I lost it at the car accident being called "light miscellaneous immorality."

It feels like the writer did actually like the movie and wrote about it to then realise who he was writing this review for and having to condemn because of editors or the audiences

I like the idea of a church hosting a showing of The Conjuring and handing out essay questions to answer afterward.

God the algorithm really does a disservice to this video. I tried searching KZfaq for “hereditary evangelical” and couldn’t find this video again. I had to search my view history for it. Gonna manually share it with some buds so it might get the attention it deserves

"Light miscellaneous immorality," is it? Well, movie guide, my thousands of ants and I know when we're not wanted, and shall take our leave of you.

I actually found the family trauma more disturbing then the cult and violence element of the film. As someone who was raised in a dysfunctional family, sobering realities around your are somehow more terrible then “demonic possession” and Ari portrays that wonderfully

I'm glad that folks are realizing that a lot of the horror genre, particularly "slasher" films, seem to reinforce "Traditional Christian Values" (i.e. fornicators and adulterers are nearly instantly killed, etc.) These characters are sacrificed to the plot because their deaths are seen as "acceptable" due to their "transgressions."

This Movie Guide outfit's morality is itself questionable when they assert that the greatest sin perpetrated by the cultists in 'Hereditary' was the renunciation of the Trinity. Never mind the murders and utter destruction of a whole family.

Oh man, this reminds me of the times I spent in a christian movie review site, where for example Princess and the Frog got blasted for paganistic beliefs because the firefly character believed in a wishing star or whatever. Better yet were the comments, where an actual pastor came to defend Coraline and to question wtf was up with the reviewer. Most entertaining hours of my life.

Paimon is a Goetic demon, a subordinate of Lucifer. His worship isn't a pagan act. He may have pagan origins, but it's clear-- from his sigil to the cult directly quoting the Ars Goetia-- that it's the Goetic version of Paimon we're dealing with here. In acknowledging the literal existence of Paimon, the movie does in imply the existence of the Judeo-Christian God. So the review's description of God's presence in the negative space (a "God of the gaps", if you will ;-) ) is frankly spot-on. And honestly, that's what's so disappointing about the Movie Guide review. The author so clearly understands the movie, and a strictly Christian interpretation of a movie playing with Christian mythology is a compelling one, but then they take a hard right turn into "Brrrr Movie Bad!". It almost feels like the author really dug the movie, honestly grocked it, but was hamstrung by the demands of the site.

Evangelical criticism and advice in general has the tone of "I did this and you shouldn't", especially when discussing anything that might threaten faith. I've heard a lot of sermons about former lives of fornicating and drugs, and they always include how much fun it was, before they eventually got saved. The implication id "I made it through, but you wouldn't, so you should skip the life experience and go straight to the salvation. You don't need real reasons to commit to faith, just believe me."

I would actually love a modern horror depicting the events of the plagues of Exodus from the view of an Egyptian citizen and servant of Pharaoh.

Now I REALLY want to see their review of Beau is Afraid

This half-joking 15 minute video has deeper analysis than some 3 hour video essays I’ve seen

I remember stumbling across a similar site in my college days. They had a rating, but also a red yellow or green light to show whether you should show the movie to your kids or not. I looked up every animated film i could think of and prince of Egypt was the only green 😂 they really hated spirited away haha

What fascinated me the most about this was how you touched on movie guide’s (and evangelical Christianity as a whole’s) insistence that your faith never wavers. As someone who grew up Christian and is now kind of agnostic about it all, that’s just insane to me? Any healthy faith in any idea, religious, political or otherwise will get challenged at some point- that’s what makes belief so powerful and meaningful to people. Wouldn’t coming out of a trial of faith, believing even stronger in the word of god be a good thing?

I had to check the review because I was under the impression that 'being covered by thousands of ants' was being listed as 'immoral' and I was so incredibly confused. It's listed as 'violence', which is still deeply confusing, but makes a bit more sense than a swarm of insects somehow having morality.

I was ready to settle down and have an easy laugh at cringe evangelicals, but I have to say, the whole review and wider message of the website strikes me as profoundly sad. To acknowledge that a film is great, to analyse it and uncover genuinely interesting thematic meat, only to in the same breath have to disregard it completely because it doesn’t appeal to your sensibilities in one specific way? Like... what do you think art is for? To just endlessly reaffirm the exact same principles with no nuanced over and over, like a snake constantly regurgitating its own tail? Good video.

If this is the service I'm thinking of, the articles for Twilight movies are hilarious. They are so thorough about every instance of partial nudity that it reads like smut. I remember stuff like "A young adult male vampire emerges from a lake with his wet breasts and nipples exposed while a group watches from the shore." I understand that the point is to help you avoid Christian eyes seeing sinful film, but even just reading the warnings is enough to cause sinful thoughts. I can imagine someone learning a lot of sinful things just from the warnings.

i love it when a youtuber just feels like my friend who’s infodumping for 15 minutes

"they're just demanding that you avoid doubt at all costs" wow the church really isn't beating those "OCD trigger" allegations anytime soon

Well, browsing this site is my new favorite activity. It's been five minutes, and I've already learned that "Midsommar" is apparently just a worse version of "Wicker Man" (LOOOOL), and a nature documentary can get hit with "light sex" if it shows salmon mating. Thanks, Movie Guide!

I love the subtle jokes that aren't blown out of proportion with editting, you just let them slide for whoever picks them up like the Moon joke and Quentin Tarantino joke.

Your interpretation of this review gives me Big Joel vibes, and i mean that in the best way. Looking forward to seeing where you go from here

I loved the opening following your desktop work. Slick way to transition into the video. And how chuffed you were about the "eclipsed by the full moon." Hahaha

This turned out way more fascinating than i anticipated. Thanks for giving me something to think about. The algorithm better pick this treasure up!

This video RULES I’m so glad I’ve found your work

It's particularly disturbing when someone of such a different (I won't say limited) world view can have such a critical reflection on something and it just.. fails to permeate them. Bizarre.

They get that movies, like books, are great empathy machines and really want Christians to stay away from “being in the characters heads” as you say.

The crisis pregnancy center comparison was so fucking good

6:20 this dad joke was amazingly crafted. Well done 👏🏼

the way this video came to be because of a tangent instantly make me love it

wow! i thought this would be just a silly little video but it was very in depth and interesting. I want to know more about evangelical readings of mainstream horror films - and whether this kind of 'absent god' feeling is infact pro or anti christianity

Omg you killed me with that visual choice for when you said Quentin Tarantino.

Reminds me of this website Family Friendly Gaming I accidentally stumbled upon. Except their articles make Movie Guide look like fucking analytical geniuses. "Tales of Zestiria teaches gamers to worship all kinds of false idols like trees" is a phrase that will live rent free in my head for the rest of my life. Don't even get me started on the Code Realize review, which listed "Japanese voices" as something that will "shock families" alongside things like violence and swearing. That's right, apparently not having an English dub is just as objectionable to the traditional Christian family as people being melted alive. Why would Ned Flanders even want an otome visual novel in the first place? Well surely no one could possibly find Animal Crossing offensive rig- It's bad because there's fossils in it.

I had the same reaction to finding their review of Elemental, whiplash. Basically all praise then, EXTREME CAUTION ADVISED DUE TO OCCULT REFERENCES!!!

that last line got me. you write really funny scripts!!

Death proof is very satirical so I think it gets the pass on watching a guy suffer so much. I get that is lost on people, but I think it's more viable than...just gore and pain. Am I the only one who thinks Paimon is suffering and confused themselves in hereditary? Therefore a virginal basically innocent victim? If it can't fight its nature does that make it ok? I find it uniquely challenging. Since paimon is an ambiguous entity I wonder what it says about grief? Is that indiscriminate. Idk just throwing it out. Painon is just such a weird element. I mean the cult is using the demon, not the other way around. The same way they used the family.

Omg, brb I GOTTA see what their review of The Love Witch says! Edit: Very sad to report that they have not reviewed The Love Witch. Seeing the mental gymnastics of the reviewer for that one would have made my day. 😢

an “idolatrous sports ritual” is the only way I’ll refer to sports from now on

the idea of someone being covered in ants being Immoral is so fucking funny. who's sinning in that situation? the ants? the person covered in ants? generally a person covered in ants did not want to be covered in ants. it's usually an unfortunate side-effect of picnics. is it a sin to intentionally shovel handfuls of innocent, blameless ants onto your person, and if so, why? I mean, the ants probably aren't thrilled about it, but something tells me that "inconveniencing ants" isn't anywhere in the bible (except for the whole biblical flood thing, I guess. I bet that was a real rough day for ants as a whole)

never seen any of your videos before and im just kinda blown away by the simple creativity of the editing style. its such a no-brainer but its so unique and effective

It stuns me to see how, for that brief instance, his review was actually fantastic, but then he snapped back to (his) reality, giving us all whiplash in the process

This is the first video of yours that I've seen and you charmed me/made me laugh so many times in the first five minutes that I gave this video a like! 😃

I absolutely love your channel. Just found this in my feed and it is excellent work. Bravo!!

love the video! and thanks for the subtitles!

Excellent video. Very glad it showed up randomly in my reccs, because this is what I like to see.

Looks like this caught more attention because I just found it recommended to me on my page! The review is written quite beautifully, and I'm glad you included so much of it. I'm only about halfway into the video; it's a great find!

It’s both encouraging and frightening to know the youthsss of today are this smart. You got yourself a new subscriber. LMAO with the Dollar-Store slender man line 😂

I like how your ending summary gets what this website is actually doing, because I think so many religious and especially evangelical review websites often reveal just a complete incuriousity and refusal to engage with the art all the way down to "I read too much into the framing of two props and am convinced its a demonic symbol" level You found such a gem here with how what this website does is it seems to mash an actual review section and a very over-the-top evangelical content rating/parental guide system together, and their ratings system is about their view of spiritual corruption instead of a secular view of moral corruption (like we have content ratings for sex and violence and swearing because those are seen as corrupting for children, this website seems to see anything that could puncture a bubble of unquestioning faith and purity of belief as being corrupting) And then how the language of film criticism and theology/philosophy that went into a very thoughtful film review being mashed together with the very flamboyant language of evangelical moral panic is just a very funny/surreal combination Like here, the reviewer clearly liked the movie even from a Christian perspective, but its like the site's ratings are written for how it would be seen from the perspective of "someone whose faith is too weak to withstand even the slightest push" (who might question aspects of their faith after a movie about demonic possession because it requires facing up to the existence of the kinds of evil or horror you can usually forget about) in a similar way to how parental guide ratings are written for how it would be seen from the perspective of a child (who might have nightmares for weeks after watching a violent scene) I do think how much evangelical media habits focus on this aspect of content moderation is quite interesting though because its kind of a worldview of faith as something very fragile that requires you to be focused and compartmentalized and walk a certain knife-edge liminal area where you believe it but you don't go into the implications because those implications themselves are seen as a path to losing your faith. Like, it's quite nice and easy to just believe in God and in Jesus loving you and light and good nature and all that stuff, but then if you watch a movie with demons and start thinking about how technically your belief system also means you could be surrounded by unseen spiritual entities and that there could easily be a demon in your room and that that's what the original beliefs imply and so on... or if you watched an innocent documentary about dinosaurs and started thinking about the math not adding up and you start wondering if the issue is the dinosaurs or the chronology or what, etc Some religious traditions want you to engage with your doubts and come out of it with more conviction. Some religious traditions like Catholicism I think kind of makes the whole pomp and tapestry of it part of the whole religious experience you grow up with, like when you grow up with saints and sacraments and all that stuff then you're kind of used to your religious experience being just this huge all-encompassing thing But evangelicals (and I think also a lot of countries' Sunni Muslims, probably also some other cultures) often have a culture where as much as people with strong conviction of faith are praised, in practice people are thought of as being just barely on the right path where the slightest push could lead them into doubt and secularism, and being a good Christian to others isnt about helping make their faith so strong it becomes immune to doubt, its about keeping them as sheltered from possible inducers of doubt as you can So I think the website's worldview ends up being weirdly consistent in a weird way. Their schtick is basically like, the rating system tells you just how much there may be of *anything* that might shake a person's unquestioning faith (the audience for this primarily being parents who want to ensure their kids have zero exposure to anything that might set them on the wrong path, with the secondary audience being for people who want to keep their own spiritual peace of mind by not consuming content thatd cause too much doubt or questions tossing around in bed at night) and the review is like "if you're sure you have the strength of faith and conviction and spiritual fortitude for this content -- the rating will tell you just how much of that you might need -- here's a proper analytical film review"

"Unless you're a fornicator!" 😭

This is the first video of yours I have seen and just want to say, I was already loving the video but at the grin when you said "that metaphor is that metaphor is totally eclipsed under these full moons" I was clicking subscribe before I could process the decision, truly excellent work

i almost started laughing hysterically at your air bud description in my very quiet math class, but thankfully i held it in. good job, instant sub lmao

If Movie Guide reviewed Hereditary, I wonder what's their thoughts on The Human Centipede.

I love the flow of your writing! Very nice video :3

This video was awesome and you are a delight, I can't wait to watch everything you ever make ever

This is a fantastic video! Good work.

"Babe wake up, new Maxo dropped" Great Video, loved the ending especially thinking about what you were saying in reference to Scorsese's Silence, a film about showing overcoming that doubt. This video gets a +4 for it's intentional ghoulishness (To be sought out)

Idk how you showed up on my feed, but I’m so glad you did. From the beginning of this video I was enraptured. This is just the best.

I love that so many people can get so many different takes from Hereditary thank you for sharing

Great video essay, enjoyed the hell out of it and very engaging presentation

Absolutely fantastic essay!!

Expected this to be just funny but it was also very deep and thoughtful. Thank you for the video!

This is incredible. Perfect content.

the algorithm did me a favor today, damn! sick video!

This was a great video, thanks for sharing!

Great video and excited to find a new awesome channel! 💙

idk who you are but im glad this vid got recommended to me, keep up the good work !!

To be fair, it was only half a hit-and-run. Enjoyed this!

decided to read that that website had to say about 'promising young woman', which is controversial and one of my favorite films, but i never saw any religious interpretations of it. WHY DO THEY SAY IT CONTAINS "brief discussions of s*xual assault"????? that's literally the whole point. there's absolutely nothing "brief" about it!!!

"Imaginary rimshot" caption with your self-satisfied grin won you a follow, great video.

So glad this was recommended to me! Good stuff!

really interesting artifact and excellent thoughtful discussion! Thank you!

Often I’d be asked as a small town librarian if a certain movie was appropriate for their kid. I often said that different families have different definitions of what’s appropriate for their kids, but if they wanted a more thorough breakdown (violence, language, sexuality etc) I’d pull up the movie’s write-up on Common Sense Media. It’s a similar site but less religious-centred (though that is a factor for many of their users). They also break out reviews/ratings fro parents and from kids. Interesting to see the different perspectives, and what elements stood out as potentially concerning.

I love how these "evangelical film critics" get to watch all the great movies, but then they get to tell others that Jesus says "don't watch these evil films." Is there anything they are not massive hypocrites about?

I definitely want to watch your osmosis jones video! Good stuff! Subscribed!

This is extremely good content, great job!

I occasionally come around that website here and there and always have a great time looking up whatever movies I can think of

This is amazing! What a gold mine! Thank you

Yeah, leave it to evangelical media reviewers to totally miss the point of art. I remember getting Plugged In magazine in the late 90s/early 00s, and I’ll never forget their ridiculous review of Radiohead’s Kid A (an album I loved from its release). They said something like “the sonic barrage is an assault, that surely is going to cause detrimental side affects to a teenagers nervous system. And lyrics like ‘cut the kids in half’ (an obvious lyric about divorce) is morbid, if taken literally” Good grief, just say you don’t like it as a piece of art, but to put some moral stamp of approval on it, is laughable. But, this is nothing new. Evangelicals do not want art that challenges their view, they want it to confirm it.

The algorithm blessed me with this one! Subscribed!

This was so clever, loved it!

Very sharp. I'm Catholic & educated Catholics can be pretty sophisticated in their analysis… still vicious & reactionary but sophisticated.

I want a world where osmosis jones is considered almost as heretical and bad for children as hereditary

The smile at your own full moon home killed me

exquisite analysis and humor, i'm subscribing

Hereditary is one of my all time favorite movies, ty for this video

This is the first video I've seen from you... and I'm subscribed. Now excuse me while I nuerodivergently deep dive into the rest of your content 😅

08:15 Reminds me of the exorcist. The author explicitly talked about the character of father karras finding god through his fight with the demon

I had a suspicion they'd like it a little based on demons being real implying that the opposite would also be real.

This website is wild, I had to go check out their reviews for the Saw franchise afterwards

Your description of Death Proof needing to earn its revenge arc motivation by fully immersing you in the grief and pain caused by the perpetrator reminded me a lot of the move Mandy. You could have said those exact words talking about Mandy

i need the osmosis jones video essay

Calling basketball an "idolatrous sports ritual" sent me to the moon and I'm not even halfway through the video ahaha

6:30 the captions here are great

This is an incredibly well written and edited video. You’re my new favorite review reviewer. -4 on acceptability

Wtf, just found this channel and that eclipse joke was perfect 😂 yo new sub here. Plus the whole premise of this video is brilliant

Fantastic analysis

Hey, the KZfaq algorithm sent me here. I really liked your video - good content and a great production value. Best regards!

just stumbled upon ur channel. extremely useful perspective.