VelociPastor (2018)

 

After a sermon Father Doug (Greg Cohan) walks out of his church and sees his parents killed right in front of him.  Not sure how they are killed because all it shows it an empty city curb and sidewalk but the words VFX: INSERT FIERY CAR EXPLOSION.  But it's not there and it's not until town pimp Frankie the Mermaid tells Doug in the confessional that he blew up the car that we really know.  Going back to their death, to deal with his grief Doug goes for a little R and R to China.  While there he sees a ninja get shot with an arrow.  She hands him something that looks like a dogs rawhide toy and then she dies.  Doug leaves with it and comes back to the church.  One night while walking around at night he sees a woman being mugged.  The woman is Carol, a hooker, who works for Frankie the Mermaid.  Why is he called Frankie the Mermaid?  Because he's swimming in bitches of course!  Doug seeing the mugging tries to stop it and is attacked as well.  This triggers something and he turns into a velociraptor and kills the mugger.  

 

 

Doug wakes up back at Carol's (Alyssa Kempinski) apartment who tells him what happened.  He can't believe it so she takes him back to the seen of the crime to see the dead body of the mugger.  Now, I'll take you back to the confessional where once Doug hears Frankie's confession he kills him.  He goes back and tells Carol what happened and she tells Doug that Frankie was her pimp.  The two decide to go on a hero mission stopping the bad guys with Doug's new ability.  Back at the church the senior priest Father Stewart (Daniel Steere) is troubled by Doug's recent behavior especially the hanging around a hooker part.  The velociraptor is a guy in a dinosaur costume and looks just silly enough to make me bust a gut laughing whenever I see it.  

 

An interesting fact about the film is how it got it's title because the film was formed around the name.  Director Brenden Steere (who also directed Animosity a film I will be looking for after this one) tried to include the word velociraptor in a text and for some reason it autocorrected to Veloci Pastor.  And a legend was born.  So more about the film: there's a Vietnam flashback, ninjas, microphones in at least one of the shots, an attempted exorcism, a mannequin head trying to pass for the real thing and failing; spectacularly.  This movie knows it ridiculous and plays it as such.  Not in the realm of Winterbeast or Blood Diner so bad it's great but close enough to get three and a half eye patches out of five.  Highly recommend!