Future Tense

 

Future Tense

United States - 1991

Director - Fred Carpenter

 Mars Hill Productions, 1991, VHS

Run Time - 30 minutes

I realize that its the sort of thing that lots of people can relate to, but I'm not sure that comparing the Rapture to missing or catching an airline flight is really a good idea. I mean, I don't think I know anybody who likes to fly, and it suggests that being a Christian might just be like waiting in the concourse your whole life. Such terrible food, and the booze is way overpriced.

Last Chance Detectives

Last Chance Detectives: Mystery Lights of Navajo Mesa

United States -  1994

Director - Steven Styles

Leucadia Family Films, 1994, VHS

Run Time - 50 minutes

Great cover art by "Rodriguez". It looks like s/he did the art for several of the other videos or books though I can't confirm it with any of the images I found.

McGee and Me!: Skate Expectations

McGee and Me!: Skate Expectations

United States - 1990

Director - Chuck Bowman

Focus on the Family, 1990, VHS

Run Time - 30 minutes

Apocalypse

Apocalypse

Canada - 1998

Director - Peter Gerretsen

PPI Films, 1998, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 34 Minutes

Harking back to the fine Evangelical video prostheltization of films like my personal favorite, Years of the Beast, Apocalypse offers up Canadian flavored Tribulation. This early entry in the episodic Christploitation empire slowly accumulating like spent shell-casing around the feet of French-Canadian producer Peter Lalonde "deserves capital punishment" according to one reviewer. Later films started accumulating washed-up (read "born-again") stars like plaque, but Apocalypse features awesomely named lead character "Bronson Pearl" easily making it the "must see Christian movie of the nineties!"

Marjoe

Marjoe

United States – 1971

 Director – Sarah Kernochan and Howard Smith

RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video, 1983, VHS

Run Time – 1 hour, 25 minutes

The first impression one gets while watching Marjoe – the man, not the movie- is that you’re being conned. Marjoe the film is about the man of the same name, Marjoe Gortner, whom I was introduced to, as I suspect most people within ten or so years on either side of 30 who watch movies were, by way of Starcrash. He was in a few other choice exploitation films of the late 70’s, but the Luigi Cozzi Star Wars rip off is probably his greatest work (and Cozzi’s.) Before he entered low budget cinema however, Gortner was a Pentacostal revival preacher from the age of four.

The difficulty, if it can be called that, for it is something more akin to suspicion and contagion, is in deciphering which of Gortner’s personalities is real; the speaking in tounges version, or the turned on tie-dye version, for each seems equally genuine. True, it’s unlikely that many of us has been to a revival the likes of those seen in Marjoe, but they bear a striking resemblance to the stories, and if the conviction and feeling of the attendees is anything to go on, Gortner is both effective and affective. Gortner is as convincing in his spasmic and gesticulating Haleilujah’s as he is counting the cash afterwards and explaining the intricacies of the faith healing scam to the documentary crew. Therein lies what I suspect is the convincing factor for so many fans of Marjoe (The Academy deemed it Best Documentary, 1972); its protagonists bizarre lack of duality. There is no difference outside context.

Gortner is not at one time a preacher and at another a hippie, but at all times Marjoe. To me this is what reveals the great lie in religion, for the pious man, the mouthpiece of God, the very conduit of the Holy Spirit (and thus the source of experiential faith) is merely a skilled and practiced (and it appears, weary) man at a job. He preaches because he knows how and it is lucrative, called to it as much as a plumber is “called” to fit pipe. The devout need him to confirm their faith in God as much as his long-haired pals need him to confirm their belief that it’s a sham. And of course, Gortner needs Marjoe in order to prove that he has a moral soul. It is fortunate for us, and I assume for Gortner that he can see and point to the difference between truth and fiction. It’s even more so to those like myself who are unbelievers, that Marjoe (the man and the movie) doesn’t clearly distinguish between the two because to do otherwise would be to rely on a common, but false dichotomy. Whether or not religion or science can be empirically proven is, for most of us, irrelevant. Each exists primarily to affirm through varying methods, our desires rather than any objective reality.

 We're gonna save this here pup, show him the kingdom of the almighty and bring him to Jesus!

Image 2 from MOMA
Image 3 from Jarrett's Blog
Image 4 from Awkwardboyhero

Years of the Beast

Years of the Beast

United States – 1981

Director – D. Paul Thomas

Gospel Films, 1988, VHS

Run Time – 1 hour, 38 minutes

The opening credits blink on over shots of Seattle’s University of Washington campus. Students study together on the steps of Suzzallo Library. Neo-gothic parapets and spires jut skyward, harsh and unrefined, in distinct contradiction the clear blue purity and simplicity of the heavens. It is entirely appropriate that Years of the Beast’s opening scene takes place here in order that the philosophical groundwork for the rest of the film be laid out. It is as important to Evangelical Christianity as to any other group to define itself by describing what it is against, even if that definition is utterly incoherent and inconsistent.

Can't, quite, make it out...

Professor Miles is a regular old secular academic, devoted to the pursuit of scientific knowledge. When Miles drops in at Smith Hall to visit Dr. Klineman he learns that his friend has just been fired. It seems that Klineman’s own research is the reason. Well, perhaps research is too generous a term, for Klineman has been drawing connections between current events and Bible prophecy, connections which do not qualify as ‘empirical knowledge’ to the Christ-hating academic community, but Klineman knows that the ‘truth’ is not secular.

Satan sez ballpoint on the palm is good enuf

At that very moment there is an earthquake and, to Miles’ bewilderment, Dr. Klineman vanishes without a trace. Thus begins the Rapture, a time when all the indisputably good Christians are whisked away to heaven while the rest of try to figure out why, if God really did make us in his image, did he give us inquiring minds? Was it because He too lacks all the answers and thought curiosity might be useful, or just that He enjoys watching us fumble and fuck up and get persecuted by Satan? But wait, wouldn’t rejecting God’s self-ness be essentially like rejecting God? All of this Doublethink is way too much for Miles' 'educated' heathen brain to process and in a weepy fit of cognitive dissonance he and his wife flee into rural Western Washington as the Tribulation descends upon a burning Seattle.

2nd Ave & Yesler Way Apocalypse!

Fortunately for Dr. Miles, you can’t take your research to heaven, and while dodging the emissaries of the Dark one he has plenty of time to pore over Klineman’s notes. Conveniently enough, all of the answers are in there, served up without any confounding footnotes, references or direct observations, and after a few heartfelt scenes of emotional pleading, Miles finds himself born again. But Satan is not going to let him go that easily. Persecuted by the Devil’s regional representative, the Skagit County Sheriff, Miles goes underground and joins a clandestine Bible study group to await the Second Coming. And come it does in a blast of shoddy animated light-rays. So, while his dreams of a tenured position at the U have evaporated in the blinding light of faith, Miles can rest assured that astrology draped in Christian trappings is totally not like regular astrology; it’s true.

Christ Returns!

Christ Returns!

United States - 

Director - 

Van Impe Video, 1998, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 20 minutes

Jesus de Nazareth

Jesus de Nazareth

Mexico - 1942

Director - Jose Diaz Morales

Psalty's Funtastic Praise Party

Psalty's Funtastic Praise Party

United States - 1983

Director - Gerald Cain

Word Incorporated, 1998, VHS

Run Time -58 minutes

Psalty's Funtastic Praise Party is a variety show for Christian children, or rather it's a Christian singalong for children who are too young to know any better. That's the best time to get 'em!

The best part are the three giant boxes on the stage in the first segment. They're supposed to be "praise boxes" into which the children are admonished to pour their praise or some such nonsense, but their physical dimensions and hinged lids make them look remarkably like dumpsters. When all the multicolored confetti and pom-poms pop out and shake around like wind-blown litter, it really reinforces the concept.

But the kicker, the real coup-de-grace is when all the puppets pop out and start dancing around and singing. Even if they didn't look exactly like muppets, the Oscar the Grouch/homeless scavenger effect would be unmistakable. They even have shaggy hair and one is wearing a lampshade.

I can't help but think that what we're getting here is a rehash of the happy-pauper Oliver Twist concept.

 The love of Christ and the promise of a better afterlife has long been a traditional salve to the oppressed and Christianity has always paid lip service to charity, so it should come as no surprise that part of childhood indoctrination is the notion that poor people like it that way, they're happy. It's as necessary to making oneself feel superior as it is to 'doing good works.' The very notion of charity as a practice requires that the giver has while the recipient has not. It necessitates, requires, even feeds on inequality and hierarchy which it subsequently becomes necessary to maintain.

To make equal, to really end deprivation and need would rob the benefactor of their sense of righteousness, deprive them of the psychological bandage that enables us to avoid more difficult questions. Therefore poverty (i.e. economic injustice) in this adulterated sense is a good thing.

Set Free

Set Free 

United States – 1976

Director –

Omega Entertainment, 1986, VHS

Run Time – 42 minutes

I simultaneously love and cringe at the cruel and irony in that title; Set Free. It’s as if every secular stereotype about Christianity and its professed morality was simply embraced as an obvious necessity. Of course, the title is meant to refer to the spiritual freedom supposedly discovered by the men it depicts; born again convicts, some of them on death row, in San Quentin Maximum Security State Prison in 1976. They are hardly “free” in any sense that you and I might tangibly comprehend of course. But, through a belief in Christ and their own subsequent re-birth, they have ostensibly become “spiritually free.”

Boy, he sure looks like he feels "free"

The veracity of this claim of “freedom” rests of course on the Christian assumption that morality comes through God and his religion, that morality is received by imperfect men, from God. If morality is externalized, or not of men, it becomes normal, even expected for men to commit immoral acts. This is an awfully convenient claim because it means that a person doesn’t have to live the morality, only the practice, the ritual, the rites of religion. This is because, while certainly admirable, morality isn’t necessary to the practice of the Christian faith, it’s just a side benefit. Would anyone argue that moral behavior is invalid when practiced outside a religious context? No, but by Christianity’s standards, an immoral person can, through piety and ritual remain a good Christian, while a moral person who is not “saved” (or converted) is surely going to Hell.

'Powered by Christ'

And this gives us some idea why it’s easy, or inspiring for death-row inmates to find “freedom” in a Christian re-birth. They are Set Free from responsibility for their past behaviors by the ritual of Christianity; which is principally testifying and prosthelytizing, of which constitutes the entire forty-two minutes of this film. A number of the converts admit of this freely, asserting that they “couldn’t do it, only Jesus could do it” for them, and that he “gave them a new brain.”

Of course, these inmate’s failures to observe social duties, moral obligations which are general and well known, is what led to their paying the social price for their crimes. This of course is the cruel irony of the title to which I was referring. These inmates are in no sense of the word “free.” Their feelings of guilt (however subconscious they may be) has led them to a double incarceration. In the physical sense of course there can be no question, but in coping with the reality of their circumstances they have been led to a doctrine which asserts strict rules, yet in no way prevents them from returning (either to the behavior or the prison to which it led them.) That is because, as many believers have forgotten, spiritual enlightenment still does not free us from our moral duties to ourselves and others.

Bibleman Jr.: Thankful for Jesus

Bibleman Jr: Thankful for Jesus

United States -

Director - 

Pamplin Entertainment, VHS

Run Time - 30 minutes

El Martir del Calvario

El Martir del Calvario

Mexico - 1952

Director - Miguel Morayta

Almost Born

Almost Born

United States - 1998

Director - 

Liberty Alliance, 1998, VHS

Run Time -

Hosted by the Reverend Jerry Falwell and featuring the expert and totally unbiased testimony of one Rick Santorum, Almost Born is a textbook example of exploitation cinema. 

What!??! Surely you're joking Lost Video Archive! I am not.

If you will recall the golden age of the grindhouse, your hazy memory may conjure the pre-credit disclaimer that was popularized by such gruesome films as Cannibal Holocaust and it's ilk. Almost Born does the very same thing even before you slide that tape out of the box. It sounds very official and experty, lending a great deal of intimidating authority to your name to call yourself a "doctor." If you hadn't earned a PhD however and went around calling yourself a doctor in real life, you would at best be laughed at, but in movies that's okay! It certainly lends a sinister authenticity to fiction doesn't it? If we're perfectly honest, we'll admit that Falwell did have three honorary doctorates, in Theology, granted by Christian colleges. But that's not what the picture suggests.

Even the term 'partial birth abortion' is a fiction, invented by the Right to Life Coalition in a (successful) attempt to make the procedure sound more objectionable and frame a political discussion rather than expound any medical accuracy. Still, while this video may be exemplary "faction," it also contains a great deal of truthiness as well. While repeatedly lamenting the poor women who are forced against their will by boyfriends or parents to undergo this procedure, Almost Born's panel of "experts" simultaneously decry a woman's right to choose. So which is it Almost Born? Are you for the right to choose, or against choice? But this internal contradiction reveals the true intent of the argument which is no choice at all. Well, not for you anyway, but for the good Doctor. He gets to choose for you because even though God made you in his image, he didn't mean for you to think for yourself.

Bibleman: Lead Us Not Into Temptation

Bibleman: Lead Us Not Into Temptation

United States - 1998

Director - Willie Aames

Pamplin Entertainment, 2001, VHS

Run Time: ?

Bells of Innocence

I had to buy all of these Norris movies when I was journeying through The Many Circles of Norris Hell, but I've since disposed of most of them so I got this cover image from Amazon.

Bells of Innocence

2003 – United States

Director – Ali Bijan

Good Times Video, DVD, 2004

Run time – 1 hour, 50 minutes

Two members of a Texas church, Oren and Conrad are headed to Mexico with a planeload of bibles for the peasants. "They couldn't ask for a better gift" one guy says. I'm thinking that they probably could ask you to keep your misguided gringo imperialism to yourself, or at the very least to deliver bibles in Spanish. Anyway, Oren and Conrad are joined by a third, troubled quasi-suicidal alcoholic, Jux (Mike Norris, yes, the offspring) who, after a bender the night before, is their acting "pilot".

On the way to Mexico they are forced to land in a field. A field surrounded by infinite sand dunes up every one of which Oren whines his big fat mouth. Just as I am about to press eject, they stumble upon a small prop "old west" town inhabited by stiff awkward extras (read members of the church that funded this movie). The town is evil, the mayor is even a minor demon or something, all this obviated by the fact that there is no municipal or economic infrastructure to speak of. God bless commerce, and the people walking back and forth across screen repeatedly clearly aren’t doing business, or anything else.

But, our three intrepid heroes are stuck there, so mongoloid Oren staggers around town, loud fat and cringingly friendly. Jux fawns over a little girl who reminds him of his deceased daughter. Conrad, I don't know what that loony fucker is up to, I think he's trying to seem smart and really "together," like the moral anchor to Oren’s charisma ball & chain. The town invites the three amigos to a harvest festival (read “Halloween is evil”) where they are given boozy tropical punch, and the children start playing satanic chanting games. Clearly, you’re either with us or you’re openly worshipping the devil in the streets.

Our three "faith based" heroes escape the demonic rituals to the home of Michael; Michael the archangel; Michael the Archangel played by stringy old homeless Chuck Norris. With the help of some banal faithy hard-rock theme music Michael mumbles something about the three of them being sent to Ceres to save it.

There is a stereotype of crass American tourists in which, unwilling to learn even some of the most basic local language, they yell English in people’s faces. The less the natives understand the slower and louder the Americans yell. Evangelists have embraced this principle because redeeming Satanists requires a similar narcissistic arrogance. The eviler folks are the louder and simpler you need to yell about the love of Jesus to make any progress. Actually, I hear that all foreigners are evil, so it follows.

Commander Kellie and The Superkids: The Intruder

Commander Kellie & The Superkids: The Intruder
United States - 1992
Director – Stephen Yake
Heirborne Video, 1992, VHS
Run time - 30 minutes

Commander Kellie and the Superkids is a bit like an episode of the Twilight Zone not just because of the crude special effects that illustrate obviously impractical science-fiction, but also because it warps and simplifies reality, in this case into an impressively stark good and evil world painted with ham handed strokes by optimistic Christian ideologues.

Case in point: The Superkids are creeping through some guys house from one closet to another while he sleeps. In the second closet, on the other side of the room, the kids come across a shimmering portal called a “Super Translator” that they all happily march into, the last of them pushing a big floor polisher. So as far as I know at this point, they’re just stealing big-ticket janitorial appliances. The sleeping guy awakens and unperturbed by the closet vortex, follows them in. Right behind him is a guy in a black “NME” uniform who is apparently tracking the kids on behalf of his sinister leader (who looks like his grampa, a friendly toy’s-for-tots biker who plays Santa Claus at the mall during Christmas)
Just to clarify, NME is the top “secret” acronym which stands for “Notoriously Malicious Entertainment” an evil media corporation whose malice is so “notorious” that they keep it “secret” by publicly airing violent TV shows featuring their foot soldiers holding guns to children’s heads while other children wail on Casio keyboards.

The superkids themselves are a mix of middle American white children, with the exception of one minority Alex, unless you consider robots a marginalized population, and after watching this you might. Since it would be to obviously racist to make the black kid the rapper, the producers went for a Steve Urkel clone instead, and unwittingly reinforced the juvenile reactionary racism of cultural "slumming" by making Rapper a confused white-boy.

When they arrive back at what I guess is their base, the kids report to, yes, Commander Kellie, a smokin’ hot southern belle who promptly leads them in song and dance. If ever there was a reason to simplistically rail against evil, the Superkid Acedemy theme is it. In the background poor Techno, cursed at birth with only three small wheels and a boxy unarticulated body, is left to his own devices and spins forlornly just slightly onscreen. No ramp has been installed on the stairs down to the dancefloor, and so only three small steps (so small they are, but like cliffs of injustice!) prevent Techno from rotating along with the kids (who also, cruel fate of organics, get to enjoy the warm supple embrace of Commander Kellie herself.)

The sleeping guy, ostensibly the “Intruder” of the title, pops up after the dance and turns out to be Carman who relates his story of woe when (based on the level of calamity related, I assumed that it must have been) Satan himself took a personal interest in destroying his life. Shocked out of their catatonic awe from meeting such a mercurial celeb and hearing the tale of his fate, the kids break out an inspiring song to lift Carman’s (downtrodden by the devil) spirits. Some clue as to why the antichrist may have made a point of persecuting him is revealed as Carman leans back in his seat, eyes narrowed and nods hungrily at the gyrating children. Oh yummy.


After their song, Carman performs one of his own derivative tunes about faith etc. while guitar-excluding close up shots of him rocking out give the appearance of furious, skin-tearing masturbation while the kids (along with the sudden unexplained bolstering of their number, though still almost exclusively white) clap along. Techno meanwhile is positioned behind all the skin bags, almost out of sight where, cursed with cold hinged metal claws, he can only sadly clank them together in a repetitive pinching motion, depressingly out of time with Carman’s, uh… performance.

After such an inspiring climax, the surplus children are zapped back into ozone, and all that remains is for someone to be saved. The Notoriously Malicious dope who followed Carman through the Super Translator pops up with a blaster while Commander Kellie is alone in the engine room. Shielding herself from the blast of his weapon with a glimmering blue “faith shield” she uses “The Manual” and a bitter tough-love sermon to convince NME tool to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior.

As the kids and Kellie bid farewell to a visibly sweaty and spent Carman, Techno stands motionless amid the chirping preteen crowd considering why such a benevolent god would forsake a lonely robot, and if it’s physically possible to tie a noose with barely articulated iron pincers.


Bonus Program! (AKA shameless advertisement):
Following the 30 minute feature is an extended plug for Carman’s christian evangelism video series Time 2 Club Video in which various faith experts make factual arguments for god, christian musicians rock out and general video prosthelytization occurs. Decked out in a retina assaulting uranium sweater, Carman encourages us to subscribe to his monthly video club which will be “not just fun, nah”, it will be “a straight up blast”. Based on what I’ve just seen him do in front of those kids, I now know exactly what he means by that.

Visit Kellie’s parents ministry online, and apparently all throughout the world as their traveling Christ Circus seems to be perpetually preaching unsophisticated and polarized morality towards the brown people they deign to include in their video propaganda.

R.I.P.
Techno
1990 - 1992