“Incredible Force of Joy” is the second installment in “The Bibleman Adventure,” which is itself the second incarnation of the show.
“The Incredible Force of Joy” was directed by Eric J. Smith, and written by Albert Upton and Cory Edwards. This marks the first time that star Willie Aames was not involved in either the writing or direction of the episode, at least as far as the listed credits go.
The villain in “The Incredible Force of Joy” is basically just the return of Shadow of Doubt from the previous episode, but now under the name of Master of Misery. His henchman, Ludicrous, is also back, and a second supporter is introduced in the form of an evil computer named L.U.C.I.. L.U.C.I. is essentially the counter-balance to Bibleman’s computer, U.N.I.C.E., and continues to appear throughout the series. This practice of re-using villains under new monikers also continues throughout the rest of the Bibleman franchise.
Bibleman once again has a couple of allies present in the form of Coats and U.N.I.C.E., who were both introduced in the previous episode, “Defeating the Shadow of Doubt.”
The story of “The Incredible Force of Joy” centers on this new villain called the Master of Misery, who has developed some sort of weapon and computer program that can make people sad. He manages to infiltrate Bibleman’s lair, and corrupts his computer with the program, creating chaos for the team. Meanwhile, the Master of Misery launches his evil plan to corrupt children by making a young child miss a science fair. Bibleman, as always, has to figure out a way to foil the villain’s plans, and help the young boy make the science fair. This also marks perhaps the only time that Bibleman has supported science in any way.
“The Incredible Force of Joy” marks some notable improvements to the Bibleman costume. The appearance is more streamlined than the previous incarnation, and the cowl is pretty dramatically altered as well, with a gradient of purple and yellow.
Once again, the villain knows the location of Bibleman’s lair for no stated reason, which raises some questions for me as to whether theere might be a mole within Bibleman’s inner circle. However, Bibleman doesn’t seem particularly alarmed by that fact, which struck me as kind of odd.
“The Incredible Force of Joy” features the first iconic full armor sequence for Bibleman, and is also the first episode to have a live performance incarnation. The audio of the full armor sequence takes over for the old “The Bibleman Show” theme song in the introductory credits, completing the transition into “The Bibleman Adventure” series.
The plot of “The Incredible Force of Joy” features an awful lot of jargon-packed computer hacking magic that doesn’t make even a shred of sense, particularly on the part of the bad guys. The astounding misunderstanding of technology pops up a few more times in the series going forward, at least in some of the episodes that I have already seen.
The episode starts with the murder via laser evaporation of an unnamed villain (who resembles The Fibbler) by Coats, which isn’t treated with much seriousness by either character. Bibleman even offers a classic one-liner for the situation:
“Don’t you hate it when guys smoke?”
The smoking remain of a human being
Once again, this shows just how callous, unforgiving, and violent Bibleman and his crew can be, making him more like a comic book antihero (The Punisher) than a traditional superhero (Superman, Captain America). Interestingly, U.N.I.C.E., Bibleman’s computer, is the one who ultimately kills the Mastery of Misery, which sets a dangerous precedent in my mind about artificial intelligence committing murder.
Overall, “The Incredible Force of Joy” is another middling episode in the series, but the quality of the show from a production standpoint is clearly steadily improving. The villain here is once again a bit forgettable, but the techno-magic provides some entertainment value to the episode. The attempts at humor of course still fall flat, but there are some unintentional laughs to be had here.
In 1998, two years after the conclusion of “The Bibleman Show,” “Defeating the Shadow of Doubt” marked the first episode of “The Bibleman Adventure,” the second and longest-running incarnation of the show.
For “Defeating the Shadow of Doubt,” Willie Aames takes sole writing and directing credits, and continues to star as the crusading eponymous hero, Bibleman. Chris Fann, who was previously co-director on “The Bibleman Show,” is now relegated to director of photography, I assume for the purpose of giving Aames sole credit. Notably, Tony Salerno’s creation credit for the Bibleman character is absent from both the ending and opening, which makes me wonder how much internal turbulence there was over the change of direction for the show.
The villain of the episode is Shadow of Doubt, who is overall a pretty generic antagonist for Bibleman. He uses a sort of chemical to inspire doubt in people, which reminded me a bit of the mind control used by previous villains. His performance is certainly over the top, but the character still comes off as pretty dull on the whole. He does have a fourth wall breaking henchman named Ludicrous, who is somewhat self-aware about his position, and steals the show from Shadow of Doubt in most of the villain scenes. However, Shadow does get his time to shine with his frenetic dancing musical number.
“Who is both a verb and a noun!”
“Shadow of Doubt!”
For the first time in the franchise, Bibleman has allies in the form U.N.I.C.E. and Coats. U.N.I.C.E. is an intelligent, speaking computer that runs the Bibleman headquarters, and continues to appear throughout the rest of the series. Coats is a pretty generic assistant / sidekick, who has a vague sort of military aesthetic to him.
The story of “Defeating the Shadow of Doubt” centers on a young girl, Kyla, who has lost her faith, which is initially assumed to be due to her parents arguing. However, there are also sinister forces at play in the form of a Pandora’s box of doubt, planted by a new villain called Shadow of Doubt. Bibleman has to overcome his own insecurities and find a way to defeat the shadow, and help restore Kyla’s faith.
Kyla: “You don’t know how I feel! Nobody does! Not even God!”
Bibleman: “Kyla, that’s just not true. God does care…I mean, he must?”
“Defeating the Shadow of Doubt” features a new introduction that focuses more on action, and also introduces the more familiar BibleMan logo. The old theme song is still around, but it plays over the credits as opposed to the introduction sequence. Honestly, it is a bit strange tone-wise to have both styles present, but I am guessing that will only be the case for a few of these transition episodes.
There is still a children’s musical number at the beginning of the episode, but it is cut into semi-digestible small chunks. I’m curious if this was initially intended as part of an episode of “The Bibleman Show,” and was repurposed for “Defeating the Shadow of Doubt.”
“Defeating the Shadow of Doubt” features more deliberate attempts at humor than previous episodes, most of which awkwardly fall flat. As the series goes on, the amount of tongue in cheek self-awareness seems to increase, which adds a whole new dimension of cringe-inducing awkwardness to the show.
The entire episode of “Defeating the Shadow of Doubt” reinforces a stereotype that the only reason people leave religion is due to some trauma or sinister influence, which just isn’t true by a long shot. The Bibleman version of questioning faith is also kind of hilarious in its lack of sincerity.
“In my mind I know all the right scriptures. I just don’t feel like they are real. One thing is for certain: whoever this [villain] is, he has affected my ability to reason.”
-Bibleman
I was a little surprised when Shadow of Doubt survived the episode, especially given the show’s pattern for giving villains violent and tortuous ends. I assume this was done to make a statement about how doubt never totally goes away, or something to that effect.
“Defeating the Shadow of Doubt” is more or less middle-of-the-road as far as entertainment value for Bibleman goes. The villain could certainly have been better, but there are still some entertainingly awful child acting and dialogue moments that help it out. It is certainly easier to sit through than the first two episodes of “The Bibleman Show,” and features a lot more cheesy action and fighting, if that is what you are looking for.
“Silencing the Gossip Queen” is the final episode in the original series of Bibleman, called “The Bibleman Show.” As with the previous episode, “Six Lies of the Fibbler,” Willie Aames is credited as writer, producer, and co-director, as well as filling in the lead role as Bibleman.
The villain of the episode is the eponymous Gossip Queen, who looks like a traditional witch, and also has force lightning powers like Emperor Palpatine. She apparently just generally hates friendship and good things, which is the extent of the motivation that is provided. She has henchmen by the names of Loose lips and Blabbermouth, which I guess fits with the dastardly theme of gossip. Once again, the villain somehow knows Bibleman’s secret identity without any explanation, and attacks directly at him before trying to go after the children. Also of note is that the Gossip Queen gets a musical number, which is the first time the villain has gotten to perform in the show.
“An ounce of gossip is worth a pound of trouble”
-Bibleman
The story of “Silencing the Gossip Queen” centers upon the same group of musical kids that appeared in the previous installments of “The Bibleman Show.” The time, a villain called The Gossip Queen conspires to break up their special friendship through the use of planted rumors and hearsay. Once again, Bibleman has to help repair the damage and save the day from evil, but only after escaping his kidnapping by The Gossip Queen.
Once again, the villains die miserable, brutal deaths in “Silencing the Gossip Queen.” Bibleman evaporates both Loose Lips and Blabbermouth with deflected lightning blasts, and then melts the Gossip Queen with his laser sword, after which he looks directly into the camera and says:
“The bible warns against ladies like her”
Honestly, that part is pretty bad ass. However, there is something to be said for the fact that Bibleman seems to frequently leave his enemies as corpses. Most heroes that do that are well within the bounds of being anti-heroes, and the practice is pretty seriously frowned on as far as superhero decorum goes. I suppose you can chalk that up to his particularly brutal and conservative version of biblical morality.
“Silencing the Gossip Queen” isn’t nearly as entertainingly awful as “Six Lives of the Fibbler,” but it is worlds better than the first two episodes in the series. Regardless, I’m thrilled to be done with “The Bibleman Show,” because I just can’t handle any more awful child-driven Christian musical numbers. I hadn’t seen any of these episodes previously, and now I think I know why they aren’t as popular as the later series, which strike me as being generally better polished in most regards. They are still awful, and I might eat my words on this, but they aren’t nearly as bad as “The Bibleman Show,” which is generally a dull, unfocused mess. As far as a recommendation goes, you could do worse than “Silencing the Gossip Queen,” but there are some more entertaining entries in the Bibleman franchise that are more worth your time.
“Six Lies of the Fibbler” is the third episode of the original Bibleman series, “The Bibleman Show.” Willie Aames wrote, produced, and co-directed “Six Lies of the Fibbler,” while also portraying the lead character of Bibleman. Chris Fann again co-directs, but Milt Schaffer and C. Scott Votaw are notably absent from the credits, and Tony Salerno is relegated to solely receiving creation credit for the episode. There is definitely a quality difference between the first two episodes and “Fibbler” that makes me wonder if there was some change in personnel and direction behind the scenes, which might explain a lot.
“Six Lies of the Fibbler” is once again a musical, as all of the original “The Bibleman Show” episodes appear to be. The introductory song is something like “Bible Vision,” which sounds like a useless power that Bibleman might actually have. The music certainly hasn’t gotten any better from the first two episodes, and the increase in necessary dramatic acting on the children’s parts results in a product that is hilariously awful, more so than the first two entries in the series.
The villain of “Six Lies of the Fibbler” is, of course, The Fibbler: a damn creepy orange clown who hypnotizes children into lying through the use of some sort of magic dust. The Fibbler is definitely the most ridiculous and over the top villain on the show thus far, and is genuinely a bit unsettling, particularly thanks to the makeup work (which is reminiscent of The Joker). I will note that for the first time in the series, the villain actually interacts with the kids, rather than just going after Bibleman. This does liven things up a little bit, and gives the villain character some badly needed additional screen time in comparison to the first two episodes.
“Six Lies of the Fibbler” introduces a lot of elements that pop up a bunch later on in the series, including Bibleman’s laser sword, the recitation of bible verses while fighting, and a bible lair, which becomes a key set and base of operations later on.
The story of “Six Lies of the Fibbler” once again follows the same children’s musical group from “Big Big Book” and “Back to School,” but this time there is unrest within their ranks. Their youngest member is influenced by a villain named The Fibbler into compulsively lying to her friends, which drives a wedge into the musical group. Bibleman eventually figures out what is going on, and helps bring the group back together.
One of my big issues with the plot of “Six Lies of the Fibbler” is that the kid was drugged into lying, but it still forced to apologize for her actions while under the effects of The Fibbler’s drugs. The other kids forgive her, but was it ever really her fault? She was a victim, and forced into lying to the group. It is also notable that Bibleman knows that this is the case, but never tells the girl that she was being manipulated by a villain with mysterious chemicals. Way to go, Bibleman.
Speaking of the villain, The Fibbler straight up explodes after his fight with Bibleman, starting a trend of brutal villain deaths that continues throughout the series. Bibleman doesn’t directly kill him, but something tells me that he doesn’t have a non-lethal code of ethics. I’ve read enough of the bible to know that.
“Six Lies of the Fibbler” just sort of ends right in the middle of a musical number, like they were caught off-guard in the editing process by how long it ultimately ran. I had a brief flashback to the botched conclusion of “Dracula 3000,” which might actually be better than any given episode of “Bibleman.”
“Six Lies of the Fibbler” is actually an episode of “Bibleman” that I would recommend. The villain is ridiculous, the story doesn’t make sense, the acting is awful, and the series is still young enough that all of the costumes and props are incredibly cheap. Even the musical numbers are arguably baffling enough to justify sitting through, though that is definitely up for debate. If you are looking for an introduction to the world of Bibleman, “Six Lies of the Fibbler” is a good place to start.
“Back to School” marks the second episode of the original Bibleman video series, “The Bibleman Show.” Willie Aames is once again the title role of Bibleman, and also shares directing and writing credit for the episode. The rest of the team is pretty much the same from “Big Big Book”: C. Scott Votaw, Milt Schaffer, and creator Tony Salerno also have writing credits, with Votaw and and Chris Fann taking co-directing roles alongside Aames.
In the first episode of “The Bibleman Show,” “Big Big Book,” I understood the amount of singing involved. I mean, it was centered around a church musical. However, this episode also starts off with singing, but without the inherent, semi-reasonable justification. It is eventually explained that the same group of kids is going to be performing a similar musical at a local school (thus “Back to School”), but that bit of exposition has to be awkwardly forced into a scene in the form of a fake telephone call.
I can’t describe just how much my heart sank when it dawned on me that all of these original BibleMan episodes were going to be musicals. The fact that the kids in this episode aren’t even in an obvious venue to be singing makes it all seem much worse to me. To add to my frustrations with the whole situation, one of the songs, which takes place entirely in an RV, is specifically about a fictitious train:
Let’s take a trip through the creation
Head on down to the revelation
The train is waiting at the gospel station
so get on board the bible train
Could they not have come up with a song about a “Bible Bus?” That would at least be a closer comparison than a damn train. There is also alliteration to that phrase, which is perfect for this kind of lazy product. Why am I doing their job for them?
The primary villain in “Back to School” is Madame Glitz: a vaguely sinister, vain, and fame-obsessed woman who inexplicably knows Bibleman’s secret identity. She operates with the help of a henchman named ‘Mr. Thug,’ which is pretty much all you need to know about him. Her primary motivation seems to be envy over Bibleman’s popularity, so she plans to kidnap him to turn his fans against him. If that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to you, you aren’t alone on that.
“I love it when famous guys don’t show up! Then you can boo and hiss and stuff.”
-actual dialogue from “Back to School”
The story of “Back to School” once again focuses on a children’s musical performance, this time taking place at their local school (which I hope isn’t a public one, because that sounds like a separation of church and state violation to me). Bibleman is scheduled to appear alongside them, as he did in “Big Big Book,” but is kidnapped by Madame Glitz just before the show begins. Bibleman eventually prays his way out of his binds, terrifyingly imprisons Glitz in a television, and shows up in time for a grand finale with the kids.
After watching “Back to School,” I think I understand why the direction for Bibleman was changed so quickly. It is really just more of the same of what was offered in “Big Big Book,” and there are only so many ways to replicate the same boring story over and over again. The villain is once again the highlight, and she is unfortunately hardly in the episode at all. The largest chunk of it is once again dedicated to the godawful children’s musical numbers, which were really testing my patience with this one. Also, somehow the dialogue seems to have gotten worse for this episode. My favorite exchange by far is right after the musical has completed, when two kids in the audience enthusiastically say to each other:
Kid 1: Wow! That was excellent!
Kid 2: Yeah! Seriously, comic books are tame compared to this stuff. I think I’m going to go out and get me a bible!
Kid 1: Cool idea! Me too!
It is like the producers’ fantasy-land version of America’s youth. Shame it didn’t work out that way for them, isn’t it?
I don’t recommend watching this episode, but it is available in its entirely on YouTube if you are just deathly curious. If you can’t resist, I implore you to at least skim through the songs, because you aren’t going to be missing anything with them. The only exception is, of course, “The Bible Train,” which managed to inexplicably fill me with hate and darkness.
In 1995, the first ever installment of the Bibleman franchise came to be. “Big Big Book” kicked off the short lived initial incarnation of the series, called “The Bibleman Show,” and launched an evangelical quasi-phenomenon.
Willie Aames, who is best known for television shows like “Charles in Charge” and “Eight is Enough,” co-wrote, co-directed, and stars here as Bibleman, and is the person most publicly recognized as being associated with the show.
The character’s creation is credited to Tony Salerno, who also has writing and producing credits on this initial episode. The other two writers on the episode were Milt Schaffer and C. Scott Votaw, the latter of which worked in a variety of capacities on b-movies like “2001 Maniacs,” “Bikini Drive-In,” and Jim Wynorski’s “Dinosaur Island.”
The initial Bibleman costume used in “The Bibleman Show” episodes is pretty laughable, and was clearly constructed on a minimal budget. Compared to the shiny, chrome/plastic uniform that would show up in later episodes, it is amazing to see how far the show and the character came over the course of its run.
“Big Big Book” doesn’t feature any sidekicks for Bibleman, who I assume start showing up in the later series. The villain is a pretty generic evil scientist with green skin, named Dr. Decepto, which is certainly a pattern for Bibleman villains as the show goes on. He isn’t quite as elaborate or offensive as many of the later antagonist, but the performance is plenty hammy enough to be entertaining. He also has a great high-pitched evil laugh, which is always a plus.
The story of “Big Big Book” follows a group of children who are working on a bible-themed musical for their church. The planning isn’t going well, and a number of the kids want to quit, in order to not be embarrassed by a sub-par result. Bibleman shows up at a rehearsal, and tells the kids a story about a previous exploit where he prayed his way out of a hairy situation with Dr. Decepto. The story gives them the confidence to go forward with the show, which theoretically goes off without a hitch. Except, of course, for the fact that it sounds awful, but no one seems to care all that much. They are just happy that they went through with it.
“God’s probably sitting up there thinking: ‘Nice lame-o show, kids.'”
The content of the musical is of course ridiculous, and takes a handful of potshots at science education and evolution. It is pretty much exactly what you would expect from a Bibleman musical, honestly. Some of the kids straight-up cannot sing, which makes parts of it nearly unwatchable. The whole thing is kind of like a worse version of “Kidz Bop” for fake Christian music, if you can imagine such a thing. The musical section also takes up a huge chunk of the episode, which unfortunately (?) doesn’t have a lot of Bibleman in it.
The one fight sequence in “Big Big Book” is a blurry mess, and is almost as hard to watch as the musical. Bibleman notably doesn’t have the laser sword of the later episodes, instead using a traditional sword and shield.
If there is anything positive to say about “Big Big Book,” it is that it actually has some charm to it compared to the later episodes of the seriess, which attempt to be comedic and self-aware. It is still completely awful and beyond cheesy, cut it is at least an honestly made mess.
The theme song is also much different than what I am accustomed to hearing with the later episodes, which drift into a sort of pseudo-rock style. This initial theme song is pretty generic and forgettable, but certainly contributes to the heavy 1990s style of the episode.
Speaking of which, the 1990s bleeds out of every pore of this video. The fashion, the hair, the music, the colors: all of it makes for an astounding flashback. The nostalgia factor of it all is actually pretty amusing, and might make the whole thing worth sitting through for some folks.
As you would expect, “Big Big Book” features awful acting from all involved, and horrendous writing to boot. However, the added ‘benefit’ of the musical is what makes this episode stand out from the pack that I had previously seen. Lots of Bibleman episodes feature a song, but this episode being centered around a children’s church musical makes it so much worse than any of the music offered with other episodes. It is nearly unbearable.
Brad Jones, better known as The Cinema Snob, took a look at this episode on his show “DVD-R Hell.” If you don’t want to stomach actually watching this, his overview hits the key points and highlights with his typical sardonic wit.
This is the first of the initial run of “The Bibleman Show” episodes that I have sat through, and I’m mostly just hoping (praying?) that the rest of these early episodes don’t feature as much cringe-inducing singing.
June 10-17 is Secular Students Week, a week dedicated to the stories and work of the awesome students served by the Secular Student Alliance. The week also marks a big fundraiser for the organization (which I proudly support and work for), with a $20,000 challenge on the line if we can bring in 500 donations (of any size) over the course of the week.
To do my part, I’m going to be resurrecting my (God)Awful Movies segment with a bang: by covering the entire infamous video series of “BibleMan” over the course of the week. Also, I’m pledging to honor any coverage requests for people who donate to the Secular Student Alliance (through my fundraising page) over the course of the week. If you want me to cover your favorite movie, a movie you made, a training video you found on YouTube, a cat video, a movie you think I will hate/love, a horror film about killer rabbits, whatever: I’ll honor whatever you point me to. That doesn’t mean I’ll like it, but I will certainly watch and write about it. Caveat emptor, as they say.
Now, if you aren’t familiar with BibleMan, here is the rundown: it was a long-running home video series that starred an evangelical superhero in a garish armored outfit. Each story followed a vague biblical lesson, and often featured musical numbers, awful special effects, inane plots, and over the top villains. It has achieved a bit of cult status, and has been referenced and parodied in shows like “The Venture Bros.” and films like “Super.”
“BibleMan” initially starred Willie Ames of “Charles in Charge,” who was eventually replaced in the later installments. It managed to spawn a number of touring live performances, a video game, and some licensed merchandise that is still floating around out there somewhere.
One of the things that I enjoyed during my time as a secular student at the University of Alabama was the occasional ironic viewing of “BibleMan.” A lot of people I knew grew up with the costumed crusader, who is a common presence in children’s programming in evangelical churches (which, as you might imagine, are numerous in the area). For many, college is the first time that they could look back and laugh a bit at some aspects of their religious upbringings, and BibleMan always made for a prime therapeutic target.
Of course, it isn’t all funny. Some of the lessons and content in “BibleMan” teach (explicitly or implicitly) xenophobic, anti-semitic, and anti-scientific rhetoric. I have made it a personal policy to buy any copies I find at buy/sell/trade stores (which doesn’t profit the BibleMan folks), in order to do my part to keep them out of the hands of kids.
In any case, the Secular Student Alliance helps build and sustain communities for young atheists, agnostics, humanists, etc. on college and high school campuses across the United States, much like the one that I was in at the University of Alabama. We also, as an organization, strongly support interfaith and progressive cooperation on campuses (LGBT orgs, Feminist groups, etc). If atheism isn’t your bag, that’s all cool by me! We aren’t out to destroy churches or shame the religious: we’re trying to be constructive, by building communities where they didn’t exist previously. I think many religious folks take for granted the advantages and benefits of having a natural community around their faith: it gives them a social network, a meeting spot, and a pool of people you can potentially lean on in times of need. That is the sort of thing we are building for the not-so-religious across the country, in cooperation with organizations like Openly Secular.
Regardless, enjoy the ride through BibleMan over the next week! If you can spare it, toss a couple of bucks to the Secular Student Alliance: it’ll help us (and more importantly, our students) out a ton. If you do, I’ll cover a movie of your choice. Again, here is my campaign page for donations. Just shoot me an email at mail@misantropey.com, and I’ll be sure to do your bad movie bidding.
It has been a while since I covered my favorite ol’ evangelical costumed crusader, so I figure it is about time to delve back into the cinematic cesspool that is my BibleMan DVD collection. Speaking of which, here it is:
Today’s episode is entitled “Terminating the Toxic Tonic of Disrespect.” It doesn’t have the same ring as “A Light in the Darkness” or “The Six Lies of the Fibbler,” does it? In any case, this is the first BibleMan episode to feature Josh Carpenter after his initial, formal introduction as the new BibleMan in “A Fight for Faith.” This episode marks the beginning of the “PowerSource” run of the show, which is the most recent (and last?) incarnation of the character.
First off, the new BibleMan is definitely a bit of a downgrade. Robert Schlipp, who plays Josh Carpenter, is definitely just a preacher in a hero suit. To Willie Aames’s credit, his character of Miles Peterson definitely projected himself as a super-hero in the role, which is a pretty stark contrast next to Schlipp’s take on the role.
“Toxic Tonic” introduces a new sidekick in Melody, who is surely one of the worst actors in the entire universe. Bible Girl doesn’t entirely disappear, but is relegated to an off-screen support role for the episode. Cypher, BibleMan’s resident Black Friend(TM), also returns for the new series, and continues his role as the only half-bearable member of the team.
The PowerSource Bible Team (Melody on the far right)
The introduction of Melody offers the only actually good lesson that I have seen in the entire series: BibleMan and Cypher at first assume that she is a delivery girl when she shows up at the base, and initially dismiss her as a moron despite her expertise with technology. Of course, in typical BibleMan form, they never acknowledge the obvious sexism of their assumptions, and only ultimately apologize for not respecting her as one in “God’s image.” So close, BibleMan. So close.
The villains, in a bit of a separation, aren’t the offensive stereotypes I typically expect of the series. Instead, the antagonistic duo is comprised of run-of-the-mill zany mad scientists: the neon-mohawked Dr. E. Meritus Snortinskoff (yeah, good job on that one) and his henchman named Stench. The two sinister scientists are executing a plan to make a bunch of kids indignant and rebellious by selling them “Empower” energy drinks made from sugar, water, and “pure evil.” The Bible team realize what is happening after noticing a bunch of burgeoning teenagers acting shitty to authority figures. You know what, BibleMan? Never change.
The Bible Team ultimately wind up getting a sample of the “Empower” energy drink, and discover its contents (pure evil, bad attitudes, and probably a lot of high fructose corn syrup I assume?). This leads to a rambling, scripture-laced train of thought that could rival the revelation scene from “Black Dynamite.” Somehow, through rambling about trees for a while, the team figures out where to find the evil scientists.
Maybe my favorite aspect of this episode is that a good few minutes of run-time towards the beginning are eaten up through the use of what appears to be totally unnecessary recycled footage from the episode “Crushing the Conspiracy of the Cheater,” which, confusingly, wasn’t released until two years after “Toxic Tonic.” This brings up some serious questions of continuity in the series, but I am not going to dare delving into that.
Predictably, the Bible Team wins the day through grace, goodness, and the violent use of laser swords. The bad guys do get away this time (instead of dying horribly), but I don’t believe that either of them show back up later in the series.
This isn’t one of my favorite episodes, and certainly doesn’t compare to the “BibleMan vs The Internet” entry. However, it definitely has the same old heavy-handedness that all of the incarnations have. The episode of course ends with a prayer, and a plea for all of the viewers to convert to Christianity. As far as entertainment goes, I do kind of love how shitty the kids are who imbibe the “toxic tonic,” and how generally panicked the creators are about the idea of teenage rebellion. There is definitely something to enjoy here, but it isn’t one of the stronger good-bad entries in the show. That might have a little to do with the change of creative team with the dawn of the “Powersource” series, but I’ll need to watch more of them to see if there is a significant perceptible difference between the incarnations.
It is about time I got back to (God)Awful Movies, the segment of the blog dedicated to the worst of religious cinema.
Today’s feature, “Escape From Hell,” is one that I have come across a couple of times in bargain bins in the deep south. I’m not sure how far it actually got distributed, but I’ve certainly never seen it outside of Alabama or Georgia. Here’s what my copy looks like:
I’m sure glad to know that I got the special edition! Hopefully that means there is some CGI Jabba the Hutt to enjoy.
The reason that I initially picked this up, apart from the title and the cover art, is because of the amazing blurbs on the back of this box. Here are a couple of them, including two from noted film critics Jerry Falwell and televangelist Jack Van Impe:
Well, I’m sold. I can’t wait to see if this film makes me think about my “life without Christ.”
Out of curiosity, I decided to dig around to see if there is a trailer out there for this thing. I ultimately dug one up, but, to my joy, I found something even better as well: a clip collection, courtesy of the fantastic folks over at Everything is Terrible!
Now I am definitely psyched. Here is the trailer I dug up as well, in case you happen to be curious:
Director Danny Carrales and writer Michael Martin have apparently worked together on a number of Christian features outside of “Escape to Hell,” including films called “The Gathering” and “Second Glance.” Star Daniel Kruse pops up in “The Gathering,” as well as another movie that Carrales and Martin worked on called “Pilgrim’s Promise.” One of the other actors in “Escape to Hell,” Terry Jernigan, has managed to appear in an assortment of bit film roles over the years, but my favorite credit of his is on an upcoming movie called “Sasquatch vs. Yeti.” You can bet that I am looking that one up.
I think that the biggest red flag for me when sifting through the IMDb entry far “Escape to Hell” was finding someone credited as “2D/3D animation and effects / special effects supervisor.” That can’t spell out anything good for this movie. Also, the person with that credit has nothing else current listed to their name outside of another Carrales/Martin feature (“Pilgrim’s Progress”).
My next favorite credit on this movie is one of the producers, Randy Smith, who is apparently a professional boom operator who has worked on an assortment of actually good movies (“12 Monkeys,” “Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas,” “Phone Booth”) and occasionally not-so-good movies (“Thinner,” “The Langoliers”).
Now, let’s see how this thing is. Will it scare me into the arms of Jesus? Will I be forced to reassess all my sinful life choices? Will I be able to even stay awake through this whole thing? Let’s find out!
Review:
Wow, this is really awful. I’m not really sure where to start.
The cinematography is awful in nearly every way you can imagine. Some of the shots are nothing short of nauseating for no reason whatsoever (just people walking down a hallway, for instance). There are so many dutch angles that you will question if your head is even on straight. When the camera is being used half-sensibly, everything feels like an infomercial, or a soap opera at best. Unfortunately, even those moments are few and far between.
The acting is about what you would expect: most of them seem like they are reading directly off of the scripts. In the few cases where that isn’t the case, they either hilariously overact, or sound like they are giving half-rate sermons. Of course, a lot of that blame deserves to be leveled at the writing as well, which is more heavy-handed than a steel gauntlet.
It turns out that my nervousness about that “2D/3D animation and effects / special effects supervisor” was more than justified. There is way more reliance on special effects than there should be in this flick, and they look really bad. I’m pretty sure that they didn’t look good when they were done originally in 2000, and they certainly don’t look good 15 years down the line. I’d bet that they could have pulled off better practical effects with the money they spent on the CG here, and wound up with something way more convincing (the few moments that do involve practical effects in this movie do look passable). That at least would have looked like something realistic, whereas the CG here just looks downright laughable. Moments where characters are cast into hell are supposed to be intimidating and terrifying, but instead they are profoundly hilarious.
Overall, this isn’t a movie worth spending the time to sit through. For the most part, it is just boring dialogue between characters you just can’t give a damn about. I would recommend checking out the “Everything is Terrible” highlights (which has all of the best parts included), and just leaving it alone from there. This isn’t a film that is going to change your life, and it certainly isn’t going to send anyone running to Jesus who wasn’t on his team already.
For those who haven’t heard yet, Kirk Cameron’s new movie “Saving Christmas” recently topped the IMDb’s Bottom 100 list. This came about just after Kirk Cameron attempted to inflate his movie’s score on Rotten Tomatoes by calling on his fan base to give his movie a “fresh” rating. Unfortunately for Cameron, that isn’t how the review aggregation site works. Even more unfortunately for Cameron, the internet doesn’t take too kindly to those sorts of shenanigans, nor does it have much patience for vapid evangelism.
Thus, quick as a flash, all of the democratic online ratings for “Saving Christmas” (including the audience score on “Rotten Tomatoes” and the IMDb user score) tanked into oblivion. Kirk Cameron, being the Kirk Cameron that he is, believes that this is a result of a grand atheist conspiracy. Well, let us aim to get down to the truth of the matter then, shall we?
Outside of the internet’s backlash to Cameron’s Rotten Tomatoes shenanigans, there are plenty of other reasons that “Saving Christmas” has been so poorly received. And, believe it or not, I don’t think the backlash is universally from internet atheists and disgruntled troll-folk. I honestly believe that Kirk Cameron managed to split his evangelical base with the message of “Saving Christmas”.
When it comes down to it, “Saving Christmas” isn’t about the mythical “War on Christmas” (as it was advertised): it is a movie aimed at evangelical, conservative Christians who either do not loudly celebrate Christmas, or publicly condemn common Christmas practices due to pagan roots or ties to sinful behavior. The very structure of the movie is laid out as a dialogue between Cameron and his fictitious brother-in-law (and fellow evangelical) Christian, who acts as the straw man of these sorts of Christmas detractors. Cameron, over the course of the movie, walks Christian through his complaints about the materialism of modern Christmas and the Pagan roots of many holiday traditions. Even though Cameron’s arguments for these practices being complimentary with Christianity are generally poorly thought out, it is clear that he is attempting to call out and persuade his fellow evangelicals to come around to his way of thinking. This is an attack movie on a sub-population of his own people.
This may be a bit obvious, but another big part of the reason that “Saving Christmas” has been so poorly received has nothing to do with the film itself, but is rather just a reaction to the fact that Kirk Cameron has his name plastered all over it. Cameron suffers from something that I’ve started calling the “Uwe Boll Effect”, in which the poor behavior and unpopularity of a key player in a film leads to the poor reception of their work, regardless of the work’s actual quality.
I mean, all of his work is low quality anyway. Let’s be real.
These days, Cameron only registers on the public’s radar when he is saying something wildly homophobic, blatantly misogynistic, or is puppeting some sort of conservative agenda, and none of those things win you popularity points on the internet. Even without his attempt to inflate the movie’s scores, “Saving Christmas” would have registered abysmal scores on IMDb for this reason alone. It probably wouldn’t have been bad enough to hit the Bottom 100, but the fact that Cameron’s name is on the film meant that it wasn’t going to get anything over a 5.0 out of 10 (generous), and that is regardless of the actual quality of the movie.
Before I get on to talking about the actual film, I want to clearly address something: “Saving Christmas” is in no way the worst movie of all time. The IMDb rankings and the Rotten Tomatoes audience score are both living, democratic scores, which means that they fluctuate in accordance with public opinion. The phenomenally low scores for “Saving Christmas” on these mediums should not be read to mean “this is the worst movie of all time”, but rather as “this is perceived by the public right now to be the worst movie of all time”. I see people misread these rankings all the time (particularly the IMDb). The user score is literally a popularity contest, not an intelligently crafted tome. I don’t mean to say that in a detracting manner: it is actually an interesting and valuable ranking that acts as a barometer of current popular opinion, which is frankly interesting as fuck. Both the Rotten Tomatoes audience score and the IMDb user score are fascinating numbers, but they need to be appreciated for what they actually represent. I can guarantee you that there is not a critic in the world who would cite “Saving Christmas” as being objectively worse as a film than “Monster-A-Go-Go”, and that should tell you all you need to know about the objective accuracy of the IMDb Bottom 100. Now, on to the movie.
“Saving Christmas” is, of course, quite bad. Most of the issues come from poor structure and pacing, which I believe are side effects of attempts to pad out the final run time of the flick. There is an extended, unnecessary dance sequence towards the end of the movie that doesn’t serve much of a purpose besides burning time, and there is a scene early on with no plot significance in which two peripheral character have a conversation almost entirely via ADR (automated dialogue replacement, voiceover done after the fact), meaning that it is entirely possible that the scene was not actually written until after it was filmed. I think these two sequences wound up being as long as they were specifically to pad the run time, which subsequently slowed down the pace of the movie. Even the story structure itself makes the movie feel longer: it is never clear as the dialogue between Cameron and Christian progresses where the movie is in the run time. Most linear plots provide a sort of shorthand for audiences: for instance, you generally have an idea of when the second act is wrapping up, just due to how the story is progressing on screen. In “Saving Christmas”, which lacks a traditional plot, the audience isn’t given any of these usual landmarks, so you never quite know where you are in the movie. The effect of this is that the movie feels longer than it actually is, which is generally something you don’t want to happen. This isn’t necessarily going to result in a bad movie (see: “Pulp Fiction” and “Reservoir Dogs”), but it doesn’t do a film any favors if the audience isn’t sufficiently engaged.
I have mentioned a little bit about the writing already, specifically the fact that it is mostly done as a dialogue between two characters. While the contents of Kirk Cameron’s lines are basically word salad, those scenes aren’t nearly as poorly written as the ones that aren’t specifically between the two lead characters. When not focused on Cameron and Christian, this movie goes off the rails in the writing department. Kirk Cameron provides voice-over in nearly every scene, which is something that would be grating in an otherwise good movie with a better actor doing the readings. But here, given that all of the voice-over is done by Kirk Cameron, delivered in a typical preacher’s cadence, and has the content of a thrown-together Sunday school class, you honestly feel like you are trapped in a visual companion to a Christmas sermon. Worse yet, the little exposure the audience gets to the accessory cast away from Cameron is plagued with lazy stereotypes and banal, unnecessary, and seemingly improvised dialogue.
This image summarizes the movie perfectly: you can’t see the rest of the cast, because Kirk Cameron will not get out of the way
The acting in “Saving Christmas” is kind of difficult to cover. Kirk Cameron is clearly comfortable in his role, because he is absolutely in his element in this movie. The whole world of the movie does seem to bend and contour around him, almost like he is Neo in “The Matrix”, but I feel like that is more of a writing issue than an acting one. He does come off as incredibly smug, but I can’t really consider that a weakness of his performance: his role (and the movie) is smug by design. Writer/director Darren Doane is serviceable enough as Christian, though he spouts some horribly written lines of attempted comedic dialogue, and is portraying one of the least believable / most malleable characters I’ve ever seen on screen. Perhaps it speaks to his credit as an actor that the character still seems genuine despite all of that?
Darren Doane, writer/director/co-star of “Saving Christmas”
Beyond those two leads, the only other notable that stood out to me was the guy who plays Santa Claus, who has a great menacing look to him, but his line-reads were pretty miserable once he opened his mouth. As for the rest of the cast, the movie doesn’t spend enough time with most of them for me to make judgements either way: outside of the token black stereotype character, they are basically the cardboard cutouts from “Home Alone” that exist solely to create the illusion of a Christmas party.
Replace Culkin with Kirk Cameron and you pretty much have it
So, would I recommend “Saving Christmas?” Not particularly. Unless you are really into counter-apologetics and find Kirk Cameron’s usual bad arguments entertaining in general, there isn’t a whole lot of fun to have here. Alternatively, if you are particularly fond of watching bad movies for the sake of learning how films go wrong, there is some value to sitting through this. The structure is mind-boggling, and there are a number of sequences that are shockingly incompetent enough for a film buff to appreciate. That said, there are a handful of decent shots in the movie, so it isn’t absolutely horrible top to bottom. The straw man and stereotype-laden writing are generally just tiresome, and don’t produce any entertainment value, so the film just winds up being a dull experience when it comes down to it.
However, I definitely recommend watching this hilarious re-cut of the “Saving Christmas” trailer. Stick with it until the end, you won’t regret it:
Reviews/Trivia of B-Movies, Bad Movies, and Cult Movies.
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Misan[trope]y 