We at Bad Movie Night have only dabbled in the genre of Christian movies, often in the form of PSAs from both the 1950s and the present. However, one of our favorite Bad Movie Hall of Fame movies is the totally bananas "Saving Christmas", so exploring the genre more seemed like it would be worth our time. At some point Adam acquired last Monday's film, the "Christian horror" movie "Escape From Hell", to help expand our knowledge and it was a trip.The plot revolves around a clinically depressed doctor who had a strained relationship with his father who abandoned him. His father comes back into his life looking for forgiveness after becoming a Born Again Christian and he rejects him. Meanwhile at work, a man with heart problems has a near death experience that is brought to the attention of a psychologist specializing in the genre who is looking for more and more proof of an afterlife. The psychologist had put a light up sign on the roof of the hospital so she could put phrases on it that could be repeated by people who have floated out of their bodies and this man managed to recite the phrase "Ducks be not proud" as proof. The doctor and the psychologist go out to dinner in someone's living room and then she shows him videos of testimonies as foreplay. The doctor's father dies and he has nightmares that his father is in hell and suddenly feels guilty enough about not forgiving him to plan a temporary suicide. He sets up a makeshift emergency room in the basement of the hospital and calls his doctor friend and the psychologist to tell them what he's done. He initially goes to heaven through the "Doctor Who" credits but gets rejected and goes to hell, which is essentially Mordor, where he can't find his heaven-bound father but does see the man with the heart condition whose good deeds were not enough to get him into heaven because he was not saved/born again. When the doctor is revived he runs straight to a church and the reverend there zealously saves him and gets him to accept Christ.
Like "Saving Christmas" this movie has a clear Christian goal but goes about it in the weirdest way possible. Not only does it maintain that being a good person means nothing without strong religious conviction, it also has the main character accepting Christ pretty much out of a combo of fear of going back to hell and the desire to see his father again. The ends justify the means, I guess. Aside from the muddled theme, the movie is poorly acted and bland. There were some hilariously bad special effects and some great line reads but overall it dragged a bit and would have probably been more enjoyable if it had been more . . . Jesus-y.
Quotes:
Opening Credit: "Dedicated to the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
Blind Woman: "It was like nothing I had ever seen!"
"I just took a cocktail of potassium chloride. Wanna join me?"
"But THAT'LL KILL YOU."
Spoon Rating: 5
Adam's Grandma's Review: "It was kinda complicated."
No comments:
Post a Comment