The Catechism
Cataclysm opened at Sundance with a short film entitled Sasquatch Birth Journal 2, a video that
consisted of little more than a man dressed up in a Sasquatch costume squatting
in a tree giving birth to a baby Sasquatch. I knew then that I was in for something different. And different I'm usually OK with. But this was something else entirely.
The
movie is about a young priest on sabbatical with an old high school friend.
Together, the two go on a short canoe trip. That's really all there is to it.
It would be a passable story if the characters were interesting or fun to
watch, but they just weren't. Father Billy's bumbling idiot role dries up really
quickly and Robbie does little more than yell most of the film. With the
exception of a couple bizarre stories sprinkled throughout the trip, there's
little to be excited about here. Additionally, there is a profoundly unsettling
scene near the end of the film that's pretty frightening, but a couple decent
scenes can't save this train wreck of a film.
The
Catechism Cataclysm provides few laughs as a dark comedy and fewer scares as a
horror film. It doesn't quite know what it wants to be and, as a result, the
final product is a muddled and incongruent movie with just enough promising
scenes that make you wonder what went so horribly wrong.
