After a Priest (Greg Cohan) loses his parents, he travels to China. During this trip he inherits a new power that allows him to turn into a dinosaur when he’s mad. He uses this power to fight crime.
Director: Brendan Steere
Cast: Greg Cohan, Alyssa Kempinski, Daniel Steere, Jesse Turits, Fernando Pacheo De Castro
MPAA Rating: N/A but has violence, language, gore, and sexuality
Fun Fact: Funding was through Kickstarter. The budget ended up being $35,000.
This was a request from my sister and her boyfriend. They found this on Amazon Prime Video and the rest is history. So, they have the honor of being my first request to review on this site. I’ll watch anything that’s requested of me to review so keep them coming.
I remember when I was a senior in high school, and I took a screenwriting course that year. The objective of the class was to write a screenplay and produce a movie from someone’s screenplay they wrote for the class. I wrote and directed a movie called Garfield From Hell. The plot of said movie was that a stuffed Garfield was alive, and he was trying to kill a group of people that were portrayed by my best friends at the time. It was a total B-Movie and when my teacher watched it, he couldn’t stop laughing and gave me full points for the project.
Anyways The VelociPastor reminded me of my movie, and that it’s pure B-Movie fun. It’s seventy minutes of pure cheese and I had a surreal experience of laughter watching this. If your going into this looking for Casablanca, then your watching the wrong movie. Of course, it’s not supposed to be taken seriously. It’s one of those movies you can get a group of friends together with some pizza and have a good time. The film’s budget is only $35,000 so you’re not going to get an Academy Award win, and the film knows that, so it goes for a comedic hero adventure. It has an Incredible Hulk influence due to the fact the lead character gets mad and turns into a creature, and we will get to that creature in just a second.
The story tells of a priest that because a dinosaur when he gets mad. He get’s advice from a prostitute to fight crime in this form. That’s ridiculous if you think about it. Who are these people that he fights? Drug dealing ninjas which launches the B-Movie even further. A dinosaur fighting ninjas is all you need to have a good time. I give the film credit they did build up to seeing the dinosaur. There is one scene that the dinosaur attacks some villains at night. You just see the head of the dinosaur so it kind of gives you anticipation for later. Once you see the dinosaur in full form, boy was I laughing. I don’t want to give it away because you need to see it to get the full effect with it. I was holding my stomach because I was laughing so much. The climax in general had me having a good time watching this. As for the acting it’s your basic B-Movie acting. The actors are unknowns and they might have had some experience working in acting or just wanted to help out Brendan Steere. If you’re going to criticize this for it’s acting, your watching the wrong movie.
Director Brendan Steere has the ultimate movie making dream. He made this movie because he wanted to. It reminded me of the movies from Ed Wood in away. Ed Wood would make movies because he wanted to and Steere does the same thing. We need more people like Steere making movies because movies bring joy to people. If you have an idea go for it. Nothing is holding you back from making something. I have always wanted to write and direct a movie myself. It’s not like this movie is my inspiration or will be for others, it’s just nice to see someone have their ideas presented on screen.
Overall, The VelociPastor is just pure B-Movie fun. If your going into this expecting the greatest movie of all time, then you’re wasting your time. B-Movies have their place in society because sometimes we just need something fun to watch. We don’t always need to take everything seriously. It’s nice once in awhile to sit back and lower your expectations. I’m a B-Movie fan so I had a great time laughing and enjoying the ridiculous story that was presented on screen. It’s no where near being the worst movie of all time and I suggest you get a group of friends together and check it out. It’s only seventy minutes long so you can find another movie like this and have a nice double feature night.
Verdict: Hit
Henry's Movie Reviews 