...AND GOD SPOKE

...AND GOD SPOKE (1993, USA, Arthur Borman, Michael Curtis / Greg Malins screenplay)
The subtext here is very important. These people that you're coming to talk to, they don't want to hear anything about any new commandments. I think they're probably quite happy with the old ones.

B movie veterans decide it's time to move on from NUDE NINJA and DIAL "S" FOR SEX to tackle a cinematic treatment of the Bible. They're not clear on just how many disciples there may have been, but what they lack in Biblical knowledge they more than make up for in... Well, confidence?

The ten thousand page shooting script needs a little trimming, and on-set delays force even deeper cuts – "We can't lose Jesus! That's like FITZCARRALDO without the boat!" – but the creative team has confidence in the sheer box office power of their star cameos; Lou "Incredible Hulk" Ferrigno plays Cain, Eve Plumb (only thirty years removed from her groundbreaking work on "The Brady Bunch") is Mrs. Noah, and Soupy Sales’s Moses gives Charlton Heston a run for his money. (Casting is ninety percent of directing. As this movie so painfully demonstrates.)

Note-perfect characterizations and exquisite comic timing from leads Michael Riley and especially Stephen Rappaport make this worth the effort to track down. It falls short of SPINAL TAP but is a rung or two above BEST IN SHOW on the mockumentary ladder: because its comic performances are less broad, its satire is all the more painful.


Available at Videomatica