Terrible Christian Films

That is rather surprising to me

 

There was a Baptist preacher from Mississippi named Estus Pirkle who teamed up with exploitation filmmaker Ron Ormond who got saved after he was in a plane crash.

The Burning Hell - about what fundamentalist Christians believe will happen to people who aren't saved when they die - famous for a guy on a motorcycle getting into an accident and decapitated and the friend going to church, having a nervous breakdown during Pirkle's sermon on hell and getting saved - OH, MY SOOOOOUL!!! DOOM!! DOOOOOM!!


If Footmen Tire You What Will Horses Do? - a movie from the 70s about the communists taking over the US - famous for a graphic beheading of a little boy who refuses to renounce his belief in Jesus, a Soviet soldier beating up a woman's husband and then raping her (the soldier and the woman were father and daughter IRL), people being machine gunned down in a church parking lot, a little boy getting his eardrums punctured by a bamboo stick so he can't hear the gospel, and a soldier brainwashing kids with candy - it's truly bizarre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Footmen_Tire_You,_What_Will_Horses_Do?

 

As a religious person, I honestly do get why Christian-themed movies are made, and they totally can be done well, but I don't understand why it is they've been terrible lately. It's been pretty sad, especially since I've seen better Mormon-made films. Though I've seen a few that make me go "Why?"

Like I didn't care much for The Singles Ward and Church Ball, the latter simply because I've never had to grow up around a ward basketball team, so I didn't get it--also it was weird seeing Gary Coleman in a Mormon film. And I have a feeling I may not like the one Pride and Prejudice movie if I were to watch it again ('course I barely remember seeing it as a teenager). But it kind of says something when The Book of Mormon Movie that covers the first two books of Nephi was even panned by Mormons to the point no "volume 2" exists. (And wait, they removed a shot of Nephi's blood-splattered face when he beheads Laban for home-release? What the hell??)

There's also like two direct-to-video musicals that were made based off the books of Nephi and Alma, but I can't for the life of me remember the exact titles. I'd check our shelves to see if we still have them, but I honestly don't want to bother, and I think we might've quietly gotten rid of them since they were weird even for us.

And there's probably also a reason why Passage to Zarahemla quietly faded to obscurity. Never really heard anyone talk about it.

 

Like most markets, film production expands to meet demand. So when there's a big demand for religious movies or superhero movies or whatnot, a lot of them get made. It doesn't mean they'll be any good, usually quite the opposite. That's because, once a demand is established by the first few films, the rest don't have to be of the same quality. They can be crap and people will still go see them.

That being said, here's an obnoxious one from 1952. It's a toxic little brew of religious fundamentalism and red scare ultra-conservative politics that was trying to ride the first wave of Hollywoo sci-fi movies. It's called Red Planet Mars and stars Peter Graves and pretty much no one else. Enjoy!

 

I am not sure if I can explain it properly, but this is my hypothesis: Moderate Christians (I tend to respect them) have a "live and let live" mindset which I have no problems with. But they tend to remain silent and try to stay out of the spotlight unlike their fundamentalist brethren (I have a lot of issues with them) who will rant about how secularism is destroying society and making people gay or whatever other crap they are spouting out. Because the more moderate Christians don't speak up against their fundamentalist brethren or try to convince them that their behavior is unacceptable, it has led to the stereotype that Christians are judgemental hypocrites. I think that a lot of people will not want to see a christian movie due to the thought it will be some religious nutjob film and because the fundies will label their movies as "Christian", it adds fuel to the fire.

The conclusion section of the After Eden article on the bad webcomics wiki is partially where I get my potential explanation to your question.

 

Are you a fan of Squidbillies by chance? If you are, have you seen the episode called God's Bro?

I'm just asking, because in that episode God's step-brother kills Kirk Cameron because his movies suck.

 

Never forget.

 

fuuuuuccck he was the one who coined the term crocoduck? LLS

 

I'm surprised no one's mentioned this yet

 

It's gotten so bad that even Christians joke about the movies.

Sidenote: Tim LaHaye said that the Left Behind remake script was the worst screenplay he ever saw.

 

when the author of a book you're making a film on hates the script, you know you fucked up

 

And when the author himself is kind of a twat, you know you really fucked up.

 

I suppose that's one thing to take from the past, we did keep these matters to ourselves and never let out 'dirty laundry' for others to see. Social media and other avenues have made dirty laundry a very regular thing nowadays.

I wouldn't mind a bit of comfort if none of these fetishes existed.

 

Are other Abrahamic faiths close enough to Christian for the purpose of this thread?
Because there's International Gorillay, a Pakistani film about a trio of heroic muslims who set out to assassinate the evil Salami Rushdie.

The end of the film literally has the Koran come down and fry Rushman with lightning.

 

I almost feel "horrible Muslim films" could be its own thread but good find.

 

I bet!

 

WAT?

 

while I would agree, it might be a bit of effort unless someone has a good understanding of Arabic, Urdu (the language of International Gorillay), Bengali (Language of Bangladesh), Indonesian and so on. But if you wanna try it, I say go for it.

 

The Killing of Satan. I can't link a vid because I'm at college atm but I'll do so when I get home.



Those crazy Filipinos