Written by David Strege
So a while back for some reason I got into a director by the name of Nick Box of Dead Good Like Films Only I ran into him on a 4 film feature set which goes by the name of 21st century Grindhouse volume one: God told me not to…. but I did it anyway Distributed in about 2014. So because I got into his films by this set I will work my way through describing the films involved in this set and the various forms of his Christsploitation Trilogy With its various names and releases.
The first film on here is called Brutal Jesus and the House of Wasted Youth filmed about 2010. In this short feature we have actor Steve Newton dressed up as Jesus in a shot on video slasher Massacre mixed with Punk and sound in a Grindhouse kind of fashion as we see the figure of Jesus walk down the sidewalk of some street and get let in by a house full of young men who are gathered together getting stoned and high and God knows what other drugs that they are wasting their lives with.
Basically a man gets invited into a building in Manchester where one by one each of the characters in the house are killed either by choking, poisoned and anyone that gets in Jesus way whether friend or roommate or neighbor we are Witness to a Mass Slaughter…
I do like how the film goes into black and white to show that the group the same group that this Jesus Christ figure goes about and kills was actually a man who was a Christian and he just liked to spread the good news and seems like a down-to-earth and innocent man. when this group came up on the man he was all about spreading the good word and they were basically saying there is no such thing as Jesus Christ or God and mocking the religion and then they beat the crap out of him and left him for dead. What we see is the delusion of what the man turned into being whether or not he was the actual Christ or not we will never know in a sense this is also play it off as a found on footage kind of film as well.
I felt that this film was very, very slow and the fact that this had sort of a Grindhouse feel to the film And there’s something I like about me Darkness that the character of Jesus Christ brought in a sense this is kind of an anti-christian film because what Christ teaches us if you are a Christian or a religious person of any sort they tell you to turn the other cheek but this man’s face was so brutally kicked in it’s like he had a Michael Douglas falling down and just snapped…
The film had a variety of different colors involved there were moments that the Christ figure were in shades of red lighting Which made it feel or seem like he was talking to a higher cause. I do think that some of the actors could have put a little bit more enthusiasm like when he was strangling one of the victims over the stairs and he recognized who he was and told him not to kill him I think that this actor could have emphasized his plea’s quite a bit more but other than that I feel like this was a very strong message to the kind of people who would just hurt people for the sake of hurting people in the sake of the Innocent. If this sounds like a film that you would definitely watch that I suggest that you seek it out for your own amusement.
Here is the trailer:
Starring in Brutal Jesus and the House of Wasted Youth: Nik Box as Guy in Park 1 (as Nik Box), Ben Brett as Ben, Alex Dawson as Gang Leader / Radio Presenter 1, Will Finlay as Will, Matthew Fitzpatrick as Fitz – The Junkie, James Green as Jay Green, Martin Hodgkins as Bish, Helen Maenad as Topless Girl, Robbie Mills as Robbie, James Moult as Jimmy, Steven Newton as Jesus, Johnnie Rogers as Johnny, Annie Von Flange as Anny – The Smackhead, Sam Wahnon as Guy in Park 2 / Radio Presenter 2.
So this next short film is not directed by Nick Box but is produced by him and his company Dead Good Like Films In association with Gribblefluster Productions and directed by Peter Murfet called Terror of the Blood Demon From 2013.
The film begins where it seems like a group of friends Laura, Linda, Alexis, Bob, and Dave are dressed up in their Halloween diggs and gather together to do a seance… I have to say that the sound quality is really good for the short film. I like the fact that Laura when she gets into explaining about the spirits and you hear it sound like her voice is really otherworldly that’s kind of a cool effect where it sounds like it’s actually in a closed Hallway at first one of the young men seemed to want to back out but after a little pep talk from his friend who seems like he wants to get really close to one of the females they all buckle down for a chanting session…
Knock once for yes and twice for no and so begins a conversation with a spirit that tells the group that they should not be here because they are watching the Shadows… fairly soon Laura leaves the room and one of the young men Dave begins to convulse as you hear a male scream…
Whereas the character of Bob seems to be the last or second last sane person he has also shown that he is a coward when he does not right away help his friend Dave. Linda on the other hand seems to be the last female of the group the one to take charge to try to see if she can help. Meanwhile Laura the original leader of the group has run out of the place and apparently back to her own apartment where she thinks that she is safe. she appears to be talking with a spirit of herself as she is told that she is a guardian of hell a gatekeeper and that she was supposed to protect the spirits that have just been let out from coming into this world.
So Laura tries to fight back by creating a magic circle around herself only to be tricked by the demon that had overtaken Alexis who back at the other apartment had gone into some kind of a trance so when Bob the Cowardly friend tried to take her from the place to escape the spirit that had control of Alexis body stabbed Bob only to be beheaded by The Blood Demon that Dave had turned into. I thought that The decapitation was smartly done though I know that the teeth of this so-called Blood Demon were so fake looking there was a sense of imagination that you could actually think that this film looked like it was professionally done.
I think that the character of Alexis was played out ingeniously for I really do think that the way that the guardian was tricked into thinking that her friend dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood was actually in trouble when in fact it was the young woman possessed by the spirit that was filmed rather smartly as well. If this sounds like a film that you would definitely watch then I suggest that you seek the film out for your own amusement. I was entertained and quite surprised since coming from watching the film that had to do with Jesus Christ killing a bunch of people that this was such a contrast but that is because this was a different director so I would have to say that Nick Box producing this film was a good business decision. I think I would recommend short feature to those out there in the horror field I was expecting more of a basement film.
Here is the trailer:
Starring in Terror of the Blood Demon: Helen O’Loughlin as Laura, Sally Anderson as Alexis, Elly Lowney as Linda, Marcus Caballero as Bob, Sharif Elboushi as Dave.
This next film was directed by Nick Box under his Dead Good Like Films Production company filmed in about 2012 and is about a night that was unplanned a night of fun that turned out to be more messy then it needed to be….
So the film begins when a man narrates an intro with a joke and tells us that he doesn’t know how we will react to what we are about to see but we see a man call another man and a Man shows up. So apparently Ben is his name the guy who calls this cleaner to clean up his mess we’re apparently a female that Ben does not know the name of has cut this girl’s body up into pieces while it appears that the whole place is covered in plastic.
The pacing of this film is very slow what’s the war most Independent films so Ben apparently he did not kill the girl but because the cleaner doesn’t have a lot of time before his parents get home the cleaner is going to have him dismember the corpse and tell him how to do it probably because it was his mistake.
Well long story short evidently before Ben had called The Cleaner kid called his friend Barry who even though he told to go home ended up crashing in on the scene anyways and doing some weird things to the course including some selfies… what neither the two men that showed up realized is that in a sense they were invited for a reason and the corpse laying on the floor was not exactly alive and not exactly dead….
Now that I’ve watched this film I understand the reason for the slowness and there was a little bit of Comedy the main character been played by Alexander Lewis kind of reminded me of Simon Pegg in Shaun of the Dead with what his UK accent and the way that him and his friend kind of bumbled about the situation. I think that all the characters involved acted their parts to a T though I can see how low budget to spend was it was definitely a unique twist at the end. The blood at least looked like blood and I give the actress credit for playing dead almost the entire film that’s hard to do not move… There’s something about this phone that I like better than I did Brutal Jesus I’m not exactly sure what it is but I will definitely watch this again down the road it certainly wasn’t bad. if this sounds like a film that you would definitely like to watch then I suggest that you seek the film out for your own amusement I was entertained.
Here is the trailer:
Starring in She’s Dead: Serena Chloe Gardner as She, Alexander Lewis as Ben, Julian Seager as MR. Clean, Jamie Smith as Barry.
So the next film that I’m going to describe is the second film considered to be in Nick Box’s Christsploitation trilogy Bible Cunt trilogy by the name of Wrath of the Violent Vicar filmed in 2012.
So the film begins as we see a father played by John Maguire walking along a bridge to a beach where it appears a man is drinking some kind of a drink and it looks like some kind of a Mountain Dew or a energy drink and after he has drank whatever substance is in it he tries to letter on the ground so the Father Luke picks up the item and tries to hand it back to him several times and when the man keeps throwing it on the beach the good Reverend chicks out his Bible and beats the shit out of him with the word of God.
Suddenly we see the face and the head of someone that is supposed to be Jesus played by Marcus Caballero as it appears that he speaks to Father Luke but he speaks to him like one of those televangelist preachers you know the ones that ask you to believe in Jesus Christ but ask for money first? Being a believer that anyone who sounds like they are trying to sell you something instead of bringing you into a blind faith of believing in a deity that has saved your sins by dying on the cross but instead asking you to give up all your worldly possessions and give all your money to be pocketed is worthy of a Next Level Place in Hell this Jesus tells this father Luke that there are times where you may have some doubts.
This Effigy Of Jesus then remind him of his humiliation caused by Reverend Drago and his Heathen followers that had desecrated his body in the past meaning that a father Luke’s which Everyone is always asking what would Jesus do well he tells him that he would kill them and that is exactly what he suggests to do…
After being commanded to do so father Luke with a sickening grin on his face I’m not exactly sure how to describe it but it looks like a shit eating grin holds his Bible to his chest and follows one of the men in Reverend Drago’s employ and while the man is sitting on the toilet he comes up on him and knocks him out and takes his fingers into a piece of poop that was sitting in the toilet and makes a sign of the cross with the shit on his fingers on his forehead… We watch as one after another father Luke goes after another Droog in Drago’s (Box) employ and then in a sense trains his body and his mind Rocky Style to go up against the evil reverent…
There is a huge reference to Star Wars that you will miss if you don’t see it right away but for some reason I enjoyed this film better than I did Brutal Jesus I know that this was more of a demonic possession kind of film except it was more that he was possessed by the spirit of the Lord to enact an Old Testament Wrath down on a man who was reeling people in who were sinners to death and not to God…
There really wasn’t a lot of dialogue between Father Luke and Reverend Drago or anyone really in the film except for the face of Jesus egging father Luke on but I think that for how the film was portrayed it wasn’t bad I like that it had of grindhouse kind of feel. In order to Portray the past once again he went black and white. I definitely do think that the film went really dark but it had a sense of humor and though I can see how if someone was much more religiously based I can see how the film because of the way that it portrayed Jesus and the faith I can see how it can anger someone with real faith but in a way this was kind of a good against evil kind of story except it uses an eye for an eye and blood begets blood… if this film sounds like something that you would definitely watch then I suggest that you seek the film out for your own amusement. like I said I believe that I was entertained by this film probably more so than Brutal Jesus maybe for the simple fact that I can believe this one a little better…
Here is the trailer:
Starring in Wrath of the Violent Vicar: Duncan Arnot as Drowned Sinner, Nik Box as Rev. Drago (as Nik Box), Marcus Caballero as Jesus, Chris Lovegrove as Beach Bastard, John Maguire as Father Luke, Chris Phillips as The Urinator, Matt Stuart as Big Dude.
So the next feature that I am going to talk about is a Documentary that goes into explaining how Brutal Jesus and the House of Wasted Youth came into existence of being filmed as we are brought into the background of how this film became kind of a cult Underground film at least where they are from and we have Nick Box, Alex Dawson, and Sam Wahnon In Nick Box’s apartment at the time going through the editing process and as they are explaining to themselves on the camera while cracking some jokes there was definitely a lot of continuity errors that had to be cleaned up.
Like there was a scene where one of the characters was given a mug and in one scene he was holding the mug and then another that mud was on the floor… because for real the person behind the editing of a film is in fact the true director the unaccredited one and not everyone who has edited a film has been credited for being or doing so. But for sure I believe that Nick was behind the camera much of the time during this shoot. So as this video diary documentary which came out in 2014 but I believe it was edited overtime from footage that was captured around the time of when they were filming the project at hand but flips between while Sam is doing the editing as well as Nick going through the shots this beginning couple of segments is about trying to find the right person to do a rape scene so they have each man try to act like each of them are raping someone on camera to have the right look for the part but they are obviously having a little fun while they are doing this… Especially when they ask for that climax face… And if you don’t watch this documentary you won’t find out about the pointed beard shot…
As this feature rose on some of the footage ended up not being captured overtime so some of the editing process of this film was waylaid because of having to go back and capture whatever scene or scenes were not filmed so I’m sure that some of this was a learning process for these filmmakers and you can see that a lot of these guys are friends between each other and I know that spending a lot of time around people can put some people on edge but I don’t think that this was the case with these young men. I like how Sam The Man Behind the editing explains that he’s fucked either way on making this film that he’s a Mormon and his mother will probably disown him his father could probably not care and his brother would worship the ground he walks on that to me is hysterically funny… But they talk about the social network and how there’s a lot of restrictions on what you can and can’t do and that you have to hide who is in your film because some of them don’t really want to be associated with the project even though they were in it.
I thought that this was a decent behind the scenes look at how they created the film and some of the mindset that was going on with the group that was behind this it kind of shows the humanity and the thought process that there was actually in fact a kind of serious film Direction and how the director wanted to get certain shots and how they wanted to get a certain look. again if this film sounds like something that you would definitely watch then I suggest that you seek the film out I’m not exactly sure If this documentary found its way to its own lone DVD copy but there was a limited run on what was called the Bible Cunt trilogy which there were several limited editions that only got 15 copies made and then there was a release that was probably made with about 50 copies to a hundred but I have pictures of a few of the Limited copies out there that I will post here… I was entertained by the behind the scenes of them making Brutal Jesus and found this documentary to be fairly entertaining all around you should definitely check it out.
Movies Galore of Milwaukee 