finds its way into his possession.  Now, when Doug gets angry, he turns into a velociraptor who will often eat the offending party.

Back in the United States, he saves a prostitute named Carol from a mugger.  She repays Doug by sleeping with him, which immediately makes him uncomfortable.  Between killing and breaking his vow of celibacy, he’s not sure what to do.  After he kills Carol’s pimp, she convinces him that maybe he’s meant for vengeance.  It’s a great way to take out lots of bad guys.

What follows is a bunch of stuff that you know shouldn’t be taken seriously, but kind of makes you wonder.  Instead of a car explosion, we get a cue to use VFX Car on Fire.  Instead of China, we get some guys in a forest that could be anywhere.  There seems to be a fuzzy line between genius and apathy.  (For instance, using “priest college” instead of seminary.)

It’s a low-budget parody of low-budget movies.  Sure, there are others that have done it better.  Kung Fury and Kung Pow:Enter the Fist come to mind, but I don’t think the movie is striving for greatness.  It’s not going to be mistaken for high art.  It brings new meaning to the saying, "Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever."



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