Final Judgment Reviews

This hybrid maniac crimestopper and hoodlum-priest saga is intravenously fed by an infusion of lurid sex scenes. Accompanied by a score more appropriate for an OMEN movie, the cleric in question grapples with the way of all flesh while confronting Satan in modern dress: the Serial Killer. Encouraging his parishioners to avoid such occasions of sin as topless dancing, a rundown neighborhood priest, Father Tyrone (Brad Dourif) has a heart-to-heart talk with novice exotic dancer Paula (Kristin Datillo). Tyrone doesn't inform her that she's the fruit of his extracurricular dalliance with her mother. Soon after, Paula is murdered by the sexually short-circuited artist Robert Sorrel (David Ledingham), who's hung up on virgins and the dwindling market for his work. Working on tips fed him by Paula's fellow exotic dancer Nicole (Maria Ford), Tyrone investigates clues leading to Sorrel while arousing the suspicions of the police force that he himself is the killer. While Tyrone explores the L.A. sex underground, he gets a break from Sorrel's mother (Karen Black) who provides him with a portrait of one of her son's many model-victims. Meanwhile, Sorrel keeps busy, garroting female subjects after the paint on their portraits dries and courting Paula's best friend Alicia (Simone Allen), whose wholesomeness appeals to the fruitcake artist's Catholic mentality. Unfortunately, Alicia (Simone Allen), makes the mistake of changing her mind about waiting for marriage to lose her purity to the conflicted artist. As Tyrone religiously trails after Sorrel, and the cops try to pin the slay-spree on Tyrone, helpful Nicole is found murdered in the parish house. As Sorrel prepares to end his deflowered lover's modeling career, Father Tyrone outsmarts the cops and races to the artist's loft to thwart a fiery murder-suicide. Unable to reason with Sorrel, the priest rescues a terrified Alicia but leaves the demented artist behind to perish in the burning building. While movies have often exploited the temptations that befall those submerging their drives beneath collar and whimple (BLACK NARCISSUS, THE THORN BIRDS, etc.), rarely has a film gone so far as to actually picture a priest's fantasy of doing it with a slut. Despite all this exploitative film-script's guff about sexual hypocrisy and battling baser instincts for a greater glory, this thriller is basically a cheapjack urban guerrilla flick with its mind in the gutter and its hand on a porn magazine. Overlooking all the subtext that tries to legitimize what Father Tyrone is up to, one is left with a standardized misogynistic bloodbath about a villain's longing to stamp out the no-longer virginal. Even on the level of serial-killer trackdown, the movie flops due to the obviousness of the cleric's detective work and the cosmic stupidity of the police. Unthrilling and acted in the pop-eyed vein that suggests that thyroidal imbalance has felled the entire cast, FINAL JUDGMENT is particularly depressing as it demonstrates how far two former Oscar nominees (Dourif and Black) have descended.(Extreme profanity, graphic violence, extensive nudity, sexual situations.)