The Jesus Freak (2017) Carl Jackson Motion Pictures Studios/Comedy-Drama RT: 90 minutes No MPAA rating (thematic elements) Director: Carl Jackson Screenplay: Carl Jackson and Joseph Polk Cinematography: Edwin L. Williams II Release date: August 25, 2017 (Philadelphia, PA) Cast: Crystal Cameron, Darret Hart, Abby Joy, Carl Jackson, Dalon Collins, Carolina Bradley, Taylor Donald, Nicole Holt, Timothy Aydelott. Box Office: N/A
Rating: NO STARS!!!
I missed a Q&A session with the director of Carl Jackson’s The Jesus Freak by a day. Had I been there, I would have asked how he managed to get respectable theaters to show his movie despite it being incompetent in every single way. It’s easily one of the worst movies I’ve ever sat through.
I’m not even sure words can adequately describe the excruciating experience of watching The Jesus Freak. I’m sure going to try though. It’s like watching a movie made by the worst student in film school. It wouldn’t even get an F; the student would be advised to consider another career before being kicked out. The Jesus Freak is clearly a DIY project. Jackson financed and distributed it himself. It’s the only way he could get it out there; no studio would have touched it with a pole of any length.
The Jesus Freak begins in a most peculiar way. There’s a trailer for another one of his films 2013’s Strong Black Woman (never heard of it). Then there’s a short clip showing two men telling a club DJ to step up his game. It then turns into a dance number. None of it has anything to do with the movie which deals with a church group going to Las Vegas to save souls. What better place to find sinners than Sin City, right? It turns out to be a bad idea as temptation rears its ugly head and a couple of them succumb to it. The youth pastor (Aydelott) loses a lot of money gambling. Kirsten Cooper (Cameron), the “First Lady”* of the church, sleeps with a woman she meets at a bar. It causes even more problems in her already troubled marriage to head pastor Ed (Hart) who committed adultery a few years earlier.
There’s more drama. Kirsten’s assistant Tammy (Joy) wants to have a baby so bad, she deceived her husband Ricardo (Jackson) about birth control. She stopped taking the pill a few months ago and is now pregnant. He’s not happy. Also, church member Darren (Collins) falls in love with Diamond (Bradley), a girl he meets in Vegas.
Now let’s jump to the end of The Jesus Freak which isn’t really the end. It closes with a wedding scene during which a pregnant character’s water predictably breaks just as the celebration gets underway. As the end credits roll, the main actors lip sync and dance to some rap song. That’s followed by several minutes of extra pick-up shots of exteriors. All told, the “end” is dragged out for like ten minutes. I call it prolonging torture.
I’ve seen small micro-budgeted independent films that were good- e.g. Stranger Than Paradise, Straight Out of Brooklyn, El Mariachi and Clerks. Then I’ve seen some that are just plain awful like The Jesus Freak. It takes incompetence to a whole new level. This movie is vile. The production values are among the worst I’ve ever seen. It looks cheap and shoddy. It’s poorly made and badly put together. It’s sloppily edited. Many times you hear characters speaking while other characters are on-screen. Much of the time it sounds like the dialogue was re-recorded and looped in. The score, which often drowns out the dialogue, is overbearing. The music in the dramatic scenes sounds like it comes from a 1940s melodrama, the kind normally shown late nights on Turner Classic Movies.
The acting is God-awful. Not a single performance rings true. The line readings sound over-rehearsed. I’m wondering if Jackson just recruited people from his church and handed them scripts to memorize. There’s no evidence of talent anywhere in The Jesus Freak. That goes for the people behind the camera as well. The screenplay is a jumble of faith-testing dilemmas and hackneyed melodrama. It’s all over the place. At some point, the focus shifts to Pastor Ed. At a meeting with the bishop, he’s called out on his pride and arrogance before being asked to step down. I just realized that I don’t even know what religion the characters are. I’m going to guess Baptist because it takes place in Texas, but don’t hold me to it.
I absolutely loathed The Jesus Freak. I hated it with every fiber of my being. It’s not a movie, it’s a test of one’s patience. I thought about walking out about a dozen times. It’s absolutely unwatchable! I still can’t believe it got booked in regular theaters. I saw it an arthouse theater that normally shows quality films. Once in a while, they get one that isn’t very good. Very seldom do they get something as horrible as The Jesus Freak. The last one I can think of is 1993’s Tokyo Decadence. It’s the only time I ever saw an apology from theater management posted at the entrance. They should do the same with this one. I’ll go one step further. Jackson should personally call everybody who paid to see it and offer a full refund (including parking and popcorn) by way of an apology. Yes, it’s really that bad.
*= the head pastor’s wife
