On Friday nights, IndieWire After Darkish takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema within the streaming age.
First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight film choose — one thing bizarre from any age of movie that deserves our memorializing.
Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as skilled by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s suggestion.
The Pitch: A Very Sapphic Second Coming
Given the selection to observe Jesus combat a pack of lesbian vampires or an honest-to-God homophobe, I’ll virtually at all times select the lesbian vampires. It’s not that I wouldn’t prefer to see an illiberal bigot get roundhouse-kicked by the Prince of Peace; in truth, that picture is especially tempting forward of Easter weekend throughout an election yr.
However as an ex-Catholic college lady born of the “Twilight” era, my unquenchable thirst for attractive vampires supersedes my style for advantage signaling more often than not. Fortunate for me, the very queer “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter” is a slice of heavenly shlock that was made for having simply that kind of LGBT cake — and consuming it too.
Pitting a radically accepting Catholic Church and its resurrected Messiah towards a harmful horde of vampires killing lesbians in Ottawa, director Lee Demarbre and author Ian Driscoll debuted this low-budget style mix to a handful of delighted audiences in the summertime of 2001. The surprisingly feel-good parody — which mixes an action-spoof framework with gothic horror, just a few songs, and a few terribly, terribly produced girl-on-girl sexiness — made pageant rounds and established its devoted cult fandom the next yr.
Breaking out with this sapphic spin on the Second Coming, the Canadian filmmakers beforehand labored collectively on “Harry Knuckles.” That was a collection of campy kung-fu shorts, which impressed the martial arts portion of Demarbre’s blood-sucking function and assembled a lot of the expertise wanted to make it. Actor Phil Caracas — AKA Mr. Knuckles himself — stars this time as Jesus: a laidback Son of God, who is completely down with the lesbians and appears rad as hell in some barbell hoop earrings. He’s rising from the ocean in a nasty wig. He’s main a jazzy dance quantity fully off-key. He’s using a skateboard, actually, actually badly! I don’t know, he’s Jesus!
Newly tasked with defending these at-risk queer congregants, Ottawa’s Lord and Savior goes to want some muscle; enter Jeff Moffet in an unauthorized revival of the late Mexican luchador character, El Santo (originated by Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta). Jesus may also mix forces with investigative motion star Mary Magnum (Maria Moulton) who loves to make use of her chunky laptop computer in a heated sauna (???), perpetually wears an ill-fitting purple jumpsuit, and has been trying into this particular breed of the undead for fairly a while. “Why can they stroll within the daylight?” everybody desperately needs to know for some in the end fairly unimportant motive.
Our woman in purple can also have a factor for the de facto sexiest vampire, Maxine Shreck (Murielle Varhelyi). Maxine was a lezzie live performance organizer on the church. Now, she’s a demonic ringleader sporting black lipstick and… slides? Simply go together with it. She’s continuously seen with Johnny Golgotha (screenwriter Driscoll rocking a powerful Christian Bale in “American Psycho” impression) and some dozen weaponized atheists. Do the gays imagine in God? Does God imagine within the gays? Who is best in hand-to-hand fight?
From a high-hat backed recitation of the Bible’s books (“Matthew… tsst… tsst… tsst.. Mark… tsst… tsst…”) to the bloodbath on the Lesbian Drop-In Heart full with “However I’m a Cheerleader” poster, “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter” is a spectacularly foolish D-movie. It’s additionally an earnestly candy train in unpacking spiritual homophobia that’s anchored in ridiculous dialogue (“If I’m not again in 5 minutes, name the Pope!”) and honest sentiment (“Love isn’t deviant!”) Come for the promise of a movie that’s blissfully blasphemous; come once more for the queer cuties who discovered it first. —AF
The Aftermath: Jesus Died to Save Us from Our Cinema
Few predicaments require me to probe my overlapping identities as a Catholic and a free speech absolutist extra intensely than the age previous query of whether or not Jesus Christ is simply too sacred to seem in a schlocky lesbian vampire B-movie. However once I heard that we have been tackling a film known as “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter,” it turned apparent that I’d must face the very query that I had tried so onerous to keep away from for many of my grownup life.
If you happen to have been to rank all eight billion people presently inhabiting the earth by their piety, it’s unlikely that I’d emerge within the prime slot. However I’ve at all times been fascinated by artists who weave theology into their secular works. From Leonard Cohen to Julien Baker, there’s a storied custom of Biblically-inclined poets juxtaposing the sacred and the profane to create intellectually difficult work. However not since Ecclesiastes has somebody juxtaposed holiness and stupidity as a lot as “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.”
Which isn’t to say that I notably preferred the film. I assumed the storytelling and manufacturing worth have been too sloppy to be compelling and too self-aware to be loved satirically. (Loyal readers of the column may do not forget that self-awareness is the silver bullet that immediately kills my enthusiasm for nearly any midnight film.) However as I labored via my very own religious biases, I used to be relieved to search out that my points with the movie have been purely with its high quality, not the truth that it exists.
As I obtained previous the preliminary shock of what’s in the end a harmlessly campy movie, I started to consider what I contemplate to be top-of-the-line traditions of Christianity: Church buildings portraying Jesus as no matter ethnicity dominates their congregation. Whereas anybody who denies the historic actuality that Jesus was Center Jap wants their head examined, I believe it’s cool as hell when church buildings in Japan or Africa depict Him as Asian or Black. To me, the phenomenon is among the most succinct methods to elucidate an esoteric Christian idea: the concept Jesus is concurrently an actual human being and a logo representing an undefinable divine presence. Completely different cultures create completely different life circumstances that require approaching organized faith in numerous methods, and taking creative license with Jesus’ likeness is a small manner of displaying that Christianity belongs to everybody.
I believe the identical may very well be stated about “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.” Whereas this depiction of Jesus doesn’t communicate to me the way in which “The Final Temptation of Christ” does, I’ve little doubt that there are some individuals who can be rather more moved by this than any theologically rigorous movie. Identical to the historic Jesus is separate from the Christ of Religion, Jesus has additionally taken on a 3rd identification as an inventive image that may match into any tradition. it from that perspective, I don’t see any motive why the horror film group ought to be excluded from the enjoyable. As we enter the holiest weekend on the Christian calendar, we should always all take a second to understand that there are much less vampires and extra lesbians on the streets tonight. —CZ
These courageous sufficient to affix in on the enjoyable can stream “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter” free on Plex and Tubi. IndieWire After Darkish publishes midnight film suggestions at 11:59 p.m. ET each Friday. Learn extra of our deranged options…