Elevator to Salvation (Movie Review)

Plot Summary

On Christmas Eve night, two random guys, one of them your stereotypical evil Christmas-hating workaholic, get stuck in a weird construction elevator that constantly goes up and down infinitely and keeps trying to show them all kinds of strange things like notes falling from the ceiling and creepy hands reaching through the elevator doors.  This seemingly endless ride has no purpose or function except to waste your time with another bizarre Christmas movie.

 

Production Quality (-1 points)

Faith House Pictures has had bad production in the past, but Elevator to Salvation is hands-down their worst to date.  There is nothing good about it, and it is actually quite offensive.  Video quality is bad, and camera work is terrible.  Audio is abysmal, and the soundtrack is weird.  There are no sets, locations, or props to speak of except for a poorly constructed elevator.  The special effects are medieval and annoying.  Finally, the editing is highly disorienting.  Essentially, this production joins the special ranks of those that earned negative points for being especially offensive, which makes us wonder why and how Faith House continually makes films.

Plot and Storyline Quality (-1 points)

But that’s not all that is annoying about this weird film.  The premise is not only trumped up and ridiculous, but it is also downright bizarre and creepy.  What’s the point of trying to force half-hearted horror elements into this?  There is really no sense of understanding what is even going on in this so-called story.  The dialogue is very wacky and absurd, thus creating off-the-wall characters, even though there are basically only two of them.  The psychological elements are poorly delivered, and the ending makes zero sense, just like the rest of the ‘plot.’  There is no question that this is the strangest and most off-putting Christmas movie ever, except for things involving Kirk Cameron and British Bible characters.

Acting Quality (-1 points)

Much like the other parts of this train wreck called a movie, the acting is very forceful and annoying.  Watching these people try to act is like undergoing a painful surgical procedure.  Every line is like fingernails stretching a chalkboard due to forcefulness, mumbling, and general awkwardness.  In the end, this rounds out a very eye-rolling and face-palming experience that should never, ever be repeated.

Conclusion

Faith House has had some real doozies in the past, but Elevator to Salvation really takes the cake.  It goes beyond the typical bad movie conventions and crosses into the territory of unreasonably terrible and offensive.  So if you’re looking for a good holiday film, steer clear from this one.

 

Final Rating: -3 out of 10 points

 

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November 22, 2017January 3, 2019 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Christmas, Horror, Movie Reviews, PsychologicalTags: 2015, Auturo Gavino, Bivas Biswas, Christmas, Craig McMahon, Faith House Pictures, Horror, negative points, Patrick Giglio, Psychological Leave a comment

A Time for Heaven (Movie Review)

Plot Summary

Ronald Mitchell lays dying in his own bed as his organs are shutting down, so home healthcare nurse Julie is called upon to make him comfortable as he passes into the next life.  However, she doesn’t just want to make her patients comfortable—she wants to leave a lasting difference on their lives.  Ron is all alone, so Julie sets out to find his long-lost children, whom he gave up for adoption.  Little does she know that the search will lead her to surprising results.

 

Production Quality (1 point)

As usual for Faith House’s newer productions, there are a few good production elements, but not enough.  Video quality is fine, as is audio quality, yet there is some randomly shaky camera work, and the soundtrack is Faith House’s usual silliness.  Sets, locations, and props are okay, but they are very limited and cheap.  Lighting is also sometimes an issue.  Furthermore, the editing is poor, including lagging scenes and awkward fade-outs.  Basically, at the rate that Faith House puts out these dumb movies, there’s no way they can be quality.

Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)

It never fails that the Faith House team can come with a childish, silly story that’s based on a flimsy premise and unrealistic occurrences.  Do they even research the situations they want to portray in film before making them?  Their stories are based too much on coincidences and leaps in logic, not to mention the fact that the characters therein are ridiculous.  Faith House also writes the strangest dialogue, and all of these goofy elements are present in A Time for Heaven.  There is no sense of reality in the pursuit of forcing a childish conclusion with a cheap Christian message.  Basically, much like Before All Others and their other wonders, A Time for Heaven is another pointless film that never needed to be made.

Acting Quality (0 points)

Constantly casting Mitch Etter and Julie Van Lith in your films is not a good idea if you want to have a good cast.  Not only is this cast very small, but it’s not really any good.  Every cast member just does their own thing with no much direction.  There are quite a few obvious line errors and emotions are laughable.  In the end, this is once again a newer film that had no reason to be released.

Conclusion

Though we know that outfits like The Asylum are purposely creating parody films, it’s very difficult to know if companies like Faith House, Stronger Foundation, Tender Shoot, etc., are actually serious.  Films like this one are funny for all the wrong reasons and only further serve to continually muddy the waters of the Christian film market.  Whoever is funding these nonsense films needs to seriously stop and demand some quality.

 

Final Rating: 1 out of 10 points

 

September 2, 2017January 6, 2019 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Drama, Inspirational, Movie ReviewsTags: 1 point, 2017, Attic Underground Cinema, Auturo Gavino, Barbara McBain, Bill Wetherill, Craig McMahon, Disease, Faith House Pictures, Gary Herkimer, Greg Lutz, Inspirational, John Paquette, Julie Van Lith, Lacy McMahon, Mitch Etter, Nadine Jackson, Shari K. Green, Tim Helmstadter 17 Comments

Before All Others (Movie Review)

Plot Summary

When a woman is struck with a rare and unexplainable disease that is sure to temporarily paralyze her, she is left with no choice but to go live under the care of her elderly grandmother who barely gets out and can hardly walk around.  As the two of them hobble around and try to talk about family secrets, the grandmother finds her advice from her dead husband, whom she frequently talks to in the garden shed.  That is, until some random guy starts hanging around all the time fixing stuff and the grandmother decides to grab the first guy she found to marry her granddaughter off to.  What could go wrong?

 

Production Quality (.5 point)

Despite clear video quality, Before All Others is another poor Faith House production.  Camera work is very shaky and amateurish, even though easily 75% of the film takes place in one cabin set.  It should be easy to film in this environment, but not for Faith House.  For that matter, the audio quality shouldn’t be this bad, but it is.  The soundtrack also blares constantly and sometimes covers up dialogue.  Finally, as is commonplace in Faith House films, there is really no editing as long sequences of random footage are included.  Seriously, this is a 2016 film and they still can’t get production right.  Does anyone else see anything wrong with this?

Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)

Once again, there is literally no purpose to this story as two pathetic characters limp and hobble around a primitive cabin and talk to dead people.  Despite having so few characters, they are so empty and lifeless due to utterly inept dialogue.  There is very little actual content as viewers are forced to watch awkward activities of daily living over and over again.  The mysterious illness’ progression is extremely convenient, depending on whether the plot needs the character to be well or unwell at the moment.  There is also a very awkwardly forced and juvenile romantic subplot that only serves to waste time.  All drama is completely manufactured and the shoehorned Christian message is completely mindless.  Basically, Before All Others is just more of the same.

Acting Quality (0 points)

Despite having different cast members than usual, this cast is still very small and very wooden.  One cast member is laughably eccentric while another is embarrassingly lifeless.  There is zero coaching present and no believable emotions.  As a side note, makeup is also terrible.  But this is apparently business as usual for Faith House.

Conclusion

As previously mentioned, this film was made in 2016, yet fundamental movie making elements are still not grasped by this team.  A film of this low caliber has no place in Christian entertainment anymore as the bar is being set higher, especially when it comes to production quality.  But yet, here it is, available for all to see.  After this long stretch of reviewing their films, we have to wonder what is really going on at Faith House.  Is it just one big scam or do they really have no idea what they’re doing?  We honestly have no clue and wonder if they do either.

 

Final Rating: .5 out of 10 points

 

March 22, 2017January 10, 2019 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Drama, Inspirational, Movie ReviewsTags: 1/2 point, 2016, Auturo Gavino, Craig McMahon, David Aaron Stone, Disease, Faith House Pictures, Inspirational, John E. Euber, John Waldron, Katherine Stewart, Matthew Goldring, Suzanne M. Brown, talking to dead people, terrible injury acting 9 Comments

Desert Redemption (Movie Review)

Plot Summary

A family that no longer spends very much time together decides to go on a long-planned desert hike to try to mend what is broken.  The father doesn’t take things seriously at first, but as things begin to go from bad to worse, he sees the cost of his actions.  His wife falls unconscious after falling off of a cliff face, his daughter sustains a leg injury, and he sustains multiple life-threatening injuries.  As they limp around the desert in search of food, water, and help, will they ever be saved?

 

Production Quality (.5 point)

In an attempt to shoot and outdoor adventure, some elements of the production of Desert Redemption are not half bad, such as the video quality and the realistic sets.  Lighting is improved outside, but there are still a myriad of issues that detract from these small positives.  Camera work is very shaky and audio quality is often so bad that the characters cannot be understood.  While the soundtrack is interesting, it is often too loud and out of place.  There are also a lot of loud outdoor noises.  The runtime is dominated by scenery footage, and thus, no editing is present.  Essentially, this is more of an effort than usual for Faith House, but still not good enough.

Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)

Once again, there is barely any plot to speak of in this film.  Three characters go into the desert and start getting tons of injuries.  From there, it’s just one manufactured drama after another with a dose of juvenile Christianity.  Everything bad happens at once and in a laughable fashion.  It really just boils down to a predictable survival plot, just done very poorly.  Though there are only three main characters in this film, they do not develop into realistic people but instead remain wooden due to lack of substantial dialogue.  Instead, there are too many sequences of characters laying around grunting and breathing hard.  Then, when the time runs out, everything gets fixed through narration.  As if it couldn’t get any worse, this is probably Faith House’s thinnest plot to date.  So why are they still writing plots?

Acting Quality (0 points)

In perhaps the smallest cast ever, the three main cast members are very juvenile and amateurish.  They have no clear direction in their acting as they awkwardly force emotions and lines.  They also demonstrate some of the most laughable injury acting we have ever witnessed.  If they mean well, which we are sure they do, it’s unfortunate that they are portrayed in this fashion.

Conclusion

We ask ourselves time and again: how can a studio this juvenile and unprofessional continually fund feature-length films?  How were A Calling of Courage, A Box of Faith, and this one not forced to be short films?  They barely have enough plot content to be thirty minutes long without all the wasted footage and activities of daily living.  What has happened in the world of Christian film to allow films such as these to exist?  Somebody has some serious soul searching to do.

 

Final Rating: .5 out of 10 point

 

March 21, 2017January 10, 2019 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Drama, Inspirational, Movie ReviewsTags: 1/2 point, 2015, Auturo Gavino, constant injuries, Craig McMahon, Faith House Pictures, Gloria Jean Roberts, Inspirational, Savanah D. McMahon, terrible injury acting, wandering in the wilderness, William G. Way 2 Comments

A Box of Faith (Movie Review)

Plot Summary

When Dior’s father is framed and arrested for something he did not do, she has no choice but to abandon the motel room they were living in so that she can hide from the social worker who wants to help her.  Because otherwise, this movie wouldn’t have a plot.  As Dior walks from one park bench to another and one street to another, her social worker does crossword puzzles and randomly drives around hoping to find her.  Dior must live in a storage unit during all of this and wait for the plot to come to an end so everything can be fixed.  The question is not will things for resolved, but will you stick around for them to be resolved?

 

Production Quality (.5 point)

The one thing we can say for this half-baked production is that it has clear video quality.  Otherwise, there are no positive aspects.  Camera work is very shaky and lighting is very inconsistent.  Audio quality is very poor, including loud outside sounds and an annoying soundtrack.  Sets and locations are very limited, as usual for Faith House.  Once again, there is no editing present as every possible amount of content is squeezed out of this non-film.  Essentially, A Box of Faith is another lame excuse for a production.

Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)

With barely any plot content to work with whatsoever and a completely aimless story, what is anyone supposed to learn from this.  Due to the silly dialogue and a shallow and trumped-up premise, it’s very hard for the audience to connect with the struggles of the characters.  They just wander around the whole time and do absolutely nothing of note.  With so few characters, we should know a lot more about them as they stand around and talk, but we don’t.  The plot overall is too trite and unserious and there is thus no real justification for its creation.  The Faith House team needs to take a serious look at the content they are spitting out.  Constantly generating half-wit ideas just for the sake of creating more movies is a blight on Christian film.

Acting Quality (.5 point)

While there is some good here, A Box of Faith provides yet another empty and robotic cast.  We’re sure these people mean well, but they have absolutely no coaching.  Just stiffly sitting there or standing there saying lines doesn’t cut it.  There is no emotion exhibited at all.  But this is just another day at Faith House.

Conclusion

Complex story ideas are hard to come by, but extremely limited yet forced plots like this one should be a thing of the past.  There is very little potential and\or purpose to movies like A Box of Faith.  Faith House movies are a total embarrassment to Christian film, and we hope the day comes that movies like it are no longer so common place.

 

Final Rating: 1 out of 10 points

 

March 20, 2017January 10, 2019 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Inspirational, Movie ReviewsTags: 1 point, 2015, Auturo Gavino, Bill Wetherill, Craig McMahon, David Aaron Stone, Faith House Pictures, Inspirational, John Waldron, Julie Van Lith, Laura van Lith, Savanah D. McMahon, William G. Way 6 Comments

A Calling of Courage (Movie Review)

Fauston’s brain machine

Plot Summary

Sergeant Major Kurt Roberts is called home from his duty when his teenage daughter, Zoey, is in a car accident that leaves her in a coma.  Since her prognosis is unknown, Zoey is allowed to go back home to stay until she comes out of her coma.  Under the care of her parents and an in-home nurse, Zoey lays in a coma for months.  Then her nurse decides to bring in an old friend to experiment with his new brain machine that can communicate with people who are in comas.  What could go wrong?

 

Production Quality (0 points)

It’s unbelievable that so-called productions like this are even funded.  Even so, what did they spend the money on, because there is no quality whatsoever here.  Camera work is very shaky, video quality is underwhelming, and lighting is poor in most scenes.  The sets are limited to basically one house and some outside scenes.  Audio quality is also inconsistent and the soundtrack is generic.  There is no editing as pretty much all of their empty ideas are included.  Essentially, this is not a production that needed any funding, especially since they wasted it.

Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)

What is happening here?  The story starts as a half-baked idea about a girl laying around in a coma and three other characters caring about what happens to her and then suddenly transforms into an off-the-wall sci-fi concept, complete with Fauston’s special brain machine that can communicate with someone who’s in a coma.  Before this point, hardly anything happens and there is a lot of off-screen content.  The medical premise is strange and has a lot of plot holes.  Despite the fact that there are basically five characters in this plot, they are extremely empty and wooden.  Dialogue does nothing to develop them, even though they sit around talking all the time.  Basically, besides being bizarre and childish in an attempt to be creative, A Calling of Courage was barely justified as a plot as there is really no content to speak of here.  Thus, there is no point in any of this.

Acting Quality (0 points)

With basically five to seven cast members, one of which lays in a bed a majority of the film, there is not much to work with here.  The cast members are robotic and empty in their line delivery and in their emotions.  We can’t relate to them as real people.  Also, there is an odd portrayal of military service members.  In short, like the rest of this horrific mess, the acting has nothing to offer.

Conclusion

As we will see this week, the theme of Faith House Pictures is having the bare minimum resources required to slap together a half-baked movie just for the sake of making it.  Their model seems to be to acquire the funds necessary to have basically one set, less than ten cast members, and the cheapest possible production equipment, and combine this with a tiny plot idea that includes some eccentric element(s).  There is no justification for Faith House Pictures to exist, and yet they do.

 

Final Rating: 0 out of 10 points

 

March 18, 2017January 10, 2019 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Drama, Inspirational, Movie Reviews, PsychologicalTags: 0 points, 2014, Auturo Gavino, Craig McMahon, Disease, Faith House Pictures, Fauston's brain machine, Inspirational, Julie Van Lith, Kimber Leigh, Klor M. Rowland Jr., Psychological, Savanah D. McMahon, Steve Marmon, zero points 6 Comments