Like so much avant-garde art, this extremely odd cult film from actor/director Timothy Carey leaves you wondering: did I just witness an extremely significant work of art, or was it all a big put-on? One part of me wants to classify it with the works of Bunuel and Godard, another wants to lump it with "Glen or Glenda?" and "Manos: The Hands of Fate." Its low budget quality, grainy black-and-white photography, and general amateurishness of execution reminds me of other cult classics such as "Night of the Living Dead." The story plays out as almost a medieval morality play. Carey plays a bored insurance salesman who becomes a cult guru, preaching a doctrine suspiciously reminiscent of Friedrich Nietzsche. At the end, however, he's defeated, recognizing the power of the One True God. For all its seeming iconoclasm, "The World's Greatest Sinner" is written from a surprisingly orthodox Christian point of view, reaffirming the faith it seems to question.
Review of The World's Greatest Sinner
