In the incomplete manuscript of one’s life, every once in a while one must watch a movie called The VelociPastor. Not because it’s good, but because it’s called The VelociPastor. And it’s free on Amazon Prime. And YouTube, actually.
VelociPastor is, indeed, about a young pastor who gets inflicted by a Chinese curse (while traveling to what is most assuredly the actual China and not, say, the woods out back) and transforms into a 100% convincing velociraptor. As a man-dinosaur, he uses the power of god (and dinosaurs, which he doesn’t believe in) to fight crime… which is mostly made up on pimps and drug-trafficking Chinese ninjas.
This is a deliberately bad movie and that badness… the intentional ineptitude, the dollar store dinosaur costume that looks one notch above the t-rex costume people wear on youtube, the deliberately missing visual FX, the corny-yet-oh-so-very-serious acting, the mannequin heads when bad guys are decapitated, the unconvincing blood splurting… is all in service of making you laugh. But it’s a special kind of “this is so dumb its bordering on genius” kind of comedy that a lot of people will just call dumb. And they wouldn’t be wrong. But I laughed.
I think this is the rare case of a movie trying to be a cult comedy that actually succeeds at being funny… not sure if it’ll ever reach cult status but its not for a lack of earnest trying. It’s a deliberate parody of direct-to-video 80s action flicks. If I could compare this to anything, it’d weirdly be the cinematic gem Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. Haven’t seen it? I wouldn’t be surprised. Have seen it? You get the idea.
If you are the kind of person who read any of the above and thought, “Heh. Sounds funny” go ahead and check it out. If not… if you don’t find deliberately cheesy movies, unintentionally cheesy movies, low budget schlock, Chinese ninjas, misplaced Gandhi quotes, and generally movies that mock the concept of movies… then this is not the flick for you.
Score: 82