b4 left behind... there was this gem

having gone from scary indoctrinated preteen fundamentalist southern baptist to bisexual goth early twenty-something satanist to neo-pagan universalist in the past eighteen or so years I decided I would download this gem and rewatch it as a straight horror movie and see how it compared to the genre as a whole. and that's what it is really, that and left behind and the 700 club and pat robertson, and the whole 9, christian terrorists, with a multibillion dollar christian horror franchise at their feet. who cares if it ends with some big devastating biblically accurate apocalypse... as long as the dough keeps rolling in, right?

and after fifteen minutes my thinking slowly changed. not only did it not rekindle any scared eleven year old end of the world fears of not being a good enough christian and yet still old enough at eleven for god to eternally torture in hell if i wasn't... but it was funny... hilarious actually. it's been years since i've had such rich tear jerking belly laughs. a few rationally minded film friends and my adult film analyzing mind just bulldozed a movie that caused me a few years of absolute terror in my childhood, that was not only not alleviated by the adults in my life at the time, but encouraged by them. this movie has some of the worst scene development and cinematography matched with completely unbelievable and melodramatic acting. it's a wicked mixture really that structurally resembles more the makings of Scary and Epic Movie type comedies than contemporary horror films. i wouldn't be suprised if this shows up as a spoof in the near future. though it probably wouldn't fly for being potentially too marginalizing of more conservative christians who believe it or not, (and most people don't who haven't met them), actually believe this garbage. and then teach it to children who CAN'T know any better.

I guess it turns out that God really does have a sense of humor... it just took me twenty years to get the punchline.