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Apr 9, 2023

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This 90’s “modern day” fantasy retelling of the life of Jesus is a classic example of the VHS era of Christian films that live in the collective memory of millennial audiences. THE JUDAS PROJECT has that classic, washed out, dreamy, white “glow” effect throughout its VHS transfer, evoking a wholesome nostalgia, but it contrasts that safe feeling with a particularly brutal crucifixion scene, featuring body horror special effects that push the film’s MPAA rating to PG-13. When a mysterious, magical man named Jesse stuns the world with a series of miracles, including raising the dead, an evil shadow government begins to take notice of his power. As Jesse’s story unfolds, we, the Christian audience of THE JUDAS PROJECT, begin to realize that Jesse is an analogue for Jesus, right down to the disciples he takes and the wonders he demonstrates to them through his “transfiguration” on an idyllic mountainside. The film is an ambitious and relatively grandiose attempt at a contemporary parable, considering its relatively small budget, but it has some major flaws — mainly, plot intrigue that goes nowhere (a sexy Russian spy who appears briefly and never returns) and a confusing series of leaps in between Biblical and modern language. Sometimes characters speak like the King James Bible, but sometimes they speak normally. Sometimes the script switches Biblical names like “Jesus” to “Jesse”, yet Jesse’s disciples including Thomas and Peter keep their exact same names for some reason. Still, THE JUDAS PROJECT is a compelling experience, if nothing else for the wave of Sunday School nostalgia it will evoke in its millennial viewers, and for the enormous amount of campy original songs written and performed for the film by writer/director/producer James H Barden.

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