"A town with no churches-" STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP! STOP THE MOVIE! Is it weird that that's the point my suspension of disbelief gives up? Like, I can't think of ANY town in America where there's not at least SOME form of church SOMEWHERE.
This is also a town where you can record fights and possibly post them online (Which i believe most schools frown on) and can maltov someone's house and vandalize things and get away with it with no consequences in the end..
Like I could have bought the boys have never gone to church before but them saying "This town doesn't have a church" is... I don't use this word lightly, but I *literally* can't buy that there's a town anywhere in America that doesn't have a church of some kind.
How about the kids not knowing what's in the Christian Bible? Even if by some (ironic) miracle there was a town in the USA that didn't have a single church in it, I refuse to believe that these kids wouldn't know what the Bible is. The town might not have churches, but it does have the internet, right? The news? Some kind of media outlet? How could anyone, belief in a deity or not, take these movies as anything more than farce?
Adam Lentz I think my favorite episodes are Christplotation and his Italian horror movies, or cheesy horror movies. After watching his Gates of Hell/City of the Living dead review I've watched the movie 5 times in a day.
It's the only point that actually made any sense- and to be honest I'm surprised I never saw those in my school. However there was a Bible study group.
Want the real reason, because it isn't white Christian beliefs, gotta remember "we" as white Christian Americans dont give a shit about others and blindly hate anyone who looks or believes in things different than us.
@Nathan Gatten LOL! I was thinking the same thing. I know the writers TRIED to make that dude look like an antagonistic atheist, but with America wanting religious freedom to be a thing it should be okay for other religions to be practiced...
Great job Rebecca. Don't try and talk the kid out of suicide by telling him that there are people who love and care about him. Oh no, tell him he won't get into heaven. Yeah, that'll work.
Whoever said you don't go to heaven if you commit suicide has never fucking read the Bible. Oh, and King Saul (who was a good guy before he went whacko jacko) has something to say to you. Fuck off, movie.
Kitty Grimm The fuck!? Did a 12 year old write this movie!? Update: I wouldn’t be surprised if it was also a small jab at people who say “emotions are chemical reactions.”
Suicidality is a psychiatric emergency for which health services are legally obligated to detain you if they believe you're suicidal, depending on the circumstances, and can be liable to malpractice lawsuits if they don't. There are exceptions to this rule, but generally if my patient gave me indications that he was thinking of suicide - going off his meds, changing his core beliefs rapidly and radically, becoming more emotionally unstable - we would be having the 'do you think about dying or killing yourself' conversation immediately or else I'd probably lose my license if I was that psychiatrist/psychologist/whateverthefuckheis. "I feel like dying" is a statement that would cause me first to ask those uncomfortable death-questions and (depending on the answers) recommend inpatient care and try very hard to persuade them to be hospitalized, then document every single minute detail of the conversation. I'm no psychologist or psychiatrist, but even I know that the courts are going to tear that health care guy in the move into little pieces. Fuck this movie.
Legit. When I finally started seeking help for my depression, one of the first things my psychiatrist asked was about suicide ideation, and at the time my thoughts veered to that side a lot and I remember sobbing and saying that yes, that I wanted to die all the goddamn time, and talked about how I even tried to do it once, and she immediately went "Alright, we are putting you on meds like right now because you're in real distress and we'll work from there." I'm grateful for that until today because I feel that saved my frigging life. So yeah, seeinh this type of stuff is so jarring to me, like if my doctor didn't care or "didn't believe in meds" I would be dead by now!!
(in old man voice) Back in *My* Day... it was a 7th level clerical spell of the Necromantic sphere...Aww damn, I am still thinking 2nd Edition, I am getting old.
Hey movie! I'm a Christian who has clinical depression and once attempted suicide. Prayer has been great, but when I did, God told me to go see my doctor, who prescribed me anti-depressants and referred me to a therapist. God works in mysterious ways.
i never understood the one or the other approach myself. traditional medicine or prayer! you can only have one! nah....i think ill do both. thanks though.
"If I were take issue with people taking antidepressants when they need them, then I would also have to take issue with sick people taking cold medicine." to paraphrase a conversation I had with a priest on the subject. While I am personally an atheist, I appreciate that for some people prayer and the community that the church provides helps a great deal in coping with depression, which is why it bugs me so much when I see such anti-medication mindsets.
Bad Christian movie + Written by someone decades out of touch + backwards ideas of medical treatment x movie trope of going off meds is smart^mishandled understanding of suicidal tendencies and depression = Getting ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING WRONG.
"They make it a point to say they live in a town with no churches." Alright, imma stop you right there Gods Club, maybe somewhere in America there's a town like that but it sure as shit is not the town this shlock was filmed in. I live in one the most liberal counties in Texas, and I've seen three totally separate, distinct churches *on the same fucking block.* You could realistically go to a new church to worship every day of the week for a month in this state without travelling more than a few miles. This may not be as terrible or offensive as something like Gods Not Dead, or Voiceless, but I feel I'm on pretty solid ground when I say fuck this movie and all those responsible for its creation.
Tycho Azrephet I don't know, I think this movie is more offensive than the others. The persecution complex is definitely far more prevalent in the God's Not Dead franchise, mostly due to the magnitude of the threat compared to God's Club, but this movie is way more on the nose with athiests outright provoking/starting fights and their house getting fucking firebombed.
Yeah that part right there was just stupid. And I can relate. I live in Hot Springs, Arkansas, population ~38,109 (2022). A quick google maps search and I see there are at least ~13 churches within 5 miles of my house.
At the beginning of the video, I didn't think anything could be more laughable than Stephen Baldwin's constant derp face. Then I watched his attempts at dramatic line delivery.
"Everyone gets depressed sometimes" you would think that a girl whose mom died and dad got clinically depressed would understand what depression actually is but... welp, also "i tried one med and it didnt work, meds r bad" man badly written teen, it took me like 5 before I found one that really worked without serious side effects haha... right now I'm on two at once. It sucks but it's kinda what you gotta do sometimes?
I remember there was a group of Christian Parents who fought tooth and nail to get a Bible Group in our school. And complained about how "Just like everyone else deserves their own group" and preached about how diversity in their school should be important. YET... They constantly bitched and demanded the Science and Sex Education classes be completely removed because it goes against WHAT THEY FEEL
Nate A club is just fine as long as those in charge can handle their members and subjects in a way so as to not be a bad influence. Or, you know, we could never trust them because we think they're Liberal.
@Nate Okay Christians wanting sex education removed from baffles me. Because as someone who grew up in a Christian home I was taught how sex before marriage was a sin, and Sex Ed classes teach the biological consequences of having sex outside of marriage, soooooo..... What's the problem? What am I missing here?
@@Dreigonix Yeah the left operating on feelings as opposed to facts like the right does baffles me. I grew up in a religious environment, I GET why right wing conservatives act on feelings and not facts... But I'm utterly baffled on why the left is acting on feelings too.
@@DemonicRemption Thank God my Christian family isn't like that. Hell, I've been in love with Pathology (the study of the causes and effects of diseases) since I was 8 and my parents are cool with it.
I think that the movie is teaching us that killing yourself, and possibly your passengers and possibly the other driver is Okay as long as you did it because you Love someone, and as long as you lack any self-control about wanting to touch them at inappropriate times. such as kissing while driving, blowjob while driving, etc. (American Gods reference)
As someone who is on anti-depressants and deals with depression, I say FUCK this movie! Even if he was a Christian you can't just pray away an anti-depressant withdraw.
Mariah Pariah That can't be right! Didn't you hear them say that medicine makes him worse??? And that prayer works! The chemistry and biology they're preaching is just a bunch of hooplah!
Mariah Pariah I was stuck in a situation where I wasn't allowed to see anyone for my depression throughout middle and high school and early college because a close family member believed that antidepressants "change" a person. It wasn't until I told them that every night I tried to work up the courage to kill myself and couldn't do it and that I hated myself for it that I finally got treatment. And you know what? My personality stayed intact and I stopped having those thoughts as invasively as I had. My class performance even improved because I was getting sleep and not constantly surrounded with a haze of what I can only describe as "fucking bullshit." The beliefs presented in this movie are the kind that get people killed.
So, I'm a practicing Christian myself, but I honestly love these reviews. These movies are way more cynical than they let on, made by people that think that they can sucker Christians into buying it by putting in no effort and playing up a persecution complex that has a small grain of truth, but just ends up being all the more insidious because of it. I'm offended that these movies exist just to con people of my faith into buying into this crap, and I'm glad someone's knocking them down several pegs.
Obviously some Christians buy the hell out of this shit. None that I've ever met, but there are this sort who is basically like "If it doesn't glorify Jesus IT'S SATANIC!"
I remember when I was in Sunday school they showed these types of movies a lot then my harpy of a Sunday school teacher would rant about anything that offended her.
I dealt with my first depressive episode when I was nine years all. I didn't recognize that it was depression or that I was sick, I just knew that things weren't going well, and I wanted to end my life. A fundamentalist said that people who kill themselves go to hell. It made me feel like something was really wrong with me, and caused me to isolate myself more. I suffered in silence for two years, partly because I feared being judged by others if they found out that I was considering suicide. I often wonder how things would have turned out if I had sought help sooner. Never suggest that someone might go to Hell for suicide. It can be incredibly damaging for some.
Wow, I think this movie has pissed me off more than all the other propaganda films you've reviewed. I have anxiety and depression, I can't fucking function without my antidepressants. Yeah, if you're a Christian, there' s nothing wrong with praying to help your mental health, but telling a mentally ill person they need to go off their meds because taking meds is un-Christian?? That's so horrible.
Yeah, prayer can be a great tool to vent frustrations and to vocalise your hopes and fears. This only works, however, if you are already religious, otherwise you are only going to think "why am I talking to the wall?". Also, where does this notion come from that medicine is un-Christian? I live in bumfuck Bavaria where every village with more than five houses has its own church (I can see no less than 3 bell-towers from the hill my local church is on) and this simply isn't a thing here. I also have never even seen a single person argue that science or sex-ed classes should be banned. What the shit is going on other there?
AdalRoderick Well, there is something called Christian Science (I think it’s a religion in and of itself because therer are Christian Science reading rooms) and they believe that prayer is the only medicine you need (yes...it’s very unscientific and just as dangerous as that crap the anti-vaxxers spread.)
When are they ever going to make a movie about the persecution of Christians in places like the Middle East and North Korea? Never? Because it doesn't fill their victim complexes? I thought so.
Dutch_Atlantic_13 that's because most of the people make Christian movies like this coming from parts of America where it basically a homogeneous society which limits your worldview greatly. I'm not saying it's the people's fault it's just they found themselves in a situation where it's really easy to be ignorant.
A TON of religions think mental illness isn't real because all "emotions come from the soul" or "everyone gets sad". I went to a buddhist church that was a tourist spot and had the tour guide bitch about how mental illness is fake and they should meditate instead.
I want to see one of these movies where a cashier at a grocery story suddenly finds Jesus and then refuses to take people's money at checkout because Jesus says, "Money is the root of all evil," leading to her being fired, and then some BS legal battle over it, finally ending when the lead prosecutor drops dead with a metaphorical and literal heart attack and, "Change of Heart," heart transplant, convincing everyone to forget about it and carry on just letting the woman come back to work and give groceries away for free. The End. Brad, make it happen.
Honestly knowing those types of christians, they would push for that. I mean they cry persecuted when they arent allowed to insult, threaten, and abuse minorites.
They've done crazy things before. Whatever the one where the ex-military guy did everything to harass and terrorize a planned parenthood, except arm himself and become an active shooter, comes to mind ,and he was meant to be the protagonist. Brad seemed to think the director of that one might have intentionally shot it like a horror film realizing the level of BS in it himself. But I can see something like this happening, too.
Sounds like the same driver who appeared in the film God's Not Dead driving on the wrong side of the road. From hit and run to causing the death of another person as they drive away from an accident. There needs to be a an extended scene at the end where Christopher Walken pulls up to the driver who hit Professor Raddison and killed Even's wife and says, "You are the one ....who killed that professor and later a man's wife with your reckless driving right? (pulls out pistol) "The man upstairs sends his regards." (shoots the guy away) (Walken looks at the screen) "They don't call me the angel of death for nothing" (Drives away with the license plate reading D3THANGL)
My childhood as a preacher's son makes me both love and hate this episode. I love it because I actually got the biblical references made about Job and Isaac which had me in stitches. I hate it because the whiny, self-righteous "You don't need druuuuurgs! You just need to preeeeeaaaaayyyy the depression awaaayyyyyyy!" bullshit gives me horrible flashbacks of my father giving me the same bullcrap speech every single day regarding my depression, medication, and his moral indignation that I dare let a living soul know I'm sad because of how it "reflects on the family." Friends don't let friends become preachers. Or have kids as preachers. Or something. I don't know, I tried to say something funny there and it just fell flat. Forget it.
I honestly don't know whether to be amused or terrified that there are people who really think movies like this are true to life. I mean, on one hand it's hilarious to make fun of the simple minded religious morons. But on the other hand, if it wasn't for this "mental illness is fixed by prayer not medication and counseling" attitude, I would have gotten the treatment I needed a long time ago.
How the hell are there no churches in this town? The most practiced religion here is Christianity. I'm out in the middle of nowhere but i'm a good stone's throw away from *5* churches.
True.I live in Mansfield,Texas which is right outside Fort Worth. And there are three churches right up the street from the street from me. A Methodist Church;a Chutch of Christ and a Baptist Church.
They used to make good religious movies like "Lillies of the Field" and "The Gospel Road". Now they make crspfests like this with every has been and never were!!
Yes, another movie that the Dove Foundation enjoys!!!! This should be fucking good. Brad should do the movie "Loving the Bad Man," which I watched after TBR mentioned it in one of their shows. What the hell, they live in a town with no church? In the United States? Where the fuck is this mythical city without a church?
Does any city on earth of any size larger then a hut not have a religious building of some sort? i've seen towns of 300 people have churches be the largest building, and when i was in Afghanistan you'd find places that look like they where a few steps from the stone age yet they have mosques as basically a certainty.
I should become a DVD box designer. Then I can just print the entire movie's synopsis on the front on the cover like what they did with this movie! Star Wars 4: "They rebelled against Darth Vader and the empire and won!" Star Wars 5: "They rebelled against Darth Vader and the empire and lost!" Alien: "They were all brutally slaughtered by a Xenomorph, except one!" The list goes on...
Othaur lol it would have made the movie better if if one of the characters told the depressed kid. man up Jesus didn't cry on the cross I think you could handle feeling sad for no reason. something really fuck up like that would have made this hilarious to watch.
As someone who takes Prozac and is an atheist, Fuck this movie. Prozac does help, I had constant panic attacks and suicidal thoughts, and, guess what, when I was a Christian I felt the same if not worse. I constantly lived in fear as I thought that I was just a puppet in one long puppet show, how everything that went wrong was a malicious attempt by God to make my life miserable, and when I became a atheist the constant idea of burning in hell forever was fucking terrifying. I prayed for things to get better and they didn't. And then I started seeing a therapist and taking meds and while I still have severe anxiety, it's better and getting better.
I don't get these movies, why are they always victim complexes with evil cartoon atheists? Why not just make them people and have them see eye to eye in some way. Like idk, maybe forming a club outside of school? The refreshing thing about I'm Not Ashamed as bad as it was it was at least about what being a good christian actually was. Ya know, not judgemental and trying to help out others? Tasteless sure but it at least had some level of tact in how it displayed actually good messages, what it failed at was dialogue and reminding you she was going to die with over the top shooters. That's really sad, it really is.
SpriteRyu the problem is no successful Movie Maker that is a Christian make Christian movies like this. so the majority of the people that make this stuff have little to no idea what they're doing. Christian's that are legitimate Movie Makers work on things like the passion or Risen.
Or Noah or Prince of Egypt or Silence. Yeah I getcha though, there are good movie just all these lower end ones seem to repeat the same problems over and over.
I suggest the novel, Silence, 'Chinmoku', if you haven't seen it already. I absolutely love it, being 1)A fan of Endo Shusaku's work 2)A Portuguese person who was raised Catholic (but an atheist) 3)A student of the Japanese language.
That is a underestimate. You see I am an Atheist and I agree with you but I think it's problematic because mental illness is a killer. Take it from me, I deal with Depression, Bipolar disorder and Autism and I feel like giving up at times because of the condition.
"They live in a town with no churches." Well, there's the problem. This movie about a small town in America isn't set in America. Seriously, I don't think there's a single town in America without at least one church.
Growing up in a stifling and suffocating religious household, (depending on who I was staying with), these kinds of movies were top-roster and proudly displayed in our vhs/dvd glass-cabinet library in the tv room. There, they would be watched and discussed for hours on end by other family and/or equally religious fanatic guests who would come over to my family's house for cringe-worthy bible studies, lame songs accompanied by some guy who couldn't play the acoustic to save his life, equally lame jokes and bland snacks. Even though I was always not of their faith and some of my family tended to hate me for it, condemn me and give me a tougher time.... I sometimes did wish there was a god, so he could just zap me with a lightning bolt already and finally put me out of my misery. There is nothing more mind-boggling and infuriating while watching these movies with people so backwards and so brainwashed and unquestioning to anything while they nod their heads and clap in approval to some of the worst movie messages/morals I had ever seen. I have nothing against religious people of any faith. My spouse is a Christian, along with other family friends who also have varying faiths. They are all pretty much normal and down to earth people. I have everything against the willfully ignorant and those willing to try to mentally tear down others not part of their religious 'clan'. These movies bring back bad memories, because anytime I did something 'bad' in their eyes (it wasn't, I just calmly questioned something or politely disagreed with something.), I'd be compared to some 'evil heathen' character in their Christploitation films. If I tried to defend myself, I was punished into writing a single scripture for 500-1000 times and it had to be magnet-ed to the fridge by the morning. I honesty wish that while I was a kid/teen, I had an online community of people who felt the same way I did regarding these almost Twilight Zone-esque films. I seriously thought there really was just something wrong with me and everyone in the world loved these movies and their messages.
I may not have had the same experience as you, but I still feel bad for you. No one deserves to live in a house like the one you described. If you grew up during this whole Coronavirus thing, you would have had a FAR worse experience I can tell you that. Seriously if you took the household you just described and put it in the whole quarantine thing, you would have been even more likely to kill yourself due to a lack of escape. In that scenario you would have 2 options: Surrender to your family’s beliefs, or escape into the intoxicated world and die. There’s nothing wrong with being Christian, but forcing the word of God down people’s throats is the worst thing you ever could do. People should turn to Christianity on their own terms, not for good of their family’s backwards beliefs. In short other than feeling bad for you, I salute you to sir.
@@Dinosaurianationazation To be fair, my CORE family wasn't religious, (mom and dad) but my mother's family is. Our family was a huge unit and stuck together. I stayed with extended sometimes if mom and dad were out on business for months at a time, and I went to my new school. My mother may have had her problems, but religion wasn't one of them. Ny dad is an atheist and wasn't well liked by the hivemind. Her sisters on the other hand....... whole other story. After a while, I just got old enough to where I didn't have to have extended stays with them, but they were still part of my family. I had to deal with the zealots a LOT. Churches ran whole towns, and religion was central. There was no escape. My dad was atheist, but I still wish I had an online community all the while. It was like 2 atheists vs like 54? Unless we moved to my dad's side of the family for a spell who are either atheist, pagan, or agnostic, we were sol. Mom gave into her religious family's demands every time, and dad stayed for the kids. He left as soon as all the kids were gone though and went for another atheist women. I guess he looked at xtian woman and said "never again." Remember, even if a Christian is Christian "lite", you still have their family to contend with. P.S: If I were quarantined with the nutcases, I wouldn't kill myself. I am not nor have ever been suicidal, I don't see the point of benefit of self-termination, but I WOULD run away. XD Ain't no zealots gonna drive me to death. Maybe to drink, but never death. They can suck it.
"Just makes me worse" I've been on antidepressants for seven months now and I feel much more like a functional, alive human being than I did in December. It's almost like those pills were meant to sort out my brain's inability to produce the right chemicals!
"You'll be in my prayers," is what you say when you have no intention of doing anything to help. Why not consider that God brought you into that persons life so that you could actively assist with their problem?
Saying "you'll be in my prayers" is great and all, but I agree, actually helping people with their problems or talking with them at least would be great.
Especially since Christ specifically preached that the people you must help can and will actively hate you. But you're supposed to do it anyway. So "You'll be in my prayers" is throwing in the towel long before you get to the point that someone might dislike you.
Sooo, this movie features a clinically depressed kid who is on medication and in therapy to help manage his depression. He seems to be doing reasonably okay with this regimen, I mean, not jumping for joy every second, but at least engaged at school and looking to make new friendships. He then meets a Christian girl who advises him to stop taking the meds and use prayer and bible-reading instead. Aaaaand within a few days of this new treatment plan he becomes literally SUICIDAL, to the point of leaving a suicide note for his father and setting out to kill himself in the next few hours. And this movie is PRO-prayer instead of medication.....? 🤨 What the actual FUCK?!?!? 😖
For anyone curious about Cinema Snob's Bible verse retort: Mark 11:25 - And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. John 7:13 - But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the leaders. His retort makes an amusing amount of sense when put into context.
Except blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Jews, gays, women, Muslims. Uhmm...Everybody who's not a white man. And I mean white-white, so no Italians, no Polish, just people from Ireland, England, and Scotland. But only certain parts of Scotland and Ireland. Just full blooded whites. No, you know what? Not even whites. Nobody gets any rights. Ahhh...America!
I'm french and I never ate snails in my whole life ! Actually few people eat snails or froggs in France, that's a stereotype ! In my country, people believe that Americans are really fat and eat hamburgers at every meal. Stop the food stereotypes !
+Jason Miller I thought the twist was that the father really had psychic abilities but also had religious hallucinations, which made him mistake what he saw as visions from God?
weedongding Wrong because Bill Paxton said God will blind them and the one FBI agent who introduced Mathew to the FBI agent who questions him, forgot what he looked like after like a day, and the video tape had Mathew ' s face blurred, so no it's a Christian movie the last line was God's will be done
Wow. The way this movie treats mental health actually makes me mad... I have depression, along with Aspergers syndrome and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. A couple of years ago I tried taking medication and discovered that my brain is wired in a way where antidepressants actually make things worse. Getting off the meds took almost a year. It was a long and miserable, but necessary process to make sure all that bad medicine got out of my system. Since then, I have gotten a lot better through years of therapy. And just in case anyone is wondering, I am an atheist... And I just want to say that just because antidepressants don't work for me doesn't mean they don't work for others. In a lot of cases, they do help... What I'm really trying to say is that this movie's viewpoint on mental health is fucking bullshit! As for Stephen Baldwin... Holy shit is he dead in this role. I agree with the Snob. At least in Bio-Dome (1996) he had some life in him! P.S... Loved the review Brad! Can't wait for Jesus, Bro! (2017)...
Oh, well, fair enough then. I was expecting the movie to have its cake and eat it too by preaching christianity but saying it's okay to hit people when they make you angry.
It’s strange that after the Golden Age of movies that Christian/religious themed movies almost always end up being terrible. Except Prince of Egypt. That movie managed to escape the curse probably because of the good script and plot and the music being excellent and the voice actors actually giving emotion in their performances.
"Brain and brain, what is brain?!!" Nice reference! Also, "Why do girls pull hair when they fight?" Jeez. Add some more bullshit to the pile, movie. Why not?
I have several questions 1st: What town has no churches?! 2nd: Did an old white guy with very flawed knowledge of mental health write this? 3rd: Who talks someone out of suicide by telling them they're not going to heaven?!
For some reason, the scene where the girl walks out on the moment of silence really pisses me off. Like, the people who made this movie are SO self-absorbed and presumptuous that they think a basic decency like moments of silence are A Christian Thing that a non-Christian would vehemently object to. It’s just another layer of infuriating self-centeredness.
Honestly, as a former christian who has struggled a lot with mental health and suicidal thoughts, I can't stress enough how much I /love/ the Snob's reaction at 23:43 . It's cathartic
John 7 verse 13: "Yet no one would speak publicly of him for fear of the leaders." A good comparison to Steven Baldwin, given that talking about him in a positive light will make you a social pariah.
"Everyone gets depressed sometimes" No, everyone gets sad sometimes. They are not the same thing and to equate them as such is an incredibly dangerous thing to do.