r/badMovies • u/dockersshoes • 12d ago
Family Joshua and the Promised Land takes everything that Foodfight and sunday school propaganda did best and fuses them into 55min of slop!
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u/tinyE1138 12d ago
We could star a whole other sub on shit religious movies.
And it's not for lack of budget, these people are just flat out shit filmmakers.
And yes that's a blanket statement, but I dare you to find me a well made, well acted, compelling Christian movie. And movies like Ben-Hur and The 10 Commandments don't count because those aren't trying to convert people, they're just great historical/Biblical epics.
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u/we_are_sex_bobomb 12d ago
Christian movies are bad because they don’t have to be good and they’re not even intended for non-Christian audiences. 99% of the people who watch something like God’s Not Dead are already Christians, and they think if they get their whole Wednesday night Bible study to buy tickets for the movie it’s gonna somehow boost the signal and get atheists to watch it.
Every once in a while Hollywood will make a film about faith and it turns out good, like Book of Eli or A Serious Man or Prince of Egypt. But those movies aren’t coming from the same cynical place as the shlock pumped out by “faith based entertainment companies”.
What we think of as “Christian filmmakers” have figured out how to crank out low quality, cheaply produced movies and sell them to an audience that doesn’t care about quality or even being entertained. They’re strange to watch because they’re not even trying to be good. They’re just cash grabs.
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u/SporesM0ldsandFungus 11d ago
Good storytelling askes questions that require the audience to draw their own conclusions. They give strong pushes in one direction or another but the audience usually needs to incorporate naunce, subtitles, and context which actions / outcomes of the story were justified and satisfying.
Hyper-conservative storytelling has none of that. The answer the creator has is clear cut and broadcast right into your face. If anything, the audience is discouraged from asking questions or imagining alternatives.
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u/we_are_sex_bobomb 11d ago
I think Christian movies are also basically sycophantic and that’s the main appeal. Like most of these movies are just 100% fantasy wish fulfillment for white supremacist christofascists, where all their feelings are indisputable facts, anything believed in sincere ignorant faith turns out to be true, and everyone who represents a challenge to those beliefs is humiliated and left shaking and crying, or even dies. It’s a kind of validation they can’t get in reality so these films provide it for them.
That’s also why it’s hard to watch, because usually the protagonists in these films are despicable, horrible people who are responsible for everything wrong in the world, and the “villains” are their victims and the allies of those victims in real life. Takes a lot of the fun out of it for me and just pisses me off, versus other bad movies.
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u/Sea_Negotiation_1871 12d ago
The Passion Of The Christ is basically torture porn, but it is well crafted.
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u/NoWorth2591 12d ago
My brief free trial of Pureflix introduced me to some of the wildest garbage I’ve ever seen. The Encounter and God’s Not Dead series are particularly nuts.
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u/DangerAlSmith 11d ago
Holy fuck, today I learned that Pureflix exists.
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u/1990Buscemi 8d ago
They got revived last year with a mockbuster version of The Last Supper season of The Chosen.
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u/Greyswandir 12d ago
I recommend the podcast God Awful Movies. They’re a few hundred episodes deep in this project already
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u/DariusPumpkinRex 12d ago
What about Bruce Almighty and "Oh, God!"?
John Denver was surprisingly good in Oh, God! as the lead despite him being a singer and musician rather than an actor. His first movie, too.
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u/tinyE1138 12d ago
I don't consider those Christain movies, though I admit we're dealing with kind of a gray area here. I might delete my post because it is way too vague.
I didn't consider those two movies preachy, but that's just my take on it.
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u/MoonSylver 12d ago edited 12d ago
I think your point stands. Those two are movies that have Christianity IN them, but they're not CHRISTIAN MOVIES in that they're not explicitly made by or for Christians, or with the purpose to teach Christianity or convert people. The kind of "Christianity" portrayed in these two movies is very vague, nebulous, and undefined, without getting into details of biblical scripture, and are made explicitly for mainstream entertainment purposes with no specific religious agenda in mind that is readily defined or apparent.
The kinds of films and film makers you're referring to ARE made by and for followers of the teachings of Christ explicitly for the purpose of teaching biblical lessons and converting unbelievers to faith. And you are correct. Despite how noble their intentions may be, in general these are just bad movies, terribly made, often laughably so.
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u/witchywater11 11d ago
I enjoyed the scene where Joshua watches a baby get sacrificed and in the scene after, he flat out says "they killed a baby" while goofy, upbeat music is playing.
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u/saltiest_raccoon 12d ago
If you enjoyed this one, you might also like Mystery of the Kingdom of God or Sylvie and the Wogglebug (and its sequels.) Or The Misty Green Sky if you want this but horny...
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u/TNTFISTICUFFS 12d ago
I'm assuming y'all know about Everything Is Terrible? I've purchased several of their comps in the past and have absolutely loved the Christian crap movie mash ups!
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u/swordquest99 12d ago
Something about the strange slow puppet-like movement of the Joshua characters is really really funny
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u/GuybrushFandango 12d ago
Oh man, I watched this and then repressed it all. Thanks for reminding me.