Alabama preacher's daughter runs off with a touring Christian hair metal band during the summer of 1986.Alabama preacher's daughter runs off with a touring Christian hair metal band during the summer of 1986.Alabama preacher's daughter runs off with a touring Christian hair metal band during the summer of 1986.
- Awards
- 1 win & 1 nomination total
- Jamie
- (as Will Oliver)
- Scotty
- (as Caleb Hoffman)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Featured reviews
This movie is like a love letter written to Christian heavy metal - an entire subculture and sub-genre that existed and exploded side-by-side with everything else that made that decade so fun.
The soundtrack is brilliantly written - both musically and lyrically to be believable and memorable. You'll be embarrassed for liking it, but you'll find yourself singing, "Comman-do for Christ - let's all go Commando!" The lyrical wit and intentional irony won't be lost on you as you laugh your way through the film.
Comedy, comradery and nostalgia all fit very nicely inside this film. I dare you to watch it and say you hated it. I've seen it four times now and I can't wait to see it again.
But they werent able to ressurect me from the rapture , im still a netralist on the barren plains of religion, but as a film it touches something called nostalgia, and it almost made me cry in the end.
So let call it an ok try, its a low budget production with just by the average acting therefore just a recommend with a neutral digit in front. Its for the nostalgists and young christians of today to view, it has music, soul, love and fun.lets call it a religious rockomedy.
Great story, heartfelt, fun and touching - you will love it.
"Electric Jesus" is so many things ... and it's not: a) A comedy as much as it is a dramedy; b) A roman-à-clef as it is an ode to the soundtrack of youth; c) Strictly a teen love story, but an overarching love song to music itself.
Writer/director/co-producer Chris White deftly blends those into a cohesive story about a hair-metal band. Not just any hair-metal band, but a Christian hair-metal band, whose members emerge from a South Carolina high school circa 1986.
Southern Evangelical Christianity makes an easy target, of course, for cheap, shopworn laughs. "Electric Jesus," though, threads an expert needle between needling Bible thumpers while threading its characters together with durable strands of, uh, Christian compassion.
Set in heavy metal's heyday, the story is told through our narrator, Eric, the ultimate music nerd who lands a gig as the sound guy for the band, 316. Next thing we know, Eric and the boys go on tour, taking their music to churches, skating rinks, fellowship halls and other temptation-free establishments.
Eric and the band clearly are high on Christ. Then Sarah, a pretty young thing, stows away on 316's ratty RV whose former owner, a band, of course, graffitied "Joy Explosion." Sarah, of course, becomes Eric's love interest and she also happens to have plenty of musical talent and an agenda of her own
"Electric Jesus" undoubtedly gets plenty of John Hughes '80s teen-amour comparisons, but this film makes considerably more of that dead-on verisimilitude. (Disclaimer: I ran a concert hall for 20 years, and, I mean, I got a little PTSD watching the movie. White absolutely nails the crappy reality of bottom-tier bands' touring lives.)
The real story in "Electric Jesus" is heartbreak. Great songs that set out to break your heart do a fine job of it without coming off as self-conscious. In much the same way, this story doesn't set out to break your heart, either, but the film delights in doing exactly what good songs do.
Electric Jesus does neither, which makes it a simply wonderful film.
Set in the summer of 1986, Electric Jesus invites the audience into a piece of American culture that many have experienced, even if in isolated bursts that we never really learn how to talk about. We are invited to the intersection of adolescence and Christianity through a world of Bible camps, church youth group skating parties, and an aspiring hair metal band who are heaven-bent on making Jesus famous.
The story portrays the earnestness and innocence of teenagers surrounded by religion as they discover who they are in this world. The evangelical subculture that the story emerges from is neither mocked nor glorified; instead we are invited into witness the characters as they come of age. There are moments of giddiness, of youthful idealism, of stupidity, of awkwardness, and everything that comes with adolescent friendships that are as intense as they are short-lived because life has other plans. There are also moments that simply take my breath away because they are so very human that they seem to come out of nowhere in a comedy.
Electric Jesus allows teenage characters to carry the story with the same dignity that John Hughes perfected during the same decade that the story is set in. It is also a deeply satisfying film about music, telling the story of a fictional band that never makes it. The original music captures both the rollicking humor of the film while demanding to be taken seriously. Additionally, the Christian youth subculture of 1986--the music, the clothing, and the people--is captured with a meticulous eye for detail that provides pure delight to anyone who lived through it and an accurate glimpse for those who never found themselves being asked to commit their life to Jesus while sitting on the floor of a roller skating rink during a heavy metal altar call.
Did you know
- TriviaWhen Erik is asked what kind of music he listens to, he lists 66 different bands. This number corresponds to the 66 books that make up the Christian Bible.
- Quotes
Michael: So uh, what kind of music do you listen to?
Erik: Hmmprh, quite a bit, actually. Uh... love metal, hard rock. I love your guys' stuff. Um, see I've been listening to Rez Band, Barren Cross, Bloodgood, Leviticus, Jerusalem, Messiah Prophet, Philadelphia, Barnabas, uh, Daniel Band, Shout, and Saint which I think is the heaviest of them all, of course. Um, but I can hear you guys playing with any of them. I've been listening to this new metal band called "First Strike," their album was produced by Mike Roe of the 77s. I love the 77s, that whole post punk new wave scene bands like Youth Choir, The Lifesavers and LSU which is the new version of the Lifesavers and it's insane. Uh, Undercover, Vector, Charlie Peacock, Bill Mason Band, uh, Mad at the World, Andy McCarroll and Moral Support, the Techno's, In 3D, Quickflight, 4-4-1, um, Steve Taylor and Daniel Amos of course, And even Punk stuff like The Lede, and this new underground band from Texas that I heard about from Cornerstone called One Bad Pig. And, and then there's the mainstay rock acts... you gotta love them, you know, Larry Norman, uh, Randy Stonehill, Darrell Mansfield, Servant, Petra, Degarmo & Key, uh, Rick Cua, Prodigal, uh, Kerry Livgren and AD, Idle Cure, Sweet Comfort Band, um, Phil Keaggy, Rob Castle's band, White Heart, Kenny Marks, Mark Heard, Pat Terry and all that great stuff from the old days. My uncle turned me on to some crazy cool Jesus music that I still really dig like Keith Green, All Saved Freak Band, Tom Howard, Concrete Rubber Band, uh, Randy Matthews, Brenton Heyworth, he actually opened for Clapton, Ishmael United and so many others... But you know what I really love, is when I find a regular band, you know like on MTV and the radio that just has a Christian perspective on things , I've been really into Bob Dylan, The Alarm, uh, Simple Minds, The Call, uh, After the Fire, Bruce Cockburn, Violent Femmes, this wicked metal band from Chicago called Trouble. Uh, Alpha Band, they actually backed up Dylan, and uh, Kaja--that's what was left when the lead singer left Kajagoogoo, it's way cooler. And U2, of course. Oh, and I've been getting into this jazz-fusion band called Koinonia. That's just what I carry around with me. I've got a lot more at home.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Steve Taylor & The Danielson Foil: Ecstatic Delight (2020)
- SoundtracksMakes Me Wanna Sing
Written By Michael Sweet (BMI)
Performed By 316
- How long is Electric Jesus?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $1,000,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 47 minutes
- Color
Contribute to this page
