Naturally this has little or nothing to do with today’s movie. Given my eyebrow jerking tendency to somehow weave the fabric of the cosmos inexplicably together in some way, shape, or form though, I’m sure something will happen before this review is over to make it a relevant opening statement and not so much a random tirade on my part. Even if it doesn’t though, I figure references to Wayne Brady, “Nothing can kill the Grimace”, and Ronald McDonald as a murderous necrophile made the paragraph worthwhile either way. Now, about that movie review…

Police officer Gabriel Goodman (*groan*) wakes up from a nice Christmas dream about getting “romantic” with his “looks hot even in a dirty paint smock” girlfriend/wife Amanda to find himself laid out on the floor of his resident pig pen with a bullet wound in his arm. Collecting his shotgun from nearby, he ventures out into the city street to find himself all alone in a dead city where the only activity is his backwards running watch and a constantly blaring doomsday siren… oh, and the occasional PASSING CAR if you keep your eyes peeled on the background. Proof once again that editing is not so simple a job that you can hire your braindead cousin who blew off six of his fingers while playing with M-80s to do it.

Finding a radio in an abandoned prison transport bus, Gabriel comes across one of those convenient newsflashes where we learn that whatever’s causing the majority of the populace to go *poof* is a nation wide happening. There are also reports (I guess from the few remaining people?) that folks are being attacked by some kind of “foreigners or alien invaders”… Well, if they look like you but dress funny, chances are they’re foreigners. If they have extra arms, huge eyes, or they have no face what-so-ever, chances are that would make them aliens. You might wanna write that down in case there’s a quiz on it later. Speaking of quizzes, Gabe finds a cloaked woman on the outskirts of town and follows her into the burnt out remnants of a boys’ prep school. Inside he loses the woman, but finds a priest looming over a dead convict from the prison bus that he may or may not have killed. This is the point where Gabe has a flashback and reveals that the wound on his arm wasn’t made by a bullet, but by the shiny gold hand of a mysterious cloaked stranger who knocked our man out while he was confronting a crazy-ass Iron Man lookin’ Archangel thing that was killing prisoners at the police department right before the world went all Willy Wonka.

Of course our priest had a similar experience, turning around and losing his entire parish before a cyborg angel of his own came stomping off an ‘80s metal album cover and through his front door! Now he claims that God is talking to him (at least since he stopped taking his medication…) and that the Big Guy foretold of Gabe’s arrival as a man lacking faith who would help him. Locked out of his own church now, the priest is at the prep school trying to access a tunnel connecting the two buildings, no doubt built so the men of the cloth could get their sin on with the students after hours back when the place was still open. In case you’re wondering, yes, it’s always about child molesting priests and sodomite necrophiliac corporate mascots with me. Someday I hope to combine the two into one massively tasteless super joke with which I shall disgust the world! Until then, it’s back to bad acting and terminators with wings.

Eventually Gabe gets the heavy-handed point that this is all supposed to be “The Revelation” and, because he denounced Christianity following the deaths of Amanda and their unborn child, Gabriel’s now been Left Behind-ed with no Kirk Cameron around to save him. He confronts his unholy side in a boys’ room stall, surrounded by waving flashlights to symbolize how Purgatory is pretty much one big filthy basement rave. His sinful side holds a gun to its head to symbolize the continued emphasis on how Gabriel’s suicide attempt following Amanda’s death was evil and wrong and a big part of why he wasn’t allowed to ascend when humanity’s alarm clock went off. Speaking of evil and wrong, Evil Gabe’s dick is just hanging out and flopping around throughout the entire scene… something you don’t often see in a Christian scare flick… speaking of which, Evil Gabe is hung like Christ! If I had a Satan stick like that I’d get “Root of Evil” tattooed down both sides, as opposed to my current cock ink, of which I could only fit “evil”… I couldn’t even capitalize the ‘E’...

After we finally get into the church, the symbolism all makes sense. The priest was Satan in disguise (hence why he didn’t ascend despite being a man of the proverbial cloth) and the reason he couldn’t get into the building was because the church is a gateway to Heaven (despite Jesus saying churches are not what gets you into Heaven…). So, Lucifer had to sucker Gabe into getting him into the church so Ol’ Scratch could try to get himself back into the Great Beyond kinda like Dogma, busted up archangel costume and all. Instead, the Morningstar gets his face melted off after Gabe runs him through the heart with some holy avenging angel spear. Granted, the face melt is badly done technically, but I’m always up for some visage mutilation. Does his act give Gabe a free pass through the pearly gates, or will he be left to rot on what’s left of the planet with his atheist buddies? Then again, maybe this is one of those “It was all a dream!” Wizard of Oz scenarios and Gabe’s gonna wake up on Christmas morning to his wife and newborn son and an unwavering faith that the invisible man in the clouds will make him happy forever so long as Gabe continues to do what he’s told. Fortunately my parents actually raised me, so I’ve never been left looking for an imaginary disciplinarian by which to set the guidelines for my existence.

So… many… flashbacks! Interest… lost… quickly! All Shatnering aside, if there’s one story mechanism that needs more moderation than an alcoholic on Spring Break, it’s the flashback. Chris Nolan made it into an integral element of Memento and that’s the only instance where you can excuse using more than three instances. Dark Heaven dropkicks us in the face with it a good 20 or 30 times, and when I say “good” I mean “crucifyingly painful” and when I say “20 or 30” I mean it was probably less but it felt like more… soooo much more... It’s a shame too, cuz the movie actually starts off in the “kinda interesting” category for the first 25 minutes. After that? Not. The trippy nightmarish feel, coupled with similarly creepy Tubular Bells-ish music makes this something of a Phantasm movie for the holy-than-thou crowd, but watching Gabe’s crappy life with Amanda played out repeatedly instills more frustration than the movie’s worth. Oh yeah, the shitty acting and homemade special effects ain’t too good neither.

Given the dark tone of the movie, along with the lack of Jesus Christ in the “Special Thanks” portion of the credits, I’m not 100% on whether Omega Productions LLC is supposed to be a pro-Christian group or an anti-Christian group. The only other credit I could find for them is an "inspirational exercise tape" called Sweating in the Spirit 2, made 4 years after Dark Heaven. That alone would have you figure they're a pro-Jesus crew, but I'm still not without doubt. Whatever case they’re trying to make, neither one seems to have been made all too clearly. Are we not supposed to trust church officials because they might in fact be the Devil? Even if we do go to a church infiltrated by Satan, apparently that means we still get to go to Heaven when the end of the world kicks in? If someone loses their faith because God shits on their life for his own omnipotent amusement (I call that a Job-job), does that mean they’re fucked when Armageddon hits, or can they repent at the last second like guys on death row?... you know, the prisoners sentenced to death, not the rap label… then again, what will happen to Suge and the rest of the Death Row crew? Are there really THAT many “worthy” Christians that when an entire city ascends the only people left behind will be atheist cops and escaped convicts? And don’t give me that bullshit cover all answer about looking toward the teachings of whichever manual you stake your claim in neither or I’ll go all Quick Kick where your deity of choice split you!

Anyway, if Dark Heaven is the product of Bible Thumpers, I guess that this type of movie is meant not so much to win new converts as it is to remind the current sheep what will happen to them if they ever doubt the word of their savior. Nothing like ruling people with fear and threats to emphasize all that love and good will crap. Way to go Machiavelli. If it really is a religious flick though, it’s funny how someone mistakenly calls the last chapter of God’s Fairy Tales “the Book of Revelations”, when any scholar of the text (or at least anyone forced to study it in Catholic school) will tell you to drop the ‘s’. Trust me, it was a point of contention on an episode of “Jeopardy” and cost some guy a few hundred bucks, so it’s of global nitpickery importance.

Sadly it looks like that McNugget paragraph did little more than fill some space. Given that I own the website and therefore do not get paid by the word (or at all), I hope somebody at least got a smirk or two out of it. As for me, my Cthulumas tree is lacking in garland, so it’s time to go scalp me some Fry Kids…