1987 - Salvation!
Salvation
Release Date: 1987
Plot Summary from IMDB: A troubled young woman hooks up with a money-crazed televangelist and becomes a rich, heavy-metal Christian rock star.
Mature Content
SPOILERS
Characters
Reverend Randall (Stephen McHattie): Reverend Randall may believe some of the crap he’s spewing, but you begin to doubt that as you watch him rehearse his sermons while watching nasty porno. He is immediately suspicious of the young woman at his door but lets her in anyway and proceeds to have wild, kinky sex with her. Compared to the Stamples, however, the Rev is a sympathetic character – at least he’s educated and knows how to run a business. McHattie must have worked out, because he’s cut when you see him undressed. Very nice legs.
Rhonda Stample (Exene Cervenka): This woman can really sing. She is a great singer, with wonderful stage presence and a remarkable talent for songwriting. She sucks as an actress. That said, Rhonda is a total nutcase and if I were Jerome I woulda’ just left instead of pimping her out to the Rev. Of course, Jerome wasn’t much of a prize either. Rhonda is a fanatically devoted follower of the Reverend Randall, giving half of Jerome’s paycheck to his ministry. Though we see her briefly doing such domestic tasks as lighting a gas oven and sorting laundry, the limited glimpse of the house proves she is not much of a homemaker. She doesn’t have sex with Jerome either, so I don’t see what the attraction is – except she has a hot little jailbait sister. This may get me placed on the hit list of the Exene Cervenka fan club, but I’m adding her to Molly Ringwald and Chelsea Field as one of my least favorite Viggo Leading Ladies. (I liked her fine in He’s Got a She.)
Lenore Finley (Dominique Davalos): Meet the hot little jailbait sister. This girl seems to spend all her time teasing Jerome by doing her nails in the living room wearing a skimpy nightgown and inviting him to pajama parties. She exists only to tempt men, and that is how she is used – to tempt the righteous Reverend Randall. She also likes her sex hot and cold – rough and sweet, and gets it from the Rev, who is as sick and twisted as she likes it, and from Jerome, who is just plain confused and angry.
Jerome Stample (Viggo Mortensen): This man is frustrated and angry and thinks the world owes him something. When he loses his job, his anger and frustration becomes focused upon the Reverend Randall. He’s a greasy unskilled laborer who hatches a plan to blackmail the Rev to get back the money he’s owed and then some. When rejected by his wife, he goes down on her sister in their living room. No, I’m not making excuses for him. But I must say his technique has vastly improved since then.
Story
This is a poorly written, over-acted indictment against televangelism and Christian rock. The Stamples represent the lowest form of trash who force their way into the religion business and then turn on each other when the money begins rolling in. I like a little more subtlety in my message movies.
I didn’t like this movie the first time I saw it and I still don’t like it. This sort of over-blown so-called satire just does not appeal to me.
I think the movie had its story (right) and its budget ($900) and that’s the way it had to go, but I gotta say I really wish they’d been telling a different story, more about Jerome and Rhonda and a real look at their life together, whether they made it or not. What made me want this was the scene, early on in the film, where Jerome is either waiting to get into work or on his break, standing outside, looking through the iron grille and smoking. The look on his face, as the camera just stays there, is the only genuine human expression I saw in the entire film. I wanted to know his story at that moment.
Unfortunately, I got Salvation instead.
Other
Repeat Appearances
Stephen McHattie also appears in History of Violence as Leland, the head bad guy in the opening scenes. Exene Cervenka (Rhonda) also appeared as the wife of the homeless man played by Viggo in Floundering (1994).
Other Connections
Stephen McHattie was at one point married to Meg Foster, who appeared in Tripwire (1990) as the wife who gets killed early in the film. He also played James Dean in a made for TV biography (1976), and many people have compared young Viggo to James Dean. Exene Cervenka wrote “The Future is a War,” which appeared on the GI Jane soundtrack. And of course, she was married to Viggo after the two met on the set of Salvation, and bore Viggo’s only son, Henry, back in 1988. Exene also appears in a music video with Viggo for “He’s Got a She.”
Mystery Tattoo
This is the only movie where I have seen full on shots of the tattoo on Viggo’s right arm. Usually it is obscured, or he’s attempted to have it removed and this lightened it. In this movie, you can see clearly it is something with a curling tail. Unfortunately, due to the poor quality of the video, I still was unable to identify it.
Viggonness Ratings
Viggo Screen Time (Quality/Quantity): 4 out of 10. This is the worst quality video I have yet attempted to screencap. The movie is about 80 minutes long and I got just over 140 caps, and Viggo is a major, if secondary, character. The film is dark and the quality of the color processing causes bleeding and washing out and all sorts of other things I can’t identify because I don’t know the technical terms. This results in lousy screencaps. Viggo himself portrays one of the least attractive characters, physically, he has ever played. It wasn’t a total loss, and once again screencapping revealed a few surprises for me. I discovered two places where Jerome does not appear completely unattractive to me. For that, I raised this rating a little.
Nekkid Viggo: 4 out of 10. Jerome takes his shirt off after taking a dip in the ocean. He puts on one of the Rev’s suit jackets, but has no shirt on so you still see his chest hair. At the very end of the video, during the music video portion, that naked ass may well be Viggo’s (I bumped the rating up 1 point just for that).
Viggo Sex: 2 out of 10. At the beginning of the movie Jerome dives face first into his sister-in-law’s lap, as she ineffectually tries to pull him out. He tries unsuccessfully to get a kiss from his wife. At the Rev’s mansion, he tackles Lenore to the floor and kisses her. The implication is that they have sex, off screen. At a poker game, Jerome stuffs a dildo into the cleavage of two women playing with them.
Fetish Factor: 7 out of 10. Sleazy Viggo. Facial hair (scruff). Viggo on a motorcycle. Viggo wearing a helmet. Viggo smoking. Viggo cussing (a lot). Viggo bent over a bar to get his ass branded.
Clothes: 1 out of 10. Much as I like to see him recycle his clothing, I hope he never wears anything from this movie ever again. I hope they burned everything. Except the shorts.
Viggo Sound Bytes: 1 out of 10.
“Maybe I got a little carried away.” After nearly killing the Rev.
Total Viggoness Rating: 3.1 out of 10
Salvation ended up with a much higher rating than I would have guessed going in. The high fetish factor certainly helped, as well as Viggo’s ass at the end.
-------------------
Across the modem, around the LAN, through the gateway, nothing but Net.
-------------------
Across the modem, around the LAN, through the gateway, nothing but Net.