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Review: The Catechism Cataclysm

Todd Rohal's strange IFC film
By ALEXANDRA CAVALLO  |  November 1, 2011
3.0 3.0 Stars



A priest and a washed-up heavy metal drummer step into a boat. . . . This isn't the start of a joke, but rather the plot of Todd Rohal's strange IFC film. Father Billy (Steve Little) is a disillusioned priest who prefers YouTube to sermons. When he's forced on sabbatical for telling off-color parables at Bible study, Billy tracks down his high school idol Robbie (Robert Longstreet) and badgers him into a canoe trip. As they float downriver Robbie tells existential stories that Billy doesn't get because they don't have endings, and the audience doesn't get because they're strange, man. It's all shits (literally) and giggles until the duo meet a pair of Japanese girls with a jones for Mark Twain and their mute chaperone. Then things get weird. The last 20 minutes of this delightfully bizarre movie are a monumental head trip, as the girls reveal sinister motives. The point to the whole shebang seems to be, as Robbie's stories imply, that there is no point.

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ARTICLES BY ALEXANDRA CAVALLO
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  •   REVIEW: THE CATECHISM CATACLYSM  |  November 01, 2011
    A priest and a washed-up heavy metal drummer step into a boat. . . . This isn't the start of a joke, but rather the plot of Todd Rohal's strange IFC film.
  •   REVIEW: THE THING  |  October 18, 2011
    It's Alien meets 30 Days of Night when a crew of Americans and Norwegians dig up something otherworldly in the Antarctic ice.
  •   REVIEW: THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2: FULL SEQUENCE  |  October 13, 2011
    Those who lost their cookies over "Two Girls, One Cup" should stay away from Tom Six's twisted follow-up to one of the sickest — and most ingenious — contributions to torture porn in some time.
  •   INTERVIEW: MICHAEL IAN BLACK'S DEATH-DEFYING COMEDY  |  October 05, 2011
    Despite the title of the much lamented comedy series he shared with Michael Showalter, it turns out that Michael Ian Black does not have all that many issues after all. He's just deeply strange.
  •   GIRLS | FATHER, SON, HOLY GHOST  |  September 13, 2011
    The reason Father, Son, Holy Ghost is so uniquely, imperfectly swell is because the band plainly give fuck-all about convention or stylistic uniformity.

 See all articles by: ALEXANDRA CAVALLO

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