Review: The Velocipastor – “Made for a tenner, but with a million quids worth of heart”

Written and directed by Brendan Steere (Animosity) and starring Greg Cohan (A Little Water) and Alyssa Kempinski (The Deuce), The VelociPastor was first introduced to the world as a fake trailer two years ago and is now a full and real movie that transcends being a joke to being a fun and actually funny movie.

When priest Doug Jones (Cohan) sees both his parents blown to bits by a car bomb in front of his church he loses his faith and goes to China to find himself and rediscover his love of the Lord. While there, he is scratched by a runaway ninja’s dinosaur claw. Returning to the states he finds that the velociraptor talon wound has infected him with dino powers – werewolf style.

Imbued with the snarling strength and speed of a ropey raptor suit, Father Doug teams up with hooker-doctor-lawyer Carol (Kempinski) to take a bite out of crime — principally a local crime-boss known as Frankie Mermaid “because he’s swimming in bitches” — while also battling the ninjas from the beginning who have followed him over from the local woods of China.

At 71 minutes, VelociPastor doesn’t outstay its welcome or beat the joke to death. It zips along with its tongue so far in its cheek that it comes out of its ear, constantly busting out bizarre lines, insanely earnest readings, weird laughs and wistful gazes that hilariously and awkwardly go on just a bit too long and using its lack of budget as an opportunity for more laughs – instead of a limitation. Early on a shot of a car exploding is replaced with a title card reading “VFX: car on fire” so what could have been crappy CG instead becomes another gag.

This spirit flows throughout with Cohan and Kempinski both nailing the tone, playing even the maddest things totally straight and Steere obviously crafting his ludicrous and ridiculous film with love and care not cynicism. VelociPastor isn’t faking it in a pathetically desperate attempt to be zany for the memes or cult status like other similar movies, it’s just trying to be — and totally succeeding — a total blast.

Made for a tenner, but with a million quids worth of heart, VelociPastor is a Jurassic werewolf midnight movie that is better than Iron Sky, Kung Fury and all the Sharknado’s put together. The VelociPastor will be available on DVD and Digital on the 13th of August with a Blu-Ray release to follow on the 17th of September.