Karla Faye Tucker: Forevermore [2004]

Again in the absence of a couple of Bad Movie Night people, we decided to take a gamble with Occult Demon Cassette's most recent movie night upload: "Karla Faye Tucker: Forevermore." This film is based on the real life story of Texas death row inmate Karla Faye Tucker. It's an uncommon combination of a Christian movie with a prominent romance and a hefty dose of tragedy porn. The film is also clearly a passion project of the writer, director, and producer Helen Gibson and in a unique casting situation the roles of Tucker and her eventual husband Dana Brown are seemingly played by a married couple.

Considering the fact that this movie is a full two hours long, it's kind of surprising how little plot there is. The first half of the movie is more or less about the love story of Karla and Dana. Dana is a preacher who dresses like Adam (black t-shirt, black jeans, black belt) who goes to meet Karla and they fall in love and have a prison marriage. Karla herself is a pickaxe murderer and former drug addict and prostitute who has found Jesus. The cast of characters is rounded out by a prison chaplain who wears silly hats to amuse Karla and a prison guard, possibly played by Helen Gibson, who is not so charmed by Karla that she doesn't think she deserves to die and also threatens to tear up the inmate vegetable garden so you know she's mean. Both the prison guard and a cigarette-smoking judge who has a few scenes are campy evil and also love to accessorize with Texas-shaped things. The second half of the movie is a lot of random scenes of Karla reading or writing letters in her cell, full length song sequences that look like low budget music videos, and discussions about trying to get her sentence thrown out. There is no success there and the last half hour is a lot of moving her to her execution, the execution itself, and a little bit of aftermath. Somewhat surprisingly, the movie ends on a very clear anti-death penalty stance and also uses the real life footage of George W. Bush denying a commuting of her sentence. For a Christian movie in 2004, this is actually a pretty hot take.

This movie is definitely on the fence. Were it only 90 minutes, we would probably be more comfortable recommending it, but the length of the film really causes it to drag. Of the positives, there's the fact that no one in the movie can show anger or meanness without being completely over-the-top, excessive use of the adjective "God-sized" (I thought he was infinite and formless?), and some absolutely choice images and editing. At one point a character is talking about Karla and says he saw the face of God and the film cuts to a close up of a boy dressed like a grim reaper eating a hot dog. On two different occasions we have Karla t-posing like Christ, once right before her husband macs on her in front of the disapproving guard and then, of course, on the execution table made to look even more like a cross than it already does. So much of the film is constructed in this very specific way that feels a little fetishistic in the way romantic comedies are but through a sad, Jesus lens. Basically, if this sounds like your jam, go for it. None of us regret watching it, and it was kind of interesting from a true crime perspective, but we can't really recommend it.

Spoon Rating: 4.5