Although really quite unpleasant for most of its running time, this gore-drenched horror-thriller at least tries to bring a little complexity to the ethical quandaries that drive the plot forward. Co-director Michael Lombardi stars as Bishop, the handsome, semi-cool pastor at a suburban American church. When he’s not leading services that feature blue-haired musicians playing Christian rock for the congregation, he’s a single father caring for his two daughters, teenager Sara (Katie Kelly) and elementary-school-aged Rebecca (Abbey Hafer). The script (by Darren Geare and Jeff Allen Geare) underscores Bishop’s faith by introducing an early scene where a rude man at a Christmas tree lot (Kevin Smith regular Brian O’Halloran) takes the tree Bishop and the girls picked out already and, instead of getting into a fight with the man, Bishop turns the other cheek.
Revenge-fuelled former cop Jed (Marc Menchaca, from Ozark) wouldn’t have done that. After a brutal ex-con killed Jed’s pregnant wife as revenge for sending him to jail, Jed hunts the man down and imprisons him in his home dungeon (do they have a special section in DIY stores for these?) so he can torture him. This turns into an unhealthy hobby as he collects more evildoers over the years, including the thug (Joseph Gatt) who kills Bishop’s daughter. Don’t get any ideas though: this is a resolutely sexist film, where all women are basically either passive victims or strippers in a club where Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe spins the discs and slaps them on the bottom for fun. Jed tries to persuade Bishop to join him in his vigilante pastime, but Bishop’s faith is at least as strong as anger. Without revealing which one wins out, I can assure you that a huge amount of murderous mayhem is unleashed, including death by woodchipper.
• The Retaliators is released on 14 September in cinemas.
