Director: Eric Swelstad
Year: 1989
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: Blood Church; Fallen Angels
Genre: Cult
Plot:
After arriving in a small town, the owner of a local newspaper uncovers a conspiracy involving a slew of strange murders around the area revolving around a fanatical preacher that supposedly leads a Satanic cult, and the more he spends time there the more he uncovers their ruthless plans.
Review:
Overall, this was a generally enjoyable if somewhat flawed effort. Among the brighter parts of this one come from the stellar setup involving how the cult operates and carries out its activities that offer up their gradual discovery. With the series of murders appearing as soon as he gets there and the inquisitive nature of his proposition to get the paper running immediately resulting in publishing the articles that bring about the furor over their instances looking into what’s going on, this all generates the kind of engaging setup that becomes far more immersive over time. The gradual reveal of the power and control the cult leader brandishes over everyone else, from their refusal to help him uncover the truth to the type of help willing to carry on the secret activities of the cult keeps this one moving along nicely building the mystery as to what’s going on. That allows for some decent scenes here with the priest exerting his influence and control over others attempting to stop them, featuring some decent Action scenes throughout the town to accomplish this which has some exciting aspects here.
There are some issues to be had with this one. The biggest problem is the highly convoluted and twisted nature of how the case gets unraveled since it seems almost as though he shows up at the town and things go South. Rather than slowly get indoctrinated or uncover the truth through a gradual slow-burning series of events, everything seems to get shoved into his face the second he arrives bringing about a rather unlikely scenario where he’s allowed to roam free despite knowing what’s going on from the start. For a cult trying to keep their presence a secret would not go through the move they do, this becomes quite frustrating that they would go through what they do as everything is so open that the utterly lame attempts at covering everything up only reveal what’s going on further with how lackluster they are at concealing everything. This is almost hand-in-hand with the overlong finale which is unnecessarily overdone and features several rushed and underwhelming situations merely to get a bigger payoff but comes up short which all end up bringing this one down.
Overview: ***/5
A slightly problematic if still enjoyable genre effort, this one comes off quite fun for what it is even though there are some problematic areas that do hurt this one overall. Give it a shot if you’re a fan of this kind of shot-on-video effort or are curious about it, while most others that are turned off by those factors should heed caution.
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