Review of “The Velocipastor” (2018)

My friend Tracy thought I might enjoy this flick for our Saturday pizza and bad movie night. What she must think about my tastes! This is goofy, gory, silly, and has the redeeming quality of not taking itself seriously.

My friend Tracy is a good judge of what movies I will watch.

Plot:

Father Doug Jones (Greg Cohan) is a young priest who witnesses his parents die horrifically when their car explodes outside his church. In the crisis of faith that follows, his older fellow priest, Father Stewart (Daniel Steere), advises him to travel, to “discover how others live.”

“Go where you think God will not follow,” Father Stewart tells him. “If you find him there, you’ll know he’s real.”

Father Jones goes to… China. While hiking in the woods, he comes across a woman (Claire Hsu) with an arrow protruding from her chest and bright red blood running down the front of the white shirt. Concerned, Jones asks, “Are you hurt?”

The woman hands him what looks like the tooth of a large animal and asks him in Mandarin to destroy it, or he will be hunted.

“You want me to have this?” he asks.

She gasps in English, “The dragon warrior,” and expires.

A man dressed in black appears with a bow and arrow. Doug backs away in panic. In doing so, he cuts his palm with the tooth. He faints and wakes up back home. Father Stewart asks him, “The dream again?”

Thoughts:

At the same time, the viewer meets Carol (Alyssa Kempinski), a put-upon working girl whose pimp is the abusive and bombastic Frankie Mermaid (Fernando Pacheco De Castro). One night as she’s working in “the park,” she’s rescued from a would-be mugger by a… dinosaur.

The next morning, she and the human who was once a dinosaur have an awkward and funny conversation. Doug at first believes he’s broken his vow of chastity, only to be shocked to realize he’s killed a human being. Carol tells him this might not be such a bad thing. He saved her. She tells him, “This is the most priestly thing you’ve ever done.” By removing bad people, he’d be helping good people.

This weighty, philosophical, and emotional discussion occurs while the two of them are walking back in forth in the park, Doug wearing a borrowed bright orange dress that’s a bit short. Adding to the whole picture is the dress’s V-neck bodice, which emphasizes the breasts.

The actors utter their absurd dialogue with completely straight faces. Even Doug’s parents seem happy and proud when (in a flashback) they drop “their only son” off at “priest college.”

The lead, Greg Cohan, works perfectly in whatever the role calls for: despair, innocence, maybe being a little slow on the uptake. A surprise, though, is Alyssa Kempinski, the actress who plays the streetwalker Carol. Carol is nobody’s fool, and Kempinski is completely convincing.

In a debate between Doug and his mentor, Fr. Stewart, Doug cites two passages of scripture, Leviticus 24:24 and Matthew 32:6. Heathen that I am, neither one rang a bell for me. I tried to look them up without success—not that my laptop burst into flames as it approached a Bible website. These passages don’t exist. Joke’s on the atheist.

There’s more to this movie, however. An oddball exorcism goes bad, avenging ninjas appear, a flashback to heartbreak in Vietnam, and there’s a matter of sibling rivalry that is settled only in tragedy. The only thing missing is a toll booth.

The special effects are…special. The dinosaur is not merely goofy. It looks like a Halloween costume someone picked up at a party store. Having said that, I’d be willing to bet it was more expensive than the special effects for the car fire that took the lives of Doug’s parents, however.

My one big beef is the music. Whatever they detonated over the opening credits got the mute button from me.

All in all, I liked this movie. I realize it will not be to everyone’s liking. Its absurdity can be off-putting, and the subject matter may be a little sensitive. This is definitely not one for the kiddies. The little sex and nudity in it are abstract and obscured by the damn racket they call music. The gore is unrealistic and absurd, though there is a fair amount of it.

Thanks, Tracy, for an excellent recommendation. My dearly beloved liked it so much he sent the link to a friend of his.  See what you started?

YouTube like free w/commercials:

The Velocipastor – YouTube buy or rent; warns there is potentially inappropriate material and asks for DOB




Title: The Velocipastor (2018)

Director
Brendan Steere

Writer
Brendan Steere

Cast:
Greg Cohan as Doug Jones
George Schewnzer as Doug’s Dad
Janice Young as Doug’s Mom
Daniel Steere as Father Stewart
Claire Hsu as Chinese Villager
Nicholas M. Garofolo as Hobo(as nick Garofolo)
Alyssa Kempinski as Carol
Fernando Pacheco De Castro as Frankie Mermaid

Released: September 28, 2018
Length: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Word is that yes, a sequel is in the works.