THE VELOCIPASTOR (2019) **

Sometimes, I think Grindhouse did more harm than good.  Yes, it is one of the best movies of the century.  Yes, it gave Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino a platform to pay tribute to the exploitation films of yesteryear while still allowing them to make pictures that were very uniquely their own.  However, because they purposely made certain aspects of their films look cheap and incompetent, it gave cheap and incompetent filmmakers an avenue to make movies in the Grindhouse mold where they could chalk up their shortcomings to the retro aesthetic.  Like, “I know it’s bad, but it’s SUPPOSED to be bad!”

First, The Asylum perpetrated the Sharknado series upon the world.  Pretty soon, the trickle-down effect led to any old low budget filmmaker who could secure a deal with a video company making would-be cult movies on super cheap budgets.  The thing is, the old exploitation flicks were fun DESPITE their shortcomings.  These newfangled readymade Grindhouse films use their shortcomings as a crutch.  

Part of the fun of Grindhouse was the fake trailers that appeared before the movies.  I think The VelociPastor has all the makings for a great fake trailer.  It’s all about a mild-mannered pastor (Greg Cohan) who, while traveling in China, cuts his hand on a mystical dinosaur tooth and becomes a bloodthirsty raptor by night.  Along with a hooker/med (and law) student (Alyssa Kempinski), he hunts down and eats only the people who DESERVE to be eaten. 

This premise could’ve easily supported a three-minute trailer.  It might’ve even made for a decent seven-minute short.  Seventy minutes (which is barely feature length) is just way too much time to spend on the already flimsy set-up.  The filmmakers even take to adding inconsequential flashbacks and tossing in too many supporting characters to get the film up to seventy minutes.  (The introduction of the drug-dealing Ninjas late in the game feels especially tacked on.)

There one or two funny moments that revolve around the film’s nearly nonexistent budget.  That’s not quite enough to make it worthwhile though.  Still, as far as these things go, you can do a whole lot worse.  At least it moves at an agreeable pace and the performers are in on the joke.  Overall, The Velocipastor is proof that the fake Grindhouse genre deserves to be extinct.