Columbia, SC, lowbrow auteur Christopher Bickel is back with another satisfyingly gory horror romp called Pater Noster and the Mission of Light. A young woman named Max (Adarra Star) stumbles onto a rare album at the record store where she works. The record is by a 1970s band formed by a cult called The Mission of Light.
When they make a connection to the cult while seeking more records, Max and her friends are invited to the site of Wunderlawn, where the surviving cult members live. As they are initiated into the culture of the cult, it seems they’ve found a group of gentle kindred spirits. However, when their friend Jay Sin (Joshua R. Outzen) excuses himself to the bathroom, he’s drugged, taken to a high-tech digital nerve center, and mutilated by a group including Pater Noster (Mike Amason) himself. When Sam (Morgan Shaley Renew) goes to help make lunch, she, too, is drugged. One by one, Max’s group faces escalating horrors. When the red stuff begins splashing, everything goes pear-shaped in a frenetic gore fest of absolute chaos.
Bickel takes us on a haunted house joyride back to the bloody golden age of exploitation films with Pater Noster and the Mission of Light. He also manages to get in a couple of shots about a generational conflict between the decrepit cult members and the young record collectors.
The scenes in the record store recall moments from High Fidelity, where idiotic customers ask stupid questions of the aficionados working at the shop. It was funny then, and it’s still funny now. The vinyl shop vibe is familiar and comforting. These are hip women you’d love to hang out with, but neither you nor I would ever be cool enough.
“…one by one Max’s group face escalating horrors…”
Adding to the dark, sticky pleasures of the film are the original songs in the soundtrack. Bickel talks about that on the crowdfunding site: ”We wrote and recorded an album’s worth of psychedelic head music produced by the fictional band “Mission of Light.” The most challenging part of creating this record was coming up with tracks that would have sounded “ahead of their time” in 1972 – the year this fictional band recorded their magnum opus.” The music is period-correct and quite listenable, a massive achievement for any film that isn’t specifically a musical but mind-blowingly impressive for a no-budget Indie.
The cinematography is done in a ground-level, constantly moving, verite style, and the pace clicks along with manic pressure. He even comes up with a wild cameo from Timmy Cappello, the cult figure saxophonist from The Lost Boys.
Bickel is a master of making wildly insane and entertaining films on almost no budget. He works with friends and finds sets that cost little to nothing. This is his third outing in this fashion, with the first two staking his claim to this rare space: The Theta Girl and Bad Girls.
The one simple trick with Bickel is there’s no trick. He’s simply good at what he’s doing. He has an unbeatable talent for making a compelling story that grips the viewer, and he’s figured out how to do it with few resources at hand. Imagine if every Kevin Smith movie had cost as much as Clerks, but was still as good. Whether it’s by choice or necessity, Bickel continues to work primitively but with high-quality results. Pater Noster and the Mission of Light sees him expanding and maturing these abilities. What a ride!
"…satisfyingly gory horror romp"
