THE BELIEVER’S HEAVEN (1977) **

Ron Ormond and Estus Pirkle return to ask the question, “If The Burning Hell tire you what will The Believer’s Heaven do”?

The second Ormond/Pirkle collaboration, The Burning Hell showed unbelieving heathens refusing to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior, and as a consequence, they burned in Hell for all eternity.  It was only fitting that their next film would show the flipside of that equation.  The Believer’s Heaven depicts what happens if you live a good Christian life.  That is to say, your body turns into a transparent image via cheap optical effect, then it floats upwards offscreen until you and a bunch of other transparent people like you dressed in white robes mill around, poorly superimposed in the clouds. 

Sometimes though, Heaven is depicted as a mansion.  Other times, it’s somebody’s backyard.  There’s also a couple of times where it looks like the set of the Lawrence Welk Show during the Christmas episode.  I guess the good Lord is flexible when it comes to Heaven.

If you thought it was all nice and cheery stuff, don’t worry, because Ormond and Pirkle still enjoy showing the audience what’ll happen if they live a sinning life.  In fact, there’s an earthquake scene five minutes into the movie where papier Mache boulders crush unsuspecting sinners in their sleep.  We also see a bulldozer moving earth over a mass grave of children.  Unfortunately, this is about as close the film gets to flirting with the lunacy of If Footmen Tire You What Will Horses Do?

Once again, we have to sit through a lot of cheap-ass biblical recreations.  This time, there are even more of them, which is a shame.  The stories of Abraham, Jacob, and John are trotted out, and even though they only last a few minutes of screen time, they feel like the eternity that Pirkle described Hell as. 

As a fan of Ormond, it pains me to say The Believer’s Heaven is seriously lacking the oomph his previous religious pictures had.  It’s also not nearly as nutty.  The special effects are shitty, like when Jerusalem comes down from Heaven, and are good for a laugh, but moments like these are few and far between.  While there are some exploitative moments here, quite honestly, there’s not nearly as many as I was expecting.  Even the climactic Hell scenes just feel like outtakes from The Burning Hell.  Oh, and because it’s an Ormond movie, you know it’s going to be loaded with padding.  Unfortunately, the padding this time includes gospel songs (including one enthusiastic number by a little person in a wheelchair) and brief sermons from other guest preachers. 

All and all, the results are less than heavenly.