MovieChat Forums > Brigham City (2001) Discussion > religious movies are....creepy.

religious movies are....creepy.

posted 17 years ago by darko2525
6 replies | jump to latest

I'm not trying to offend anyone, but have you noticed that Christian cinema tends to feature overwrought scripts, bad acting, and ham-handed prostheletizing?

Can't a message be delivered in a subtle way? Must you folks approach cinema with the same hugh, clumsy feet with which crusades and whitch huts were conducted?

"You can disappear here without even knowing it."
---Bret Easton Ellis
Less Than Zero

[–] shamrock-pa 16 years ago

That's pretty much what I was thinking while watching this, and many more of these types of films.

[–] therealmeek 16 years ago

What are you talking about? I swear this movie is the only movie, in the HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN CINEMA, that didn't have an overwrought script, bad acting, OR ham-handed prostheletizing. Did you even see this movie? Sure, it's pro-religion, but it manages to not beat you over the head with its message.

The board for the Left Behind movies is somewhere else, bud. You got the wrong movie.

[–] helydr 15 years ago

I agree with you in general, but not 100% on this movie. There were a couple parts that didn't work for me but overall I thought it was well done. I was very pleasantly surprised by the caliber of the acting. Most of this type movie have really, really bad acting but I thought most people in this movie did a good job. I especially liked Richard Dutcher (Wes), Matthew Brown (Terry), Wilford Brimley (Stu), and Tavya Patch (Meredith).

[–] flipvaleur 15 years ago

Isn't this movie from the Mormon filmindustri?

[–] WarpedRecord 13 years ago

I agree on the quality of this film as well as the performances ... as well as other religious films having an element of creepiness (probably more like preachiness, but I find that creepy). I appreciated the "inside take" this film provided on the Mormon faith, and I didn't find it heavy-handed at all. 7/10 stars.

[–] Edward_de_Vere 10 years ago

I'm not trying to offend anyone, but have you noticed that Christian cinema tends to feature overwrought scripts, bad acting, and ham-handed prostheletizing?

It often does, but this movie isn't one of them. I never once got the impression that Dutcher was trying to convert me or the the rest of his non-Mormon audience to Mormonism. This wasn't the LDS version of Left Behind. I get the impression that Dutcher was more concerned with offering viewers of sympathetic portrait of his people and community than trying to convert anyone with a movie, so I didn't find any of it cheap or ham-fisted.

This film was much better than I expected, though I'm guessing most people figured out who the killer was about halfway through the movie (i.e. target shooting scene), and Steve the Photographer was too obvious a red herring for anyone to think that he was the actual killer.