Original Sins Reviews

Deeply sacrilegious but wickedly inspired, this bizarre shocker has enough craft to make up for its indulgence. Three passionately committed Catholic schoolgirls, Diedra (Cheryl Clifford), Kierstan (Angelique de Rochambeau), and Mary Catherine (Faustina), are overcome by a mysterious force that ravishes them simultaneously. Believing the presence to be Jesus Christ himself, the girls devote themselves to serving him, which includes further sexual submission as well as the bloody sacrificing of innocent fund-raiser Ken (Lionel Johnson). When Mary Catherine starts to dissent, the other two strangle her. Kierstan's sister Lila (D. Cur) offers to dispose of the body, and delivers it to a heavy metal band who need a dead virgin for a ritual to invoke Satan. Instead, they raise a cranky demon named Kaps (Scooter McCrae), who kills them all. Mary Catherine revives, and the three girls meet their "Lord"--who proves to be the alien Rramnivek (Kevin Marr). He attempts to take Kierstan away, but Diedra stabs her to prevent him from doing so, and she is in turn swept down to Hell by Kaps as Rramnivek departs, leaving Mary Catherine the only survivor of the three. There's more--a lot more--going on in this movie than the synopsis suggests, and if ORIGINAL SINS has a key flaw, it's that for all their twisted creativity, writer-director-producers Matthew Howe and Howard Berger don't know when to quit. There are about 20 minutes of scenes and subplots that could easily be jettisoned--not for questions of taste, but for narrative expedience. As it stands, ORIGINAL SINS is an overlong but bracingly outrageous work that, while in the worst possible taste, has been made with undeniable conviction. The central story proceeds with compellingly warped logic, and Howe and Berger wring their jet-black humor from the characters and situations instead of poking fun at the genre. While this shot-on-video production has a low-budget look, it possesses a much stronger visual sense than one usually finds in this kind of project. The acting is also far better than one might expect, with the three leads quite convincing throughout their debauchery and McCrae a devilish delight as the unconventional hell-spawn Kaps. Had the movie tightened its focus, it might have been a small winner, but there's still plenty here to entertain adventurous viewers. (Graphic violence, extensive nudity, sexual situations, adult situations, extreme profanity.)