The fourth of nine anime movies produced by the Japanese religious organization Happy Science, this is based on Ryuho Okawa’s third book, The Nine Dimensions: Unveiling the Laws of Eternity.

Happy Science is a Japanese religious organization founded in 1986 by Ryuho Okawa, who went from being a stock trader to the present incarnation of a supreme deity named El Cantare. He can also speak with the dead. They’ve produced 11 anime and 16 live-action movies. 

What do they believe? On their site, they say, “Human beings are spiritual beings. We are souls residing in physical bodies. The center of it is our mind. We reincarnate many times between this world and the other world, gaining different life experiences and growing infinitely as individual souls.

God (Buddha) exists and has continued to lead (guide) Humanity – past, present and future. These are the spiritual Truths that Happy Science works to spread. Our mission and purpose are to explore what true happiness is based on these eternal Truths and make this world a more peaceful and prosperous place.

Our work takes us beyond traditional religious realms into politics, education, movies, music, and more. We strive to put the teachings of love, enlightenment, and creation of utopia into practice in every area of life.”

According to Wikipedia, “…the organization’s political wing, the Happiness Realization Party, promotes political views that include support for Japanese military expansion, support for the use of nuclear deterrence and denial of historical events such as the Nanjing Massacre in China and the comfort women issue in South Korea. Some other stances include support of infrastructure spending, natural disaster prevention, urban development and dam construction. They also advocate fiscal conservatism, strengthening the US-Japan alliance and a virtue-based leadership.”

Let’s talk about this movie.

Ryuta, Patrick, and Roberto have traveled from Japan to New York City, where they visit a museum exhibit on Thomas Edison. They see a spirit phone, which allows people to talk to the dead. You may think Edison never invented this, but in an interview with American Magazine, he claimed that “I have been at work for some time, building an apparatus to see if it is possible for personalities which have left this earth to communicate with us.” This device would not use “…any occult, mystifying, mysterious, or weird means, employed by so–called “mediums”, but by scientific methods. I am engaged in the construction of one such apparatus now, and I hope to be able to finish it before very many months pass.”

The guys then meet a shaman, God Eagle, who has a message from Edison that gives Ryuta the knowledge needed to make his own spirit phone. After meeting Yuko, a religious girl, they can finally go to the next world, where Ryuta and Yuko discover they were married many years ago in Atlantis, and they battle enemies like Friedrich Nietzsche and Adolf Hitler, who has his own evil elephant. The good news? Helen Keller, Florence Nightingale, and Mother Theresa all appear as angels sent to our reality to guide us. Yes, Helen Keller can see, speak and hear now; she’s also blonde with blue eyes, like all of the angels in this religion.

This is probably where I should get into the fact that cat aliens came to our planet first, but after they founded Atlantis and Mu — All bound for Mu Mu Land — because of Satan. 

Lord El Cantare shows up — he was also La Mu, Thoth, Rient Arl Croud, Ophealis, Hermes and Buddha — along with Moses, Jesus and Confucius. You should also know that the ninth dimension of Heaven is filled with centaurs. Also: humans are reincarnations of immortal spirits, angels and demigods who have lost their memories after leaving the Spirit World.

And Florence Nightingale informs us, “A lot of people on Earth panic when they pass away and become a spirit. Some don’t believe in their death and cling to the place they’ve died, or their families, and cause a lot of trouble.”

This is a very capitalist religion, as Thomas Edison is not the man who destroyed Tesla, but instead someone who used his inventions to help mankind. He was also Johannes Gutenberg. Other angels include Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita and the boss of Toyota, Sakichi Toyoda, who are angels sent to give Japan a strong yen.

There’s also a movie theater in Heaven that shows your life to everyone you knew when you die. It also reveals your thoughts to everyone you know, and they vote on whether you go to Heaven or Hell. It’s a good thing angels will go to Hell to save you, because my relatives are going to watch me onanistically savoring the films of Madison, Belladonna and CJ Laing so many times that they’ll wonder what the plot of my life was.

Well, there are three Hells, and it looks like mine will be The Hell of the Bloody Pond, which looks like Amsterdam, and I’ll be trapped in a bloody pool, unable to fulfill my lust, as if I were Ms. Jones at the end of the first movie. If you got that, you’ll be there with me.

In this religion, you can make the sign of the cross twice, then draw a pentagram to destroy a demon. Spoiler: You get the Heaven or Hell you wanted most, so if you were a salaryman, you’ll be working in an office for demons for all eternity.

But the best news of all? Every religion and myth is true! Whether you believe in God, Jesus, Odin, Osiris, Hermes or Buddha, they are all El Cantare. Don’t be cynical. Cynical people go to Hell.

Man, I loved this. What an all-over-the-place bit of magic. Some people may get bored — or frightened — by it. Not me. Sign me up.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Directed and written by Greg Robbins, this is the kind of movie that makes me go nuts, nearly jumping around the room while my wife wonders why she married me. She was watching part of it and said, “None of the words match people’s mouths, and why are there Spanish subtitles?” That’s because I’ll watch a movie however I can get it, like Russian OK.ru movies with long ads and screamed foreign translations, or even trying to find old gialli on adult sites and being freaked out by the sexual gymnastics on display before I get to what I really want, black gloved hands killing pretty folks. 

But I digress.

Shot in Pittsburgh and Carnegie, PA — you have no idea how proud this makes me — this is the story of Sheri (Christina DeMarco), who, as the title will tell you — don’t worry, they say it out loud and even have the name appear in the ending — just wants to dance. However, she soon learns that she has leukemia. As if life wasn’t bad enough, her mother died when she was just a baby. Yes, Sheri was in the car when a demon hit her mother with an 18-wheeler in a scene that is a little Duel, a bit Maximum Overdrive and lots of Final Destination 2. Raised by her father, Vince (Robbins, vanity is one of the seven deadly sins, but vanity projects are my favorite), she was just trying to navigate the high school years of boys, friends, and shopping.

But then, she gets powers.

Yes, Sheri is somehow incredibly healthy, still able to dance, despite being in Stage 3. She also gets the power of thought projection, so when she touches people, she heals their trauma by showing them Christ being nailed to the cross. 

Working with Pastor Tony (Scott Kerschbaumer), her powers are able to stop crime by 89%, halt Hollywood from making anti-Christian movies (“In Variety, it says the next big three movies scheduled for release have been shelved by the studio executives! It reports that they say that they may harm family values, and they’re never gonna release them!”) and halves the production of pornography. She is also able to save some of her friends, including a few who wanted nothing to do with the church.

This also has Eddie Mekka, who was Carmine “The Big Ragoo” Ragusa, in the cast, as well as Peter Kent (who was a Terminator in the arcade game for Terminator 2, as well as showing up in Dead Heat, Re-Animator and Nemesis as well as being Arnold Schwarzenegger’s personal stunt double, stand-in and friend) as the devil and oh wow — “The Russian Nightmare” Nikita Koloff is a biker. 

Sheri can also change minds — this doesn’t feel Christian — and get her message on every network. Satan keeps stalking her and her dad, who is now dating her oncologist, which seems a bit unprofessional. 

And then — spoilers — at Christmas, when everyone in the world has accepted Jesus, she goes to get her gift and dies in the other room. In Heaven, she finally dances for her mother.

I don’t think that secular creators could make this movie. It’s just too oddly sure of its mission, a film in which a rape is stopped by touching someone in the heart, and then they find their way, as well as that scene where the one naysayer in church has a mental battle with Sheri. It did what faith movies should do. It made me wonder what I’m doing with my life, writing long things about film such as this — to be fair, there’s no other movie like this — instead of trying to save girls with cancer or preach the Good News. We all have our own purpose, and I guess that mine is trying to see as many movies as I can and share that joy.

You can watch this—with the out-of-sync audio and Spanish subtitles—on YouTube.

“Kids (and adults!) love this humor filled, information packed DVD. Watch as Buddy Davis and the high energy Creation Adventure Team reveal the wonders of the six days of creation with the help of Proto the animatronic robot, and Ivan Idea’s hilarious “Bubble Gum Cam”. Kids will understand that the universe is the work of God, not chance and millions of years. It all makes sense when you look through biblical glasses!”

From a submarine deep underwater to an airplane high above the Earth, Buddy and his team say they’re out exploring but they’re really here to help Christian children own their secular teachers, thanks to Biblical Reality Glasses — They Live did not go far enough — and the kind of editing choices that I wish ended in the early 2000s, like repeated lines ala Max Headroom (OK, they’re ten at least years out of date in this). Catch catch catch the wave.

I am legally bound to tell you this line: “The Creation Adventure Team features real-life dinosaur expert and recording artist Buddy Davis. He has dug up Duckbill dinosaur fossils in Alaska and recorded several Christian music albums, but Buddy is probably best known for his life-sized dinosaur models. (Among these is a full-size T-Rex on display at the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum.)”

There are also some stern evolution-obsessed children in this, all asking the same easy-to-disprove concepts before being destroyed by this magical Christian child. I mean, she has an animatronic dinosaur on her side, so just shut the fuck up, other kids.

This has one ten-star review on IMDB: “Excellent Mixture of Bible & Dinosaurology. As someone who homeschools my children and prefers to keep them untainted by the insane ideals perpetrated by modern society, this was a wonderful way to introduce them to the wonders of Creationism. The school scenes were especially well done, where the girl convinces the mentally enslaved members of her class to accept the Divine Truth of mankind’s existence. Highly suggest this film for families who want to both entertain and educate their children.”

As a child who loved dinosaurs, I would have loved this. As a weird kid who read the Apocrypha at a very young age, I would have been violently angry and wanted to debate it with someone.

My cousin used to have her own ministry, and at one point, she told us that she had become such a prophet that all of her teeth turned gold. She would have loved this.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Directed and written by Kenya Cagle, Sin Apple is what happens when a love spell goes wrong. Sure, you get the love of your life to worship you — “I ask her to fart. She farts.” — but then it all goes too far. Kind of like this movie, which is 110 minutes, but things end and start again so many times that you’ll be convinced that you’ve entered a vortex of some sort. I don’t say that as a bad thing.

The IMDB reviews are all either 10 stars or 1, which means that when this was released, people tried to post positive-bomb reviews, and by that, I mean 12 bombs. And then you get bon mots like this: “Sin Apple has the worst parts of 2 great cities, toxic masculinity, toxic christianity, colorism and far right leaning vibes, which is nasty for an all black cast.”

Or “By far the absolute worst film I have ever seen in my life. The unnecessary badly-written dialogue in this movie drags for so long. If you are looking for a horror movie to watch, skip this one.”

Richard is so obsessed with Lola, so he goes to Madam Latasha, whose magic is somehow based around taking selfies, which is a thing. Yet when Aunt Rhonda finds the cell phone, which was to be destroyed, it all goes wrong, and Richard becomes a red-eyed demon, killing between New York City and Las Vegas. 

There’s also a cop investigating it all who can barely get dressed and may flub every one of his lines, but dammit, they’re in the movie.

The auteur theory is real, and this movie is a prime example of it; Cagle is creating a whole new world here, a place where anything really and truly happens. Sure, you can look at it as a low-tech, barely coherent movie, but why be so small-minded about things?

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed and written by Brian Krainson (whose career goes from water safety on film sets to stunts and acting), Fear Cabin finds six friends staying in the woods around no one else on the last night of summer. Are there a bunch of devil worshippers in those woods? Are there demons? Why would anyone go to a cabin in the woods?

The good? Practical effects and an attempt at fun. That makes up for how many cabin movies this takes things from. But hey! Jeremy London from Mallrats is the owner of that cabin. There’s also a feeling that everyone involved wanted to make something halfway decent and not just streaming slop. 

Krainson did just about everything he could to make this movie, taking on so many roles. And yeah, it wasn’t for me, but I applaud anyone who makes their own horror film, especially someone smart enough to keep it around 70 minutes. I wish it had a story as original as the camerawork, but perhaps the next film he makes will break the mold. There’s talent there.

You get the trailer and behind-the-scenes stuff on the Cleopatra DVD release. You can get it from MVD.

Simon West directed Con Air, The General’s Daughter, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The Mechanic and The Expendables 2, so he’s the perfect person to make an action movie. 

You may not expect Rebel Wilson to be in one of those movies.

Here, she plays Sam, a secret agent trying to fix her relationship — and her status as maid of honor — with her friend Betsy (Anna Camp), who has replaced her with her sister Virginia (Anna Chlumsky). Despite her anger, her handler, Nadine (Sherry Cola), tells her to attend the wedding at Betsy’s fiancé, Ryan Caldwell’s (Sam Huntington), family’s lush estate.

Between Sam flirting with best man Chris (Justin Hartley) to the point that it angers Virginia, and an armed attack by criminals led by Kurt (Stephen Dorff) — and helped by Chris — the wedding day is a mess. But it allows Sam to use her special set of skills to, well, kill every one of the bad guys.

Coleen Camp shows up (she also produced) and Wilson has the kind of energy you need for one of these films. Anna Chlumsky, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Gigi Zumbado are the rest of the wedding party who quickly learn from Sam how to be an action star. I’m a sucker for silly action comedies, I guess.

“While doing research, a group of young geniuses accidentally stumbles upon a secret terrorist plot to create a time machine to go back in time and change history.”

You have no idea how fast I raced to Tubi and watched this.

They’re not just changing history. They’re sending a military force back in time to kill Jesus before he can be crucified.

Or let’s let director and writer Jim Carroll explain the plot: “Extremists use a time machine to go back and commit the ultimate jihad of killing Jesus and the Disciples before the Resurrection. The young geniuses who created time travel must go back in time, dodge the assassins, interact with Bible characters, and make the corrections before the timeline overrides itself and starts the apocalypse.”

Ram Goldstein (Morgan Roberts), Amy Lee (Ilsa Levine), Simon (Lamar Usher) and Felix (Cesar D’ La Torre) are all working for Ahmed (Gerardo Davila), who wants more than just revenge for losing his wife and kids. As part of a radical terrorist Muslim group, he wants to be part of a global Jihad by creating a time machine that will go back in time to 33 A.D. and letting Brandt (Donny Boaz), a man who has lost his family in a car accident, lead a team of black ops killers to shoot Jesus, retroactively destroying Christianity and by extension, stopping God’s plan of salvation for humanity.

What I saw was Black Easter, the reworked version that also somehow features Heidi Montag. Or maybe I saw the director’s cut. I did not see the original version or the first title, Resurrection Time Conspiracy.

Man, I have no idea how to even explain so much of this to you, but let’s use TV Tropes for some help. 

“In the first time jump, Brandt and his platoon arrive at the Gethsemane garden and succeed in terminating Jesus Christ and all His disciples for good measure.”

This is one of the wildest scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie, as a whole unit of modern mercs just unleashes Call of Duty chaos on the Son of Man.

“While Ram and Amy try to undo it by traveling back to before Ahmed killed his parents, they end up right in Ahmed’s clutches as it was Daylight Savings Time and get killed while trying to warn their past selves about Ahmed’s true intentions.”

That’s right. These guys are smart enough to build a time machine, but dumb enough not to think of Daylight Savings.

Ahmed is one of the meanest movie villains I’ve ever seen. Once Ram learns that he’s evil, Ahmed brings in Ram’s parents and kills them in front of him. Then he tells him to finish the time machine so he can go back in time and save them. 

This is where I should remind you that Jesus is considered a holy man, but not a prophet, in Islam. He’s not an enemy of Islam.

So after all manner of main characters dying over and over and so many time loops, Ram goes back in time dressed as a traffic guard before he and Amy travel back to Lab 19 and get killed by Ahmed. That said, Ram resurrects himself and takes a dying Amy to a hospital 30 in the future, except, well — the future is the Great Tribulation. The Black Easter cut reveals that Ahmed used the DNA sample he collected from Jesus’ body to make an evil clone of Him, who came to be known as The Antichrist.”

I was amazed. This went there.

This is a movie that has Simon, the only black scientist, sound like Chris Tucker, spoil Jesus’ Passion to Him and then say, “I’m from the future. And I’ve seen your movie. I got it on bootleg. Forgive me, Lord, I’m sorry.”

Yet the production values are excellent, seriously. This is such a wild time-travel movie that I’d love to recommend to more people, but it’s so over the top in its hatred of Muslims that I have no idea how I could. Simon, being Simon of Cyrene, who carried Jesus’ cross? That’s the kind of Christian continuity that I need in these films. And why is Ahmed so happy that the world he wanted is obviously unlivable? So many questions.

That said, I really think everyone should see this movie. It’s something.

You can watch this on Tubi.

This is not a movie about cocktails or handjobs. Yes, I refer to handjobs as old-fashioned.

Anyway, this is a religious movie about dating.

Clay Walsh (Rik Swartzwelder) is an antique shop owner who also restores furniture. He rents a room above his place to Amber (Elizabeth Ann Roberts), who is a bit weirded out by the fact that Clay won’t be in the same room with her. Well, he’s made a vow not to be alone with a woman who isn’t his wife. But he will come up to fix things, so she starts breaking stuff to get to talk to him.

As they get to know one another, we learn that Clay used to shoot, well, exploitation porn of girls like Girls Gone Wild, which is stranger than Amber’s checkered dating past. That’s why he hasn’t dated anyone and has devoted himself to crafts. 

So yeah, they held this movie for a year so it could release in the same theaters as 50 Shades of Grey.

Also: Directed, written and produced by Swartzwelder, and you know, vanity may be a sign, but it’s my favorite.

That said, this is not like most faith movies. No one religious is under attack. Instead, it’s two people trying to find their way in a world that can be very upsetting. I actually liked this.

You can watch this on Tubi.