‘Sin’ (aka Bloody Bloody Bible Camp) DVD Review
Stars: Ivet Corvea, Jessica Sonneborn, Christopher Raff, Matthew Aidan, Ron Jeremy, Reggie Bannister, Tim Sullivan | Written by Vito Trabuco, Shelby McIntyre | Directed by Vito Trabucco
[NB: With the film finally set for a UK DVD release under the title of Sin, some 2 years after its US debut, here’s my (old) review of Bloody Bloody Bible Camp from its original US release]
Remember those ultra-gory slasher movies that were released to cash-in on the slasher-movie boom that followed the release of Friday the 13th? You know the ones, those that proliferated the shelves of video stores everywhere in the 80s? Well Sin, aka Bloody Bloody Bible Camp, is much like those – a low-budget, ultra-gory slasher, only this time round we’re treated to a gloriously camp take on the genre that sends up the movies it’s paying homage to, the catholic church, and Jesus Christ himself!
Sin, aka Bloody Bloody Bible Camp, opens with a 70s set prologue that straight away goes for the jugular as a group of miscreant teens at the Happy Day Bible Camp feel the wrath of Sister Mary Chopper who takes offense at their impure antics. Beheadings, disembowelings, slicing and dicing – it’s got the lot. It’s obvious from the get go that we’re in for a gory (and sleazy) treat, as the prologue features more deaths, more gore, and more nudity in a short space of time than many of today’s so-called horror flicks!
Jump forward seven years and Father Cummings (Banister) and his flock arrive at the camp with plans to re-open it as part of the expansion of his church. Ignoring the locals’ warnings that the camp is cursed Cummings and co. settle in for the night. But their late-night antics once again raise the ire of Sister Mary Chopper, who goes on another bloody rampage.
Any film that attempts to capture the spirit of 80s slashers need five key things – colourful characters, humour, gratuitous nudity, over the top gore and an iconic villain. Sin, aka Bloody Bloody Bible Camp, has all of them, in spades. Which is why is works and it works well. Key to the success of the film is Vito Trabucco’s direction, which belies the low-budget origins of the film whilst at the same time manages to recreate the same look and feel found in the low-budget slasher films of the 80s (a strange dichotomy I know), plus Trabucco knows just how much gore to show – loads. As a gorehound I found MUCH to love about the film: there’s plenty of beheadings, a number of disembowelings, stabs, slashes, an axe in a vagina, sodomy by crucifix, I could go on…
However not everything about Sin, aka Bloody Bloody Bible Camp, works quite as well. I know the film is supposed to be camp – hell, the characters are walking comedy acts for one – but Vito Trabucco and his co-writer Shelby McIntyre take the level of camp too far, at least for me, with the bizarro ending featuring Ron Jeremy as Jesus Christ (yes, you read that right) who helps Bannister’s Father Cummings come back from the near-dead and take down Sister Mary Chopper. However props to Trabuco and co. for shooting what has to be one of the most original twists in a horror movie – I don’t recall ever seeing Jesus give a character a pep talk, have you?
A solid slice of retro horror fun with plenty of gore, lashings of nudity and a superb villain in Sister Mary Chopper, Sin, aka Bloody Bloody Bible Camp, is a film that I heartily recommend you track down. In a world darkened by political correctness it is a shining beacon of sleaze, perversion and offensiveness. In other words, it’s fantastic!
Sin, aka Bloody Bloody Bible Camp, is set for a UK release on May 5th (finally), courtesy of Metrodome Distribution.
