I recently saw the movie Van Helsing, which is basically a two hour car chase disguised as a monster movie (and which doesn’t have a PG-13 rating for nothing). There are many religious elements of the movie, which might be boiled down to the summary: “Catholics = Good; Monsters = Bad.” Despite the non-stop action and the film’s other flaws (including a cleric who is implied to break his promise of chastity), it was kind of refreshing to see a movie where the heroes unashamedly pray to God for help–and get it.
I won’t do a full review now, but I thought I would point out that some folks in the world still take monsters very seriously, including vampires.
Consider this recent story from Romania about how locals are angry that the police are trying to stop them from slaying vampires.
Or consider this story from last year about enraged villagers in Malawi who staged riots and attacked a government official (as well as three Catholic priests) on the belief that their government was consorting with vampires.
Kind of makes you glad you’re living in America, doesn’t it?
On the other hand, who wouldn’t be upset if they thought their government leaders were consorting with vampires? Sounds like a case for Mulder and Scully to look into.
Well, Clinton consorted with a houdon provided by apostate priest Aristide of Haiti.
Nancy Reagan consorted with astrologers.
That friar braking his chastity was not at all implied; it was pretty explicit to me!
I think its horrible, even if this is fiction, that he asks a villager to sleep with him, in return for his saving her life.
Not only thqat, but his act of depravity is portrayed rather positively in the movie.
To me, this ruined what would otherwise have been a very good, Catholic film.
ALso, the Church isn’t portrayed all-well. Don’t forget that its “Rome” that orders Van Helsing to kill the Frankenstein monster. They disobey the Church’s orders, and are heroes!
“Implied” means “we didn’t see it,” not “only vaguely hinted at.”
I was quite annoyed by the inclusion of this in the film, but the whole sub-plot (if it can even be called that) gets thirty seconds of attention. The filmmakers could easily have cut those thirty seconds out of the movie and nobody would have been the wiser. Given the magnitude of the element, I’d have a hard time letting the one element by itself completely ruin a film for me . . .
. . . when one considers that much worse things are found in classic works of Catholic literature. Heck, The Decameron has a whole story devoted to a monk who claims to be the vessel of St. Michael the Archangel for purposes of seducing a young, simpleminded noblewoman.
As far as the order regarding the Frankenstein monster goes, that order was issued at a distance without firsthand knowledge of the monster and thus without reason to believe he was significantly different than the other evil monsters in the film. The on-the-ground experts concluded that it was erronerous and disregarded it. The film doesn’t given us reason to think that Rome would disagree with this assessment.
Having said that, notice the scale of the two items that are being discussed. Both together involve maybe a minute of screen time in a film that is otherwise very positive toward the faith.
I guess I wouldn’t mind the the “friar having sex” scene, if only it weren’t portrayed in a postivie light, and there was some show of contrition for it.
Oh well.
It was a really good movie otherwise.
And then there is Canturbury Tales.
The sad fact is, an awful lot of friars weren’t chaste. Although by the time of the movie, reforms had largely changed that medieval situation. IIRC.
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