The VelociPastor (2018)

After losing his parents, a priest travels to China, where he inherits a mysterious ability that allows him to turn into a dinosaur. At first horrified by this new power, a hooker convinces him to use it to fight crime. And ninjas.

Director:

Brendan Steere

Writer:

Brendan Steere

Stars:

Greg Cohan, George Schewnzer, Janice Young

1 win & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Greg Cohan	...	Doug Jones (as Gregory James Cohan)
George Schewnzer	...	Doug's Dad
Janice Young	...	Doug's Mom
Daniel Steere	...	Father Stewart
Claire Hsu	...	Chinese Villager
Nicholas M. Garofolo	...	Hobo (as nick Garofolo)
Alyssa Kempinski	...	Carol
Fernando Pacheco De Castro	...	Frankie Mermaid
Chase Schutter	...	Frankie's Heavy
Alec Lambert	...	Thug
Jesse Turits	...	Sam
Jiechang Yang	...	Wei Chan
Aurelio Voltaire	...	Altair
David Sokol	...	War Buddy Ali
Pat Hroncich	...	Vietnam Soldier

Storyline

After losing his parents, a priest travels to China, where he inherits a mysterious ability that allows him to turn into a dinosaur. At first horrified by this new power, a hooker convinces him to use it to fight crime. And ninjas.

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Plot Keywords:

eyepatch over glasses | pimp | white chinese ninjas | driving montage | vietnam flashback | 

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Taglines:

Evolution? Maybe.

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Comedy | Fantasy | Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Did You Know?

Trivia

Most of the scratches on the film were achieved manually by Brendan Steere dragging the unprocessed film along surfaces in his bathroom, for it was the only room in his apartment with no windows and therefore dark enough to not expose the raw film.

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Goofs

At the 12:00 mark, the junkie in the park uses a semi-automatic pistol and when firing it, repeatedly racks the slide to put another round in the chamber. First, a semi-automatic does not need to be racked for each shot, and second, during none of those actions is a shell casing shown being ejected.

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Quotes

Carol: Last night was... amazing.
Doug Jones: Oh. Oh, I see. Let me be fair and say this can never happen again.
Carol: So it was just a one-time thing?
Doug Jones: Yes, honestly it never should have happened at all.
Carol: That's for sure.
Doug Jones: Oh. Was it bad?
Carol: It was... weird.
Doug Jones: Oh.
Carol: Honestly, it all happened so quickly. I was very scared, I think I even peed myself.
Doug Jones: Oh. Was it your first time too?
[...]

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Connections

References Miami Connection (1987)

User Reviews

Just because something is aware it's bad, doesn't make it not bad

There's horror comedies, (Cabin in the Woods), comedies with horror, (Freaks of Nature, Pirhana 3D), or there's a special breed of film, like "Birdemic" that are comedies that are supposed to be horror, and don't know that they're comedies. Like 'The Room', 'Fateful Findings' or the aforementioned 'Birdemic' what makes those films so great, is that they're not intentionally setting out to make something 'so bad it's good' - it's just a happy, miraculous accident. Films like 'Velocipastor' or 'Sharknado' seem to exist in an uncanny valley, a mirror version of the former three films. They're a cheap imitation, and don't work.

Velocipastor was made on a shoestring budget, and that can actually work to some films' benefit - Clerks, Paranormal Activity, and the Blair Witch project were made on the cheap, and they're smart, often terrifying, or in the case of Clerks, hilarious films. A good story and clever filmmaking can overcome any budget issues. Here, an explosion is shown as plain text that says "insert exploding car VFX" that elicits a minor chuckle the first time, and just annoys every time after. When you're intentionally missing cues, inserting boom mic's overhead, having 'editing' mishaps it's not funny. It's like a planned blooper. Bloopers are funny precisely because they're unplanned. Here it just makes the filmmaker look like a self-saboteur, so uninterested in their own story they're cutting corners wherever they can to be "meta", when in reality it's just laziness. There's a goofy idea here, that maybe could have worked better as a straight faced horror comedy, without the winking at the camera. The filmmakers here are in on the joke. The problem is, is that the joke just isn't funny.

That being said - the two main actors do a fine job in their ridiculous roles - and deserve some better work in the future. And the soundtrack is killer. A scene midway through the film looks like a music video, and that's maybe what this should have been - a goofy, three minute punk rock music video. At 70 or so minutes - it feels like an eternity.

Details

Country:

USA China

Language:

English Cantonese Mandarin Korean

Release Date:

28 September 2018 (Italy)

Also Known As:

The VelociPastor

Filming Locations:

Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cyfuno Ventures, Hollow Tree Films, Laika Come Home

Technical Specs

Runtime:

75 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1