Chad

clckworang

This was a first-time watch for me. I really liked it. There were times it made me laugh, but it always kept an underlying tension throughout. The idea of a priest choosing to corrupt himself to trick the devil is a good one. The UHD looks very good throughout, but the end seems to expose some early green screen. It looks kinda off.

Speaking of the ending, it loses me a bit. Are we to believe there was no antichrist after all? If the child was the antichrist, then the gang the devil seemed to be leading did the job for the priest, which really threw me off. And are we also to believe the priest killed the devil? Huh?

The ending just didn't come off as clean as I would like, but it has made it one of the films I've thought about the most after watching it. Overall, I'd consider this one of the better watches for me this challenge.

wishbone

A priest, a metalhead, and a con artist walk into a wonderfully demented film. This was a lot of fun with some great camera work and stunts.Same.

Toddarino

Enjoyed the hell outta this. I’ll pick up the UHD at the next Severin sale.

jholmes

I enjoyed this and laughed out loud in places. But I have the feeling it would be a lot funnier if I were more familiar with Catholicism and the local culture. Some of the priest's actions that were supposed to be funny came off as juvenile to me. I agree the ending was a little confusing. Still a good watch overall. 3/5 for me.

brainee

I remember seeing this in the theater when it was new .. an art-house theater associated with a local college that would show lots of offbeat stuff. I've seen it several times since. I agree it doesn't quite hit the landing on the ending, but there's so much fun stuff throughout that I can forgive it.

If you're not familiar with de la Iglesia's filmography, he's been really prolific (Day of the Beast was only his second movie) and has done a lot of great stuff. It's not always horror, but most feature a similar dark sense of humor. Maybe his 2 biggest "misses" (that I've seen) were his 2 English language movies:Perdita Durango and The Oxford Murders. Although it's been a really long time since I've seen the former, and maybe owe it another watch.

numbercrunch

I have the Severin blu ray and this was like my third watch. The film just keeps getting better, but I agree the ending is a bit of a mess.

WillieMLF

Man, what a long day yesterday. It seems the universe was conspiring against me all day. Wi-fi was down on the bus coming home, so I just slept. I get home and pulled up Perdita Durango on Shudder, thinking it was the movie of the day. I made it 25 minutes through that movie, and then the power flickered, and everything went down. While waiting for the modem to come back on, I decided to 'vent' in the forum and noticed that I was playing the wrong movie!

I have seen portions of this movie playing on Shudder TV, but never finished it out. There were some really funny moments, but all the baggage from the earlier missteps really impacted my mood.

Yes, that early green screen, really impacted the quality of the last 10 minutes. It was really noticeable.

Undeadcow

Great subset choice. The brilliant premise of a 'righteous man so committed to charity he must become evil and condemn himself to save mankind from that evil' is a bright one ripe with moral questioning that outshines the film itself.

It's the beginning I wonder about - did the priest purposefully kill his fellow priest to kick start his reign of wrong doing or was that divine intervention from god or a devil? That's a great opening so unexpected it's darkly comedic.
It's curious that the metalhead is so dismissive over the death of his mother, that might be one of the film's biggest weakness that some elements are aimless some of which feels thematic and maybe to a point some of it feels over my head but other examples feel just nonchalant and senseless (why even kill the mother then, other than for dark humor).

I like the ending because it's ambiguous - salvation is so subtle no one we never really even know for sure that there was a devil or antichrist or salvation, it's possible the whole film was raving lunacy or that no one even realizes salvation because our noses are so far into our everyday lives. It was the gang who killed the baby so the priest did not even really do anything and his presence at the scene may not have even made a difference other than in the most passive way. Part of the comedy is how pointless the events are, while at the same time being wildly important. I like how the film patchworks the devil with roving yuppies, that seems awfully sarcastic.

Last Circus by Alex de la Iglesia is another worth checking out; he seems way too under rated.

Spiderbite

I enjoyed this one. I am usually not a fan of madcap, zany, screwball type comedies but this one surprised me. And is this the only horror screwball type farce out there? No others pop into my head at the moment.

I am glad others were bothered by the ending. I just took it as they were all hepped-up on shrooms and they have no idea what was real and what wasn't. Their stoned actions affected everything else around them and they just created their own truth.

And did the priest get the initial idea himself to do all this or from something else? I missed that or forgot it by the time it really got going. I don't mind subtitles but sometimes I miss some things if I am not paying 100% attention or if something distracts me while watching.

Enjoyable but nothing special like all the reviews on imdb suggest. .

My rating: *** out of *****