An Apocalyptic Fairy Tale
Gory Gory Hallelujah is a 2003 American Horror Comedy film.
Four actors who tried to play Jesus with their own unique spins and got rejected go on a motorcycle ride across the country. They end up getting in a fight with a gang of Elvis impersonators. When one of the Elvises is accidentally killed, they flee to not get arrested. Unfortunately, they ride straight into a fundamentalist Christian town that wants them dead for their blasphemies. As the actors fight for their lives, they uncover an apocalyptic conspiracy.
This film contains examples of:
- Ambiguously Bi: Jessie, the feminist Jesus, hooks up with Sky and later has lesbian sex at a feminist cult orgy, but she was clearly brainwashed with the latter, sho it's not clear if she's interested in women or not.
- Attempted Rape: The fat Elvis tries to rape Jessie, but she stabs him in the stomach.
- Big Bad: Preacher John, a Sinister Minister trying to awaken a Zombie Apocalypse.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Ralph Peed, a Corrupt Corporate Executive who is manipulating the town's religiosity to grab land. He would be a credible threat on his own, but he's being manipulated by Preacher John, who wants the land to find a magical artifact and start a Zombie Apocalypse.
- The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: The only black man in Jackville lost his family to an "accidental lynching."
- Crapsack World: Jackville is a fundamentalist Christian cult town where the cops explicitly don't believe in human rights and the local preacher wants to destroy the world. Also, books are illegal.
- Depraved Bisexual: Deputy Joe is a cop who enforces a fundamentalist theocracy and, despite having a wife, seduces men in order to bust them for sodomy. Stops being depraved when he's resurrected by the Second Coming of Christ, renounces bigotry, and hooks up with the male Sky.
- Eleventy Zillion: Sky is charged with eleventy-seven crimes against Jackville. The fact that this number doesn't exist is part of how the film demonstrates that it's a total Kangaroo Court.
- A God Am I: After Sky gets shot, he has a Dying Dream where he's the Second Coming of Christ.
- Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death
- Heel–Face Turn: All the villains, even the omnicidal Preacher John, embrace tolerance and open-mindedness when the Second Coming of Christ resurrects them.
- Just Following Orders: Joshua, who is Jewish, refutes this defense before anybody can even think to employ it, explicitly comparing anybody who tries to Adolf Eichmann. However, since he's saying this to a sinister man in a Black Cloak taking him to a secret compound while he awaits trial by a theocratic cult, it doesn't do him any good.
- Kangaroo Court: The actors are put on trial in a blatantly rigged way, with made-up numbers, no jury, and frame ups of crimes committed before they were ever born. The trial is also terrible behind the scenes, being used as a land grab of one of Jackville's citizens.
- Malcolm Xerox: Rahim is an afro-sporting black revolutionary who spends his entire Jesus audition ranting about how Jesus was a black revolutionary who had His Word tainted by white people, and who is gonna come back and make them pay for their crimes against people of color.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Preacher John wants to find the Holy Rod, an artifact from God, to summon the undead and destroy humanity for its sins. He succeeds, but then the Second Coming of Christ resurrects everybody to go to Heaven.
- Our Zombies Are Different: These are resurrected by an artifact from God, and act like your standard flesh-eating shamblers. Appearance-wise, they're green and have very long fingernails. They seem to display some mild sapience, demonstrating the ability to use tools.
- Pun-Based Title: "Glory Glory Hallelujah"+"Gory".
- Prima Donna Director: The director of "The Greatest Play Ever Written" is a beanie-wearing, cigar-smoking stereotype of the pretentious theatre director, down to treating his play as a "great cause" and mentioning having an uncle at Miramax Films. He ends up casting himself as Jesus.
- Shout-Out:
- The Jesus play our protagonists audition for is titled "The Greatest Play Ever Written," in reference of classic Jesus movie The Greatest Story Ever Told.
- A poster of Blood Feast appears in the background of one scene.
- Our protagonists are driving across country to audition for a revival of Jesus Christ Superstar.
- Show Within a Show: The main characters are introduced auditioning for a play about Jesus Christ titled "The Greatest Play Ever Written," in blatant reference to The Greatest Story Ever Told.
- The Theocracy: Jackville is so theocratic that the cops explicitly don't believe in human rights and the jail and church are the same building.
