The Calling (2000) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Talk about a movie with all the tools. Laura Harris and Alice Krige are back together again for the first time since Habitat, and they are teaming up in a film about the Antichrist. It's my dream date, except without vampires!

LOTS OF SPOILERS:

Laura plays an innocent American girl who achieves the dream marriage to an Englishman. He is prosperous, intelligent, cultured, and charming. He has a great job as a broadcaster, and they are to live in a virtual castle.

NUDITY REPORT

several women are seen topless at an orgy-like party 

Of course, every silver lining has a cloud, and this one is no exception. Laura began to suspect everything was not right on her wedding night, when hubby suggested that they dispense with the boring old bed, and instead have sex under the stars. So far, nothing too suspicious, except that he took her to someplace that looked like an old altar in the middle of Stonehenge, surrounded by upside down crosses and cawing ravens. She began to get especially suspicious when the place filled up with Gregorian chant, and there was no sound system. But what finally tipped her off was when the husband suggested they do a menage a trois with Satan. But, what the hell, Laura wanted to please her husband, and Satan does have two very large penises, so she went for it.

And what a night it was!

Of course, conceiving the antichrist is a walk in the park compared to trying to discipline him. You think it's easy to be the antichrist's mom? He's always into some little mischief, like strangling the dog or putting goat's blood in his Bosco, or destroying Wales. Whew, she really had to give him a lot of quiet time when he destroyed Wales. He was sitting in the corner for something like seven years.

Well, that's the premise. How does she reconcile the urges of motherly protection with her need to defeat the forces of ultimate evil. Tough call. The little kid started to go on the talk shows and impressed people with his great charm and wisdom, and soon he was even more beloved in the UK than Mr Bean. At this point in the story, mom couldn't decide if the antichrist was her kid or Mr Bean. Another tough call.

The little kid was about eight years old when he killed his stepfather's boss at a party, by making a chandelier fall on him. Everyone at the party cheered and sang "for he's a jolly good satan". Mom watched this stunt, and it turned out that this little prank was the straw that broke the camel's back. Satan's mom finally decided that Mr Bean was in the clear, and it was actually her son who was the antichrist. She therefore had to kill his satanic arrow-tailed ass, so she drowned him in the North Atlantic, and let Mr Bean go free.

DVD info from Amazon.

  • no widescreen

  • no features

One little problem with killing satan - it only makes him mad. Not only that, but it is all part of his master plan! When he came back from the dead during his funeral, three days after being pronounced dead, people were really impressed with him, and it turned out that he only earned more followers by dying. Very much like Elvis.

O, darn the luck for his mom.

The film ends rather ambiguously. Mom convinced a priest that her story was true, they snuck out of the asylum together, but one of satan's important minions followed them on a motorcycle.

The Critics Vote

  • no major reviews online

The People Vote ...

  • With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDb voters score it 4.4 
IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a C-, I guess. I suppose it is an adequate genre flick. The usual plot, and the usual characters, but not badly executed. If you don't generally like antichrist films, skip it, because it's not an especially good one, it's not original, and how many of these identical films do you really need to see?

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