Note: While the movie isn't negative about religion, it may offend some people. A sense of humour is really required for it.
Wow. Okay, it's not *quite* "Barn of the Blood Llama" bad, but it's up there. But bad in an amusing way. An interesting use of C$40,000.
(Research post-movie reveals that there's a genre of b-movies referred to as "Canuxploitation" Further research of this genre is called for. Any volunteer watchers??)
The movie starts out with a crazy man looking like the love child of Rasputin and Jack T. Chick, ranting about themes in Christianity. He pops up at irregular points in the movie, in much the same way that the narrator in "Rocky Horror Picture Show" does.
We then get a vampiress taking down a cleaning lady and stealing her car. Based on the smile on the cleaning lady's face and the way the vampiress was licking her ear, it seemed to be an enjoyable death. The vampiress takes the car and drives off into the sunrise.
Yes, you read that right, sunrise. This will be important later.
Cut to a newspaper headline about the city-wide shortage of lesbians, followed by a cut to a church, with one priest (Father Eustace) and punk priest Father Alban discussing missing members of the church. Fr. Alban and another priest ride off on a scooter to ask Jesus Christ for His help.
Thankfully, Jesus Christ is at a nearby beach, doing baptisms and drinking lemonade. He discusses His desire not to intervene, using a sandcastle as a metaphor to discuss His mission to build His Father's kingdom. This is interrupted by a booted foot destroying the sandcastle. Oops, three lesbian vamps, all looking like Hot Topic clerks, are standing in the sunshine, looking to kick butt and bite necks.
A fight ensues, and both the punk priest and his sidekick become a snack for the vamps. However, Jesus Christ doesn't give in that easily, and He drives the three vamps off. He then decides to go into town and deal with this problem.
After a stop for a shave, a haircut, and to get His ears pierced, (not to mention a 10 minute street-wide song and dance number along the streets of Ottawa), Jesus gets some firewood to carve into stakes, and walks to an apartment that the church provides Him. However, (in one of the most amusing fight sequences in the movie) he gets sidetracked. A group of atheists decide to object to the second coming and band together to attack Him. This is about 30 or so, coming in waves of six at a time, due to the atheists luck in having a Jeep of Holding. However, Jesus seems to have spent part of the time He wandered visiting a friendly neighborhood Shaolin Temple, because He uses holy Kung Fu (Crouching Lamb, Hidden Rabbi style I presume) and proceeds to kick all their disbelieving butts.
Back at the apartment, and He's ambushed by a woman. Turns out she's an operative for the church named Mary Magnum. In a sauna scene, Mary tells Jesus about the doctor she's investigating, and they agree to check him out, after going to get some less obvious clothes for Jesus. Mary doesn't seem to feel a need to follow her own advice, spending the rest of the movie in a impressively tight copper-coloured leather jumpsuit.
Good thing they did, because they get a lead in the used clothing store, and follow one of the vamps, Maxine Shreck, to the local hospital. There, they sneak into an air vent and discover that the doctor Mary is investigating, one Dr. Praetorious, has developed a way to protect the vampires from sunlight. This involves harvesting skin from lesbians, (why lesbian skin?? Not a single clue), and implanting it on vampires.
Maxine has teamed up with head vampire Johnny Golgotha by this time, and Jesus and Mary decide to go after them and try to stop their reign of terror over the city's lesbian population. Johnny and Maxine stop to snack on a whole community centre of lesbians, and then take on Jesus and Mary. The good guys get their butts kicked, and the last thing Jesus sees before He passes out is Maxine feasting on Mary.
Jesus tries to get someone to help Him, and is ignored by a cardinal and a constable, before being taken home and nursed back to health by the hairiest transvestite I've ever seen. (No kidding, he looked like a yeti wearing lingerie.)
Needless to say, Jesus is crushed by His loss, until His Father manifests Himself in a bowl of ice cream and tells His Son to enlist the help of Mexican Wrestling star Santos. (He also reminds His Son to call His Mother). In very short order, Santos and his assistant (Gloria Oddbottom, who gets her bottom patted and felt up a LOT in this movie) flies up to Ottawa to give Jesus some help with the vamps. Their first stop is a nightclub hosting the musician Blind Johnny Leper. Blind Johnny invites Christ up to jam with him. However, when Jesus looks into the stage mirror, He notices that only Him, Santos, and Oddbottom are casting reflections. Using drumsticks, toothpicks, stakes, chair legs, and anything else handy, Jesus and Santos make mincemeat of most of the vamps in the nightclub, before Maxine uses some sleep powder to put Santos and Oddbottom to sleep. To save His friends, Jesus surrenders to Johnny and Maxine.
Later, in a junkyard, Johnny and Maxine tie Jesus between two cars. He also finds out that Fr. Eustace has now become a vampire himself. They attempt to render Jesus limb from limb, until Santos frees himself and then rushes to Christ's aid. Jesus and Santos take on a tag-team of lesbian vampires, the now-vamped Mary Magnum, as well as Johnny, Maxine, and Eustace. Meanwhile, Jesus, taking advantage of the fact He's everywhere, also gets into a fight with the crazy Dr. Praetorious at the hospital. Despite the doctor's ability to turn internal organs into martial arts weapons, Jesus finally kicks the crap out of the doctor. Just in time to catch a stake in the chest back in the junkyard.
Bad move on the vampires side. The holy light streaming out of the hole in Jesus' chest turns Johnny and Eustace into ash. Christ then goes to heal Mary, and gives Santos the ability to heal one of the lesbian vampires he has fallen in love with. Turns out Mary has a major case of the hots for Maxine, and asks Jesus to heal her as well. He does so, and the now un-undead couple join into a major lip lock. Things aren't looking like a happy ending for Santos, until it's discovered that the lesbian ex-vampire he healed is actually bisexual, at which point Santos throws his fists up in the air and cheers.
We then get the Sermon from the Gazebo, spoken to many of the same people from the song and dance number, followed by a cut back to the airport, as Santos and his ex-vampire girlfriend are about to head back south, (Oddbottom seems to be staying with Jesus for some reason). The movie ends with Santos and friend flying off into the sunset.
One of the more interesting religious/vampire/lesbian/kung-fu movies I've ever seen. This is what would happen if you dumped Rocky Horror Picture Show, Jesus Christ Superstar, Mexican Wrestling Movies, and Kung Fu movies into a mix-master. Hysterically bad - and hysterically funny.
Since people asked, here's the order info:
(Filmmaker) http://www.odessafilmworks.com/catalogue/index.html (note, the US version is region one coded. The Canadian version is region free. May have to get a copy sent to friends up there so I can get the region-free version)
(Amazon US) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00007CVRX/
(Amazon CA) http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00007CVRX/
Also, for the more seriously-minded, the American Academy of Religion has a review here
For the less seriously-minded, BadMovies.org has a review complete with stills, audio clips, and video here.
On edit, the closing theme music is available for MP3 download from the movie maker's website.
http://www.odessafilmworks.com/jcvh/music.html
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