Okay, hadn't heard word one about this wacky little title until I was browsing the New Release section at Kim's Video. For anyone who doesn't know what Kim's Video is, don't feel bad cuz you're not retarded or anything and it's not gonna show up on the SATs. Shit, up until about 6 years ago I didn't know who the fuck Kim was or what the big deal was about her stupid little video shop. Again, not being a native of the Big Scrapple, I was given a pass. However, if you're like me now and you've been living, working and bootlegging in the NYC for a couple of years and you still haven't heard of Kim's, my only suggestion is practice your form cuz you wanna make it look good when you're swan diving off the top of the Flat Iron Building. Try to wear something really absorbent too, cuz the less work for the sanitation department the better.

Anyway, Kim's is a small network of several media stores that sell CDs, DVDs and related merch (books, apparel, magazines, etc.) of the type you're not too likely to find littering the racks at Virgin™, Best Buy™ or Circuit City™, i.e. those obscure and imported titles that people like us get the nipple tingles over. They also sell multi-region DVD players for the lovers of fine foreign fare (a tad overpriced, but good for those too lazy or paranoid to do their player purchasing on the world wide waste) and rent a buttload of DVDs and VHS for those like me who prefer to watch those hard-to-find flicks first before buying copies of their... or pirating the living crap out of them and selling them to those less fortunate...

Oh yeah, and "Kim" isn't a woman, but a guy, as in "Mr. Kim". Hallowed be thy name.

Speaking of things to be hallowed, I was cruising the New Release section at Mr. K's and came across several odd little titles to compete for my consumer dollar-dollar. Between 2069: A Sex Odyssey , Werewolves On Wheels and an Aussie import collection of the Mad Max trilogy, I opted for neither of the three when one particular title leapt from the lower shelf and lodged itself square into my frontal lobe: Ultrachrist!.

Three seconds with the box art tells you this puppy's going to have little-to-no production value and probably even less in the way of talented cast or crew, but you know it's gotta have some kind of hilarious redeeming value to it! Like other J(esus)-Pop greats Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter and The Passion of the Christ, I was not to be disappointed.

It all begins with James Cameron meets, uhm, that conman who made up the whole Bible thing when Jesus Christ (Jonathan C. Green in the world's least convincing fake beard), the one time would-be savior of the Jews (turned cult leader, prestidigitator, human ornament and general abuse sack) returns to Earth in a dark alleyway via flashing lights and over active fog machine in full butt nekkid regalia. Like some kind of kill bot politician from the year 9000, Captain Beard-O slips into a nearby bar and demands (well, requests nicely but with urgency) that one of the patrons relieves to him their boots and pants. Of course, where as a steroid pumped barbarian, commando or exiled demi-god would just beat the shit out of everybody there and take the desired clothing for himself, JC paws at the guy's pants like an enfeebled child. Mistaken for a sex crazed gay guy (do straight people not realize that guy guys don't grow their hair long?!), the son of a superstition is directed to "The Mustache Lounge" across the street, from which he quickly departs in shock, stating "All Sodom, no Gomorra!" before befriending a homeless guy and assembling a makeshift man diaper from a used newspaper. The next morning he takes fashion tips from Hugh Heffner, acquiring a pair of old man pajamas from a vintage clothing store... exactly how he finagled those spiffy secondhand duds without a Drachma or gold piece to his name is never quite explained...

With the quest for threads done, Big J begins the next step of his resurrection: rebuild his flock of sheep... though rebuilding a Flock of Seagulls might be a better idea... okay, no, it wouldn't, I'm wrong, forget I said anything to that effect. Let's just make the mandatory one-hit-wonder joke and be done with it. Anyway, Jesus proceeds to run, to run so far away (okay, now that that's done...) to get started on rebuilding his ministry. People don't usually pay much mind to an unkempt, middle-aged dude in an old smoking jacket on the streets of New York though, so Jesus winds up stopping into a bar later that day. After scaring off a duo of stupid drunken college bimbos with his geezerly skeevitude, the smoking jacket super zombie savior of millions meets a barfly named Murray who introduces him to the modern day philosophies of Johnny Walker and Darwin's Theory of the Evolutionary Dating Ladder while getting J Slice lightly plastered. Coincidentally, this Murray guy who gives Christ a temporary sleep spot on his barcalounger, happens to be a marketing whiz and may know how to give the savior a modern day edge in his soul conversion rates... and it all starts with a visit to Forbidden Planet™... another dietary staple for the Manhattan geek.

After flipping through the four color wonders of the modern age (looks like we've got some DC biases going on here...), Jesus is inspired by superheroes (more specifically those of Japanese pop culture) to take a newer, hipper, spandexy turn to his ministry! It's here where he runs into a nearby tailoring shop and meets Molly, the seamstress who assembles his snazzy new "relate with today's youth" tights and hooks him up with some more secure living quarters... with her wacky lesbian friends Jane and Paula. This leads to the answering of the eternal question of God's stance on same sex relations: all love is holy in God's eyes... unless you're really ugly or have a penis... just kidding folks, no need to get your assless leather chaps in a twist!

With the revealing of his new duds, JC renames himself Ultrachrist, to which one of our lipstick lesbian lovers emotes in a moment of truly Troma-tic deja vu, "Sin doesn't stand a chance" before he heads out to fix the broken Commandments with paper work pledges of loyalty to Christ, lest they suffer the sting of his Jesus-Fu! Meanwhile, at a pizza stand in Heaven (which looks a lot like any corner in Brooklyn), God (who looks like a poor man's Jack Palance) confronts the archangel Ira (the Patron Saint of Erotic Massage, as played by the film's producer and co-writer Jordan Hoffman), former classmate and drama club partner to JC, to whom the All Seeing All Knowing puts forth the task of steering Jesus away from all this superhero crap and back down the path of traditional preaching... so long as he doesn't go all Catholic priest and start pulling a Michael Jackson on a global scale. How does the all-knowing plan to do so? Take away the Ultrachrist get-up... cuz it's not like Molly could make him another or anything...

Feeling out of touch with the kids these days, Jesus fears that he's been in a state of grace too long and can't quite make the connection he needs to, even with the flashy duds. Molly tries to help Christ connect with his humanity (she so wants him to part her red seas with his holy staff), but when the prospect of lusting it up causes the savior's stigmata to kick in, Molly opts instead for some simple, "try talking to them in their language" advice which works like gangbusters despite the usual sad state of affairs that comes with watching a grown man try to speak "Homey". Before you know it, the people of New York are giving up their sins, honoring their mothers, shooting hoops and all kinds of holy Christian stuff! This doesn't sit well for the local vice merchants though, especially the plans and schemes of Commissioner Meanie (played by a guy named Samuel Bruce Campbell... no relation), the head official of the New York City Parks Department, whose drug and whoring trades aren't doing so well as a result of the power of virtuous spandex. So, the fiend puts one of his goons in charge of killing the son of Yahweh, only instead of popping his guts with a spear, the thug's given a Palm Pilot™, because only wireless technology can fell the sheppard of the Christian flock. Well, that and silver bullets, but there's no room in the park committee’s budget for projectiles made of fine metals.

When Ira fails to snatch the costume by dressing up like a plumber, saying he's the owner of an orphanage where the children seek religious guidance (and have a cultural terror of spandex), warning UC of a theological incident at a tanning salon and hiring a whore to peel the boy out of his costume, he has a chat with God and convinces the All Mighty of Smitey that the Ultrachrist gimmick is for the better what with today's hard-to-impress demographics. Besides, if he's not busy trying to swipe the savior's long-johns with Acme Rocket Skates, he can focus on playing Sancho Panza to UC's Don Quixote (or Bobba-Looey to his Quick Draw McGraw if you're not into Spanish folk heroes... or reading... or education of any kind) and pretty much doing all the work, saving the boss's ass over and over again while he gets the glory and the followers. Speaking of which, when Meanie's street thug fails to put an end to the holy hipster with Bluetooth™ death-tech, not only does he dispose of said goon but he opts for a new crew of anti-Christ assassins. As such, he resurrects Adolf "goose-stepper and fox-trotter" Hitler, Vlad "Ladies call him 'the Impaler'" Dracula, Richard "This is what it's like when doves cry" Nixon and Jim "Apparently broke on through from the other side for this one" Morrison!

Using creative reverse sin (something about redeeming the villains by convincing them to do the opposite of what makes them evil), Ultrachrist brings down his rogues gallery with relative ease, getting Vlad to show self-constraint (by telling him the plasma he's about to slurp is filled with sodium, cholesterol and saturated fat that won't be kind to the undead king's waistline), showing Hitler love (by giving the Reich-meister a hug, despite his "Atomic Heil" attack) and humiliating Morrison (by exorcising James of his pants in front of a dominatrix who does the old playground "point and laugh" move at Lil' Jim). Unfortunately for the savior, Molly sacrifices herself to save her man from Nixon's cell phone (taking a nail in the chest for it) and UC has to make a deal with Big Daddy to get her soul back to Earth: in three days he'll be forced to give up the mantle of Christianity's sole superhero (Bibleman™ doesn't count because Willie Aimes in the devil and if you saw him on "Celebrity Fit Club" you'd know that...) and will have to go back to his retro style of robes and preaching... man, God is such a fucking Republican.

Oh yeah, on the plus side, Jesus doesn't have to worry about his Stigmatile Dysfunction problem anymore as he absolves the sin of lust (for reasons too complicated to go into this far into the review...) and thus fixes the whole "premature ejaculation of gore from his palms" quandary, giving himself a free pass into Molly's fertile crescent. This also changes things for the Christianity recruiting drive, cuz without all the sexual restraints, the young people might not be so unwilling to place their faith in Ultrachrist and the House of G-Money. To test this theory, UC and his ragtag semi-apostles plan a big Pro-Piety Party to try and get this Ultrachrist thing to stick one last time and maybe change the mind of a certain deity... then again, when your mind consists of an atomic powered ball of blazing gasses, is it so easy to change?

And of course, because we needed some way to bring our protagonist into direct conflict with our antagonist, Jesus has to go to the head of the Parks Department to get legally binding approval for a gathering of the size they have planned. We all remember who runs the Parks Department right? No?! Shit. Okay, well, scroll up a few paragraphs and read it again. Don't worry, I'll wait for you... No, don't worry, I've gotta catch up on my "Samurai Executioner" anyway......... Osiris bless Dark Horse........

Back? Okay. Well, as you can imagine, UC gets a fat sweaty "DENIED" stamp upside his head, but Mr. Meanie's willing to make an exception so long as Jeez puts his Johnny Hancock (Hand-cock?) on a "special" permit titled, no surprise here, Form 666A. I don't care if he has been dead for 2 millennia, if some sinister child molesting grandpa looking guy like that hands me something with the sign of La Beastia plastered across it and he's cackling (not even grinning or just laughing, but full-on evil guy lubing up his fists with Crisco cackling), you don't put your sig to it! That, and the minute any fucker tells me, "Don't read it, just sign it!", I staple whatever it is to their lumpy face and proceed to tenderize their organ bank with my Thunderball Fists™ while I read through every legally binding syllable on that page! Besides, being within five feet of Scratchy McPitchfork, shouldn't our hero's sin sense be ringing a million little "La Cucaracha" doorbells in his skull that this guy is the source of everything that normally shoots tiny little wood splints into every pore of his being?! You couldn't get a better representation of the old "missing the big picture" saying if you had... uhm... something about a guy looking at... errr... a big picture of something... BAH!

Anyway, keeping up with the whole, "Jesus is a naive child" theme here, Ultrachrist signs the form and the gathering is on. Simulcast to over 150 countries, "Jesus: In Concert" gets underway with the marketing support of J's old pal Murray. But, when UC's savvy amigos point out his little contractual fuck up, we find out that Captain Holypants actually signed an agreement to pit his greatest champion against Satan's greatest champion in the eternal realm of ultimate battle fighting power exchange (sorry, got a little too Japanese there...) known as... the squared circle! Or, for the laymen in the audience, the wrestling ring.

Apparently, in all of Hell, Satan's greatest champion of physical combat is Tricky Dick (Millhouse in the house!), so the ex-ex-president straps on his wrasslin' togs and prepares to battle Christ's champion: Ira and his magic fingers of erotic massage! Well, things don't go quite that far, as Nixon's primary sin of paranoia (guess that must've been number eight, but the Big Book's editor had to cut it for length or something) must be beaten with trust and faith, not orgasmic fatty-on-fatty zombie nerve pinching, so Christ whips up the only thing a man can every truly rely on to be faithful and trusting of him: his dog. Yep, Checkers is back from the grave and ready to lick his deceased best friend's rubbery face, dousing the once proud Watergater's fighting spirit.

With the powers of the NYC Parks Department not enough to stand in the way of a religiously themed stage show (and Satan too lazy to do his own dirty work), Ultrachrist and friends go on with their act in one of the greatest musical numbers since Rocky Horror or Reefer Madness: the Musical!

And so the cinematic adventures of Jesus in spandex end. Molly's clothing designs get an audience with a TV exec, Ira stays on Earth with his new TV reporter girlfriend and the world embraces Christianity like never before thanks to this new "sex is good!" policy. See, if there's one language that's truly universal, it's the insertion of objects into openings!

Overall, I liked the movie. It had no budget, it had no professional support of any kind (either on screen or behind the scenes) and it had absolutely no commercial support, but it had a lot of heart and, more importantly, a lot of humor. And I'm not talking about typical groan inducing humor, but actually funny type humor that I could laugh at without dick and fart jokes... not that they're not funny in their own way, as "Beavis and Butthead" will attest to, still funny as Hell even now, a decade later. So, I guess, it was kinda like Napoleon Dynamite in the "PG movies can still be funny!" way.

The acting falls into the realm of either being passable or unbearable. Though you can give the bad stuff a pass in shit like Troma movies (where jumping around with big prosthetic teeth and your pants around your ankles while slurring your lines are tantamount to a Sir Lawrence Olivia Hamlet soliloquy), when you've got a couple or performers who actually seem to know what they're doing in the same scene it comes off like a clusterfuck. If you run through the cast listings at IMDB though, you can tell that everybody involved either stopped by the set between their theater school classes or came along at the support of a friend or family member involved in the production. Doubt me? 99% of the cast listed have Ultrachrist down as their solitary credit, and with NYC based "actors", you better believe they try to pad their IMDB listings as much as humanly possible.

The unbalanced performances and lack of professional touches doesn't kill the movie though (unless you're a drama class professor, in which case your stuffy little head will probably shoot steam from the ears before exploding in a mass of blood and nougat), because the writing's liberally peppered with great Biblical one-liners and gags. "I'm looking into the future and I can see no spandex related panic..." Hell, in a case like this, humorous writing and bizzaro ideas can even outweigh grade school camerawork and AV Club level special effects, so Godzilla bless Kerry Douglas Frye and Jordan Hoffman and may you go on to write many another wacky misadventure. Perhaps SuperAbraham, Spider-Moses, The Incredible Job or The Uncanny Apostles? Hey, I'll donate my $20!

In closing, always remember, "The prospect of eternal damnation kind of moots how long you like to spend in the bathroom".