Father Sin

If anyone was qualified to take on the Catholic Church, it was me and my merry band of teenage yo-yos. Thus this excruciatingly paced drama/thriller about a boy's sleuthing into the life of a murderous priest. That priest is played by Joe in another hilariously goofball performance, but you gotta slog through about nearly twenty minutes before you get to hear him whine, "Surely they couldn't have found the checklist of my wife's murderers!" That's good writin', Kraus.

Why is this movie so damn complicated? I've watched this three times now and I still can't follow it. Thankfully, nothing is confusing for the first seven minutes. Why? Because the movie begins with a seven-minute opening credit sequence. It kicks off with classical, smash cuts to Pearl Jam, and segues oh so smoothly to Enya. Yes, Enya. I had no shame. (Footnote: many years later, when shooting the book trailer for The Monster Variations, I shot in the same cemetery as the one in the Enya scene. Truth!)

Some notes on the actors:

* Father Sin featured our first return character. Officer Bill Johansen, so manly and commanding in The Blob, is once again played to jittery perfection by Ben. Along the way he gets to say a bunch of cool crap like, "Comprende?"

* Leading man Mike, in his first Danman appearance, steals the show with his guitar wailing. Mike had talent, real talent, and since we at Danman Productions had never seen talent before, all we could do is gape at it like morons during the gratuitous shredding scene.

* Matt K. also made his debut as the Cajun bum. Why Cajun? Because Matt K. did a pretty good Cajun accent. Unfortunately, the accent completely swallows the highly important exposition (that he's clearly reading off the script because, like the rest of us, he couldn't follow the plot, either).

* Shad had gone off to college at this point, and his status was clearly "elder statesman." I mean, his cameo role was Mike's dad, for chrissakes. I'm surprised we didn't make him use a walker.

* Julie, the unheralded workhorse who quietly slaved away in practically every single Danman Production ever, is mysteriously absent. But no! Those wedding hands at the beginning are hers. It's a brutal injustice that she was left out of the credits, and to make up for it, I've tagged her name to this entry. I'm sure that makes up for the decades of grief and therapy my oversight caused.