The VelociPastor - Die Klaue Gottes

This was glorious. Pure batsh** cheese. So much better than I could have even hoped for.

Brendan Steere, Alyssa Kempinski, and Greg Cohan are a dino-mite team in The VelociPastor. Pretty much everything about the movie was perfect; if you're a fan of low-budget horror-comedies, it's a must-see. It has everything you could ask for - perfectly timed, groan-worthy lines, props that look like they came from a school play, and actors that embrace every bit of the cheese potential.

This had me roaring with laughter several times. It's the type of movie that, honestly, if you don't look at the poster and go "Oh, my God, I need this" then you need to just back away slowly. It's crude, loud, and ridiculous and amazingly good. Steere manages to bring the feel of the 70s to the screen in the best way. And when you add ninjas and a VelociPastor, really, there's nothing else you dare ask for.

Part of (okay, most of) what makes The VelociPastor so great is that Kempinksi and Cohan (a better-looking version of Benedict Cumberbatch) act the hell out of it. It's stupid cheesy, and yet they manage such solid performances that you can't help but admire them.

Overall, this is a near perfect movie and I (and Sam, who also watched and gave her input here) recommend it to everyone. Lots of action, lots of laughter, lots of fun.

Disclaimer: I received a screening link to this movie from the publicist for review consideration.

There's horror comedies, (Cabin in the Woods), comedies with horror, (Freaks of Nature, Pirhana 3D), or there's a special breed of film, like "Birdemic" that are comedies that are supposed to be horror, and don't know that they're comedies. Like 'The Room', 'Fateful Findings' or the aforementioned 'Birdemic' what makes those films so great, is that they're not intentionally setting out to make something 'so bad it's good' - it's just a happy, miraculous accident. Films like 'Velocipastor' or 'Sharknado' seem to exist in an uncanny valley, a mirror version of the former three films. They're a cheap imitation, and don't work.

Velocipastor was made on a shoestring budget, and that can actually work to some films' benefit - Clerks, Paranormal Activity, and the Blair Witch project were made on the cheap, and they're smart, often terrifying, or in the case of Clerks, hilarious films. A good story and clever filmmaking can overcome any budget issues. Here, an explosion is shown as plain text that says "insert exploding car VFX" that elicits a minor chuckle the first time, and just annoys every time after. When you're intentionally missing cues, inserting boom mic's overhead, having 'editing' mishaps it's not funny. It's like a planned blooper. Bloopers are funny precisely because they're unplanned. Here it just makes the filmmaker look like a self-saboteur, so uninterested in their own story they're cutting corners wherever they can to be "meta", when in reality it's just laziness. There's a goofy idea here, that maybe could have worked better as a straight faced horror comedy, without the winking at the camera. The filmmakers here are in on the joke. The problem is, is that the joke just isn't funny.

That being said - the two main actors do a fine job in their ridiculous roles - and deserve some better work in the future. And the soundtrack is killer. A scene midway through the film looks like a music video, and that's maybe what this should have been - a goofy, three minute punk rock music video. At 70 or so minutes - it feels like an eternity.

After a cruel twist of fate, a broken priest travels to China to find himself only to become afflicted with a curse turning him into a deadly dinosaur, and when he meets up with a troubled prostitute sets out to use his gift to help others which lets a deadly ninja cult find out about him and bringing them into conflict.

This one was quite the blast of a B-movie. What works best here is the obvious and overt winks that play up how ludicrous and over-the-top the storyline is. The concept involving a man grabbing onto a curse where he turns into a rampaging dinosaur capable of using those powers as the means to eliminate the crazed group of ninjas taking over the underground drug trade in the city should not be taken seriously in the slightest. The tongue-in-cheek nature of what's going on here, from the forced seriousness of the musical cues to the effects work and even the good-standing of the film to wink at the camera with how serious the silliness is adds a sense of fun to this one. As well, the film's short running time manages to constantly provide something funny and enjoyable to like. There's so much goofy and nonsensical action centered around the implausibility of the dinosaur hunting people down when we know it's a priest doing this all along, as the scenes of him eating the pimp, running out of an exorcism or fighting off ninjas while as a human and dino version in absolutely hysterical combat sequences provide the cheesiness required to give this the kind of complete cheesy package provided here. On the whole, these are what manage to hold this one up. There were a few minor flaws here. The main issue here is the completely explaining anything simply for the sake of the joke. There's something to be said for not being the point of the film, but the fact that no one's looking for any of the missing victims including the loner left dismembered in a public park or the other one he attacked in the church leaving physical evidence of the encounter behind. Likewise, there's nothing here to explain how the one victim who suffered a mortal wound in battle, visibly dying as a result, comes back later on without a scratch and no word as to how they survived. Granted, that's just a part of the joke and not the intention here but some of this could've been explained or touched upon. Likewise, the other real flaw here is the film's overall cheesy tone that won't be very appealing for some out there. There's plenty of work here in the cheesy realm featuring barely-finished CGI effects, badly-rendered physical make-up on the wounds and scars and the entire battle between the dinosaur and the ninjas taking place while having the dinosaur featured in a children's party costume performing rudimentary wrestling moves against the ninjas in a scene of pure jaw-dropping hilarity on the audacity to perform that on-camera. Still, thinking this is to be in any form of realistic manner is too cheesy to be included here which might take this to a point that's not entirely worthwhile for some, holding this one down for the most part.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Don't worry, the spirit of the filmmakers are sitting next to you as you watch The VelociPastor winking and nudging and laughing the entire time. In other words, they're in on the joke and you should be too. The VelociPastor is as ridiculously fun as you'd hope it would be with a boyish, soft spoken priest (a perfectly cast Greg Cohan) obtaining the ability to turn into a vicious, flesh eating, and very corny looking dinosaur. The film plays out like a Saturday morning cartoon meets Troma, which makes it the perfect midnight movie with some weed or beer. Alyssa Kempinski is so good as Carol, the hooker. It's a limited role, but her performance is surprisingly very sweet and touching at times, and she shows some real talent here. Some of the many highlights include a workout montage featuring very short shorts, a ridiculous, multiple split screen love scene, a pimp with an epic comb over, a hilarious Vietnam War flashback, and ninjas. Just sit back and laugh, The VelociPastor is wonderfully dumb and very funny.

Watch now, you won't be disappointed. I love the part when he turns into a raptor