Let There Be Light (2017)

For Easter, I look at a film that doesn't hold a candle to It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown.

Easter is this week, and the movies that come to mind for many during this holiday are (naturally) It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown as well as religious-based ones like The Robe, The Ten Commandments, and Ben-Hur. Those films came from big studios during the 1950s, but, by the end of the ’60s, screenplays which touched on such subjects became few and far between.

Of course, one person who’s been whining about this in recent years is Kevin Sorbo, who’s stated that the only reason he never made the A-list is because he’s a practicing Christian, although, last I heard, Carrie Underwood (a practicing Christian herself) is still enjoying a nice career.

To that end, Sorbo made it a point to not only star in but direct Let There Be Light, which was co-written by his real-life spouse Sam Sorbo and financed by political commentator Sean Hannity, who appears as himself in the film.

The movie begins with footage of the devastation of 9/11 before cutting to a debate between atheist Dr. Sol Harkens (Sorbo) and a Christian preacher. Right from the start, Sorbo wastes no time torturing us with his ham acting as Sol rips into the preacher as a means of promoting his book, Aborting God. He also gains the rapturous applause of the audience (yeah, like an audience would constantly cheer for just one side in a debate) by saying that he became an atheist when cancer took his young son from him. Sol also says that nobody ever committed genocide in the name of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll (tell that to Charles Manson).

At his apartment, Sol is drowning his sorrows in booze, of course, because he can’t hurt anyone doing that.

We next see that his oh-so-nice lifestyle has led to his estrangement from his wife Katy (Sam Sorbo) when he goes to her place to pick up their other two sons (played by the couple’s real-life sons Braeden and Shane). Katy, who’s Christian, expresses her disapproval of how Harkens basically used their son’s death to get rich. When he snidely says that it pays the bills, Katy asks who pays the emotional bills. Everyone watching this, I assume.

Katy takes their younger son Conner to a friend’s birthday party, while Sol attempts to spend time with their eldest, Gus. The kid asks for his dad to sign a permission slip which would allow him to go on a trip to Haiti to help build a water system. Sol just laughs at this, but I guess Gus couldn’t just ask for his mom’s signature on the thing and spare himself the trouble of enlisting his blowhard dad in his wish to do something meaningful.

Sol is next seen at a cocktail party in honor of, naturally, him and his book. There’s even a drink named for him called the Harken Hedonist (name one other author who has a drink named for them). We also see that he has a Russian girlfriend who’s a model, because if there’s one thing Andromeda drilled into our skulls, it’s that all women find Sorbo irresistible. But his date is as annoyed with Sol as we are by now, because she says she’s not familiar with his attempts at humor when he sings “It’s My Party”. We also know she’s Russian not by her accent, but when Sol says, “Well, I’m sorry I don’t know any Russian Top 40.”

But Sol still gets praise from his agent Norman (Daniel Roebuck) and his publicist Tracee (Donielle Artese). As they tell Sol’s girlfriend to get lost, Tracee says that she may be able to get him an interview with Diane Sawyer, because his public statement of the church being like ISIS (yep, that 9/11 footage was there for a reason) is going viral. Norman even suggests a t-shirt saying just that. But Sol is too busy indulging in the booze he so loves, and bolts out after his girlfriend is smart enough to dump him, saying that she has a photo shoot.

Sol continues to drink on his drive home as he chats with Norman. But his drunk state leads to him crashing into a construction site. He finds himself in a tunnel surrounded by images of himself with his children. His late son Davey appears to him saying, “Let there be light!” As they embrace, Davey also tells his dad that he has to go back because it’s not his time yet, although Sol says he wants to stay with him.

At the hospital, Norman and Tracee are telling reporters that Sol isn’t dead. In his hospital room, Sol is informed by a doctor that he has a concussion and a blood clot that could potentially cause a stroke, but he still has a chance of recovery if he gives up the booze (good luck there). But the doctor notes that Sol was dead for four minutes. Sol tells Norman and Tracee that he saw Davey. But Norman poo-poos this, since it could lose them money if such a renowned atheist says he saw something after dying. And Katy is naturally pissed upon hearing that Sol drove drunk.

Sol returns home, and you guessed it, hits the booze again. On the bright side, the TV says that his Russian girlfriend has found happiness with another man. The next morning, Tracee arrives with pastries along with thoughts on his next appearance. That appearance ends up not doing much for Sol, as he breaks down when he tells Katy (who’s in the audience) about seeing Davey.

So we now get Sorbo’s Oscar montage of crying as he returns to the hospital and meets a nurse who loves his book (enough already!). After indulging in more booze, Katy stops by his place (where we see a poster of Sol with the word “Hercules” underneath—yes, Sorbo, we know you played that role). He tells her he doesn’t know what to do now that he’s had this experience, so she suggests he go to a priest. That priest turns out to also be a former mobster who agrees to baptize Sol, making him a born-again Christian. This delights Katy and their boys, and naturally annoys Norman, who soon cuts off ties with Sol as he slowly but surely states that his experience has changed his beliefs.

Soon enough, Sol is even rekindling his relationship with Katy. They even agree to get married again. But bad news comes when Katy has a seizure and goes to the hospital, where she’s subsequently diagnosed with cancer.

But happily, this doesn’t stop her and Sol from walking down the aisle again (with the great Dionne Warwick in attendance, no less). They also receive an offer from Sean Hannity to start up an app called “Let There Be Light”, which will encourage people to shine their cell phone lights into the sky at night, so they’ll be visible from space.

At Christmas time, the Harkens head up this campaign. Many people partake as Katy quietly dies in Sol’s arms. The film ends with a quote from the Book of Matthew, along with the suggestion to text someone with “#LetThereBeLight” and tell them to download the app.

This film certainly has good intentions. The moments where Katy gives her family reassurance after her diagnosis are touching, and who wouldn’t want a legend like Dionne Warwick to sing at their wedding? But it would’ve been nice to know what Sol did after Katy passed. Did he return to his atheist ways, or did he continue on the path of faith? I certainly appreciate the use of tragic irony in movies, but if the purpose of Let There Be Light was to be uplifting, the ending certainly could’ve done a better job at doing that.

The film God’s Not Dead, which also starred Sorbo, was rightfully criticized on this site for basically saying that you suck if you’re not Christian. This film doesn’t quite go that far, I’m happy to say. However, like that film, it doesn’t do very much to explain just why Christianity has endured for so long. It’s not enough to say that ISIS is bad, or to have Sean Hannity say that there will be resistance, or to namedrop Chick-Fil-A. If you want to make a film that champions Christianity (and lest anyone thinks I’m biased, I make it a point to attend church weekly), one must illustrate why people should. According to this film, there are only three kinds of people in the world: Christians, atheists, and ISIS.

A big reason films such as The Robe and The Ten Commandments are viewed as classics is that they give reasons why so many have followed Christianity over the centuries. Charles Schulz referenced the Bible numerous times during the fifty-year run of Peanuts, but it was never in the same heavy-handed way as this film. Heck, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade did a better job championing Christianity than this film, and that was a freaking action movie!

Another thing that sinks this film is how everyone only praises Sol, whether he’s an atheist or Christian. The only one who actually doesn’t is Sol’s agent Norman, who has an annoying habit of calling everyone “Darling” (which I can’t help but wonder if it’s a reference to Sorbo’s own homophobia, especially since he directed this movie). Hence, this film can been seen as being as much a love letter to Sorbo as Andromeda was.

A film with this premise has the potential to be great, but if you want something uplifting for Easter, it would be better to stick with Snoopy dancing with bunnies or Indy reconnecting with his old man.

Pet Sematary (1989)

With a new film version of this great book coming out this week, I thought I'd look at the previous film version of it.

Because a new film version of Stephen King’s classic 1983 book Pet Sematary is due in cinemas in a few days, I decided to take a look at the film version, which hit theaters in 1989. There were already numerous film versions of King’s works by the end of the ’80s, but this film was unique in that King himself wrote the screenplay.

The film begins with Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff) arriving at his family’s new house in Ludlow, Maine with his wife Rachel (Denise Crosby), their daughter Ellie (Blaze Berdahl), their son Gage (Miko Hughes), and their cat Church. They all seem to take to their new home right away. Ellie even notices a path that leads to woods in their backyard. This happens just before she swings in a tire tied to a tree, and the rope snaps. Their new place is also right next to a road that trucks often barrel-ass down. This point is made clear to Louis and Rachel as Gage attempts to get in the way of one of those trucks while his parents are busy attending to Ellie.

Happily, Gage is rescued by their new neighbor Jud Crandall (Fred Gwynne). They quickly become friends and Jud even tells Rachel that the path has a story to it, which he says he’ll fill them in on after the Creeds get settled.

That night, Louis, after getting the bejeezus scared out of him by Church the cat, goes to Jud’s. Over beer, Jud tells him that the path leads to a pet cemetery, as many pets have met their fate on that road. Jud even suggests that Church get fixed to avoid the same fate. Jud soon leads the Creeds down the path to the cemetery, with Rachel noting that the word is misspelled on the sign. As an attempt to lighten the mood, Jud points out that some of the pets buried here died of natural causes, including Jud’s own dog Spot. He goes on to tell Ellie that a cemetery is a place where the dead rest and speak to each other. But this doesn’t stop Ellie from thinking Church’s days are numbered.

Louis takes this to heart, and even takes Church out to get fixed the next day. He promises Ellie he’ll be fine, although on top of that, she also has doubts that her new school will be as fun as her old one in Chicago (this is one scared little girl!). Despite her dad’s promises, he forcefully whispers to Rachel to explain things to Ellie on the off-chance that the worst does happen.

As he leaves, the Creeds’ housekeeper (Susan Blommaert) arrives with laundry, and rejects any help Louis offers for the stomachache she currently has. Rachel comes out and she and Louis kiss and make up, and he goes off to the first day of his new job as a doctor at the University of Maine.

That first day turns out to be quite the doozy for Louis, as one of his patients, Victor Pascow (Brad Greenquist) is brought in having been hit by a truck and in a bloody mess. The unconscious Victor briefly revives when Louis is alone with him. He addresses the doctor by name even though they’ve never met. Victor warns him about the cemetery, then dies.

That night, Louis is startled by the appearance of Victor in his bedroom. They quietly walk out of the house while Rachel continues to soundly sleep. When Louis asks Victor WTF?, the latter replies that he wants to help, since Louis tried to save him earlier. They reach the cemetery and Victor tells Louis not to go on to “where the dead walk”. Victor points to a spot just beyond the cemetery, where Victor calls the ground “sour”. Louis wakes up, and sees dirt on his feet.

After Rachel and the kids head off to her dad’s for Thanksgiving (with Louis noting how much his father-in-law dislikes him), Jud informs Louis that he’s found Church’s body near the road. He leads Louis to the same point just past the cemetery that Victor showed Louis, where he instructs Jud to bury Church. He asks Louis not to tell anyone about this little outing, repeating Victor’s earlier words that “the soil of a man’s heart is stonier.” The next day, Church is seen up and about again, but he has a different attitude, to say the least. He’s particularly vicious toward Louis, and those glowing eyes sure don’t offer any comfort. Louis goes to Jud for answers. Jud says that he buried his dog in the same Indian burial ground (yep, that old reliable horror story cliche) when he was younger, and he did the same to Church so Ellie wouldn’t be sad.

Once Rachel and the kids return, Ellie tells her dad that she dreamed that Church was killed and was buried in the pet cemetery. Louis assures her it was just a dream, but not long afterward, the housekeeper hangs herself, with a note saying she has cancer. At her funeral (with the presiding priest played by King himself), Jud asks Louis how Church is, stating that he’s no longer Ellie’s cat, but Louis’s.

At home, Louis comforts Ellie about the housekeeper’s death. But this prompts Rachel to share the story of her sister, Zelda, who suffered from spinal meningitis. Rachel recalls how Zelda was kept in a bedroom like a dirty secret, and how she had to feed her. She soon started wishing Zelda was dead. One night, while their parents were gone, Zelda died. Rachel cried out, which her neighbors thought were cries of horror, but she says it was more likely cries of happiness. This gives Louis a legitimate reason to dislike his in-laws, since they left her alone with Zelda.

Sadly, more bad news follows: One day, while the Creeds and Jud are enjoying a meal outside and flying a kite, Gage wanders into the path of a approaching truck, and gets killed. Jud blames himself for Gage’s death, as he feels sharing knowledge of the cemetery led to it. He also correctly suspects that Louis wants to bury Gage in the same burial ground. Jud attempts to dissuade Louis from this by saying that, a while back, one of the locals buried his son Timmy in the area. Timmy came out of the ground as a murderous zombie. Jud and others stopped Timmy by burning him inside his home, but his dad, in his anguished state, died with him.

At Gage’s funeral, Rachel’s father (Michael Lombard) gets pissed off at Louis and even starts a fight with him, knocking Gage’s body out of the coffin. Soon after, Rachel and Ellie go to Chicago again. Louis clandestinely exhume’s Gage’s body and buries him at the burial ground.

At the same time, Ellie tells her mom that Victor appeared to her in a dream, and said that Louis was doing something horrible. This prompts Rachel to call Louis. But Jud answers, saying that Louis isn’t available, and is alarmed when Rachel tells him she’s heading home.

Jud spends the night preparing for the possibility of Gage returning, while Louis is sleeping in his own home. Sure enough, Zombie Gage sneaks in and steals a scalpel from his dad’s handbag. He then heads over to Jud’s and basically plays hide and seek. Jud comes close to getting the drop on him before Zombie Church distracts him long enough for Gage to use the scalpel on his tendon. This paralyzes Jud long enough for Gage to use the scalpel to slice Jud’s mouth before finishing him off by eating his throat.

Rachel, with Victor’s prodding, makes it back and heads to Jud’s while being haunted by a vision of her sister Zelda, before smiling at the sight of Gage, who comes to her with the scalpel.

Louis wakes up as the sun rises and sees Gage’s footprints, and his scalpel gone. His phone rings with Gage on the other end saying he “played” with Jud and Rachel and now wants to play with him, too. Horrified, Louis then gets a call from Rachel’s father, saying Ellie needs to speak to her mom, because she had a nightmare in which Rachel was killed. Louis simply hangs up and fills syringes with morphine.

He heads over to Jud’s and distracts Church with raw steak, which the cat chows down on before Louis injects him. He then goes into the house and finds Jud’s body. Rachel’s falls down from the attic, wearing a noose. Gage leaps out and slashes at Louis several times before Louis sadly injects Gage with the morphine. Gage cries and says, “No fair!” before collapsing to the ground dead.

Like Jud with Timmy years earlier, Louis ends this business by torching Jud’s home with Gage inside. But Louis carries out Rachel’s sheet-wrapped body. Victor appears one last time, imploring him not to bury Rachel in the burial ground. Louis counters that Rachel just died, so she won’t be a murderous zombie like Gage. Victor cries out in anguish as he vanishes.

The film ends with Louis seated on his kitchen floor, awaiting Rachel’s appearance. Sure enough, the mutilated Rachel appears and she and Louis passionately embrace. Alas, he pays the ultimate price for his deranged state of mind as she stealthily picks up a butcher knife from the table and thrusts it into his back.

A number of King’s works are, at their core, tragedies, such as Carrie, The Dead Zone, and Cujo. Pet Sematary certainly fits right alongside those works, and as with the respective film versions of those three works, this movie does justice to the tragic aspect of the story, whether it’s Gage’s funeral, Jud’s death, or the heartbreaking sight of Zombie Tasha Yar.

The cast is all terrific, especially Gwynne, who was the perfect choice for Jud, a character King based on himself. The actor’s love-hate relationship with his iconic character Herman Munster seemed to lean a bit toward the “love” side by this time, thanks to his great roles in films like this and My Cousin Vinny.

I’ve heard some say that Louis was terminally stupid throughout much of the film. But keep in mind that the man lost his cat, his son, and his wife all in one swoop. As he tells Rachel’s father, we all lose our minds.

If I had a complaint with this film, it’s that it removes the character of Jud’s wife, Norma. It would’ve been nice to see her in this movie. Overall, though, the film does the book proud, and made audiences forgive King for his previous attempt at filmmaking, the notorious flop Maximum Overdrive.