The VelociPastor

"The VelociPastor" is the story of a priest who is cut by an ancient artifact. And, as a result, when he's angry, he becomes (much like Bruce Banner) a killing machine that dispenses justice by murdering evil folks.

The story about the making of "The VelociPastor" is quite unusual. It seems that long before the movie was made, a fake trailer for the film was made. Apparently, with the trailer as a calling card, Brendan Steere was able to get enough financial backing to make the film....seven years later!

Now as to the film, you cannot take it seriously and fortunately the filmmakers really don't try. After all, a pastor who is cursed and who becomes a dinosaur (much like the Wolfman) is ridiculous....and tongue-in-cheek is the only way to make the film AND viewers need to understand that they are NOT looking at an Oscar contender or the next film to be included in the Criterion Collection DVD series!! The important question is, does the movie have enough going for it to keep your interest throughout or is it simply a one idea film that never quite gets off the ground?

The acting is occasionally terrible and over-acting is frequent...again, for this sort of silly film, that might not be so bad. After all, the leading man becomes a crime-fighting dinosaur!! There are also ninjas and much more...all things that make the film ridiculous...and funny. So, the writing is also pretty much what you'd expect...silly and hard to hate because it's so silly. Overall, fun to watch and stupid....an unusual combination!

Finally, I was surprised to see Aurelio Voltaire playing a small part (Altaire)...as he's a singer known for his dark songs...such as "Zombie Prostitute" and "When You're Evil"! I was even more surprised that they didn't have him contribute any music to the film....it would have greatly improved the production.

By the way, when the priest is spouting Bible versus, they are mostly nonsense...such as talking about Matthew 32...a book with only 28 chapters, not 32.

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.

I fully expected to go into this movie finding it too ridiculous to review seriously. And yeah, in a way I was right. "Velocipastor" is ridiculous, it can't be taken seriously but I enjoyed every minute of it. It becomes clear very early that this movie means to be over-the-top. Much like classic horror comedies in the past, "Full Moon High", and "Pandemonium", this film knows it is absurd comedy and total cheese.

Brendan Steere understands perfectly well the type of film he is making, and he was smart enough to gather a cast and crew who were in on the joke too. Some of the acting obviously falls short and it is a tightrope walk getting this story from scene one to the end without total collapse. Still, somehow, everything holds together with fun, entertaining craziness. And genuine laughs.

The effects are a blend of cheap CGI and low tech practical effects that fit inbetween gaming graphics and Adult Swim stuff. It would have been cool if more focus on creating a darker raptor had been taken, but still, it is a movie about a young priest turning into a dinosaur so the puppet/costume seems fitting. I have to add that "Velocipastor" has a cool soundtrack. And the whole music video montage in the center was entertaining as heck!

Overall this isn't gonna be everyone's take on "Velocipastor". And I get it, a lot of people can only get into spoof horror if it has a big budget to sell the jokes. I enjoyed this film. It is silly, over-the-top, and entertaining. It doesn't take itself serious but everyone involved were serious about creating this tongue-in-cheek bit of satire.

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

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.