Director - Nik Box (Brutal Jesus and the House of Wasted Youth)
Starring - John Maguire (Caffeineiac), Marcus Caballero (Together We Are One), and Nik Box
Release Date - 2012
Genre - Horror/Exploitation
Tagline - "He's carrying out the good work of the lord by killing sinners one at a time"
Format - Streaming (Youtube Screener)
Favorite Quote - "What would Jesus do? I'd kill them niggas"
Rating (out of 5):
A few days ago I was at work when I received an email on my phone. When I checked it I was surprised to see it was from Nik Box. If any of you are actually reading my posts then his name will look familiar. He was the director behind Brutal Jesus and after reading my review sent me an email. In my post I was not kind when I reviewed the film. However, Nik was a professional and understood it was a review of his film and not on him personally. Nik was even nice enough to send me some links to two of his other films so I could give them a watch and review them. So out of the two I picked this one to be the first on the chopping block. This is the sequel to Brutal Jesus and the second film in the christploitation trilogy.
The film opens with a young man drinking on the beach as a priest (Maguire) walks by. The man throws down his empty can and the vicar kindly picks it up and returns it to him. The guy then throws the can down again and this goes back and forth until the man becomes angry and pushes the vicar. The vicar then pimp slaps the young man with his bible and then beats him to death with it. The film then moves to Jesus (Caballero) talking to the vicar telling him not to question his faith and to kill those that have humiliated him. The film then jumps to a black and white sequence where the vicar is being harassed in the park by three individuals. The leader of the pack is Reverend Drago (Box) who does free baptisms in the homes of those that wish to get closer to God. He then drowns them in their bathtubs because he is one sick padre. The three guys hold the vicar down and piss in his mouth after roughing him up a little. The vicar sets out to kill them one by one reminiscent of a slasher film. He finds the first person in his home shitting before killing him and rubbing a cross on his head with shit. The second he strangles in the woods with rope. However, before facing Drago, Jesus warns him that Drago will not be easy to kill because he has been feasting on sin. The two meet in the park and have a bible fight until the Vicar whoops his ass.
This movie was a big improvement over the last but it still could have been better than what it was. I'm not going to write a good review just because the director will read it. I am going to be honest and show my opinions and like I said before this is strictly for the movie and not about the director himself. I have a lot of respect for any director regardless if I like their movies or not. They are actually doing something with their lives that I would love to do but don't have the balls. Anyway, as for the film. Just like Brutal Jesus, the story is very original and had the potential to be a great film but fails to deliver. Also the acting is a bit better than Brutal as well. Marcus Caballero does an outstanding job in his role as Jesus and adds personality to the character which is something the first one lacked. He had me laughing my ass off the whole time he was giving his speech to the vicar. This movie also did away with the random psychedelic scenes that served no point to the story. This film is very story driven and you understand why the vicar is killing the three. You can tell this movie had more thought behind it compared to the first film when it comes to the actual delivery of the story. Because the movie flows a lot better the grindhouse look fits the film a lot better. This film is definitely a big improvement but it also has a lot of room to grow. In some scenes the audio seemed out of sync with the video. I have no idea if that was intentional to give that film an even more grindhouse feel or not but it was annoying. Also, I wanted more with the deaths regardless if it was on camera or not. The effects are non-existent and that is understandable with the budget but with a little more thought and more creativity then death scenes could be more than what we got. Overall, this movie is better than the first but is still not the best. It was entertaining for one viewing, and just like Brutal, I will probably buy it to collect but will never watch it again. Box has motivation and with each film surpassing the next he will eventually learn from them and with time create some cult classics. Until then we are given extreme rough cuts of films that should be remade when the budget allows. Even though it is not on par with other films I usually recommend, you should still give this one a watch and support the filmmaker.
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