Sinners and Saints (2004 Video) User Reviews

This Film is Hot!

[MicroCinemaMagazine · 29 October 2004]

This movie caught me by surprise since I've never seen a movie like this before. This is a good thing and a bad thing. The good: this movie impressed my pants off. I was expecting an exploding cheese factory, but that wasn't the case. Now this isn't to say the film doesn't have its fair share of cheese, because it does, it's just that these filmmakers have what I would classify as a good sense of humor and a real flare for timing. Sinners and Saints is totally action packed and has a strong story line. The bad: it's unnecessarily excessive at times, and gets over explanatory at the end (sequel material maybe). Of course, I'm not entirely familiar with this genera so perhaps I'm too virgin for leather clad, partially naked kung-fu nuns with guns (hot) and Borg-ess cannibal strippers (not so hot). These are just a few of the scenes that dangle on a fine line between artsy and shocking.

Sinners and Saints has a very strong story and it's very apparent that this is the driving force behind this movie. The main character, Father Charmichael Drake and member of the 'God Squad', is tormented by his dreams.

He's driven to fight crime and the forces of evil and as it turns out, evil is busy. Satanic cops are abducting and sacrificing young girls, and at the same time, a rebellion is looming in Hades. And when the Father is summoned by the Queen of Hell to help bring justice to the Hades dimension, he's there with guns, blades, fists and kicks. It sounds simple enough, and there really isn't much more to it than that, but it takes you there in a very good way. It's your classic good versus evil action flick with a couple twists, some great characters and humor. The action and fight scenes are awesome and very professional, going steps above typical indie 'kung-fu'. Additionally, the lead characters, Father Drake (Jason Cavalier) and Necrotia (director Melantha Blackthorn) do an exceptional job of playing their parts. The 'death metal' music is also worthy of the film and compliment it well.

As I mentioned briefly, aside from the story overload at the ending, Sinners and Saints exceeded all my expectations and naive assumptions. It's a guilty pleasure any action/horror/sci-fi/cult film lover could ask for. It delivers one fun ride; I'm keeping my eye on this Robomonkey.

• 4/5 Little Guys -

What the???

[matt-loop · 1/10 · 29 August 2005]

No one appreciates a good schlock horror film more than myself but unfortunately Sinners and Saints not only misses the mark but sends it into another ozone.

The film centers around a demon killing, karate chopping, superhero priest and his "loose fitting top" nun counterpart as they are out to right the wrongs of our corrupted world and save a young kidnapped girl who suspiciously happens to look like a woman in pigtails. From there we are subjected to a barrage of images to death metal music including masturbating demons, severed penis's, borg-like demon cannibal women and lots and lots of layering of video images.

Throughout the film it was obvious the filmmakers didn't really have a direction or focus. At some moments it seemed the movie was intentionally trying to be parody of the genre mixing 60's Batman scene transitions with over the top moments of someone's testicles being kicked right through their mouth and ears. I would of enjoyed the "Troma-like" tribute except that the serious dialogue, confusing plot line, disappearing characters and drawn out fight/meditation/seductive teacher (with no pay off) sequences took away all of the fun.

On a positive note, the fight sequences were good as well as some of the special effects for the small budget they had to work with. I give credit to the producers for trying but do it on someone else's time.

little budget, little interest

[laurence-simner · 1/10 · 29 August 2005]

As I understand it, the filmmakers of Sinners and Saints had a very restricted budget for this project as well as time and scheduling issues that resulted in this film taking three years to produce. Having said that, I applaud them for their persistence and dedication to their labour of love, however, my applause stops there.

For close to 90 minutes the viewer is subjected to rapid fire images and scenarios that appear to have been pieced together from a number of different movies, creating a completely disjointed and confusing mess of a film. Characters appear and then, without notice, disappear, change alliances and confuse good and evil without any explanation.

The effects in the film were found in the stock effects package of last year's digital editing system and have been used to such an extreme that the original source footage sometimes gets lost among the layers of swirling foregrounds and picture-in-picture images.

One of the most frustrating parts of watching this film was having to endure the apparently "uncut" sequences of kung-fu fighting, the Priest practicing his martial arts and a seductive scene between the priest and the Queen of Hell. The editor must have fallen asleep during the editing process and forgotten to remove the large sections of these scenes that would have sped up the pacing of the film and allowed the audience to more easily connect with the characters instead of being bored to tears.

Some of these points may be forgive perhaps due to the lack of budget, but when it comes right down to it, this is a project that should have resulted in a half hour short film, and even then some serious story editing would need to be made.

Mind-boggling exploitation flick!

[porfle · 8/10 · 26 June 2006]

SINNERS AND SAINTS is proof that you don't need millions of dollars to produce an audacious, imaginative, entertaining film. It's not often you see an exploitation flick with this many elements -- horror, sex, sci-fi, kung fu, gunfights, swordfights, comedy -- coming at you at such a frantic pace.

There's so much going on in this movie, in fact, that in less skilled hands it could've been a mess. But director/star Melantha Blackthorne deftly manages to keep it all together with a droll wit and a keen sense of the absurd. She stars as Necrotia, the Queen of Hell, who for some reason has taken an intense interest in a certain Father Drake (co-scripter Jason Cavalier), a combat-ready priest who is engaged in a never-ending battle against the forces of evil. With Necrotia's help, he blasts, chops, slices, and kicks his way through a series of well-staged fight scenes against opponents both human and supernatural, with stunts and wirework that are on par with films like THE MATRIX (Cavalier also served as stunt coordinator).

There are several stunning action set-pieces throughout the film, my favorite being the eventual confrontation between Father Drake and Necrotia after he finds himself in Hell (for reasons I won't go into here since it would give away too much). There's also an abundance of surreal, horrific imagery that is often both disturbing and funny, and definitely not for the squeamish. And did I mention the topless combat nun (Liz Faure's "Sister Merrick") who leaps into battle wearing a leather habit and Doc Martens?

But best of all, there's the beautiful Melantha Blackthorne, who is equally adept at looking gorgeous and kicking all kinds of bad-guy a**. She and Jason Cavalier make a good team both in front of and behind the camera, and here they've come up with a movie that looks much better than you'd expect for a low-budget,independent feature. How this was accomplished is nicely demonstrated on the DVD's second disc, which is loaded with behind-the-scenes vignettes, bloopers, trailers, and music videos from some of the bands who contributed to the soundtrack.

If you're in the mood for some mind-boggling, no-punches-pulled entertainment that spin-kicks the crap out of most of what Hollywood is churning out these days, SINNERS AND SAINTS may be just what you're looking for. And it might even help to wipe away those unpleasant memories of the last Ben Affleck movie you watched!