Plot Summary
While on their way to Christian camp, Joe and Vanessa find themselves accidentally left behind in a western ghost town exhibit. Thus, they decide to explore the area around them, but they find themselves ‘trapped’ in a mine. An old prospector with no prospects ‘rescues’ them and proceeds to mime the story of the prodigal son for them. All the while, the obnoxious Sam Starr (brother of Johnny Starr) is searching for the old prospector so he can tell him something. In this Bob Jones-style story from Mr. Button Family Video, everyone can learn a forceful Bible lesson.
Production Quality (-1 points)
As a 1990s production, it’s expected to be archaic, but not this bad. Not even The Printing (same year) was this bad. Video quality is blurry and outside shots are glaring. Inside shots have poor lighting and camera work is mostly stationary. Audio quality is very poor as a lot of it is overdubbed. The soundtrack is annoying and the constant juvenile sound effects, especially those punctuating Sam Starr, are enough to drive a person mad. Sets, locations, and props are extremely cheap and limited. Furthermore, there is editing to speak of. Essentially, this production warrants negative points due to its obnoxious nature, especially when it comes to sound effects and all things Sam Starr.
Plot and Storyline Quality (-1 points)
Sam Starr is a bumbling, fumbling complete idiot of a character who is funny for all the wrong reasons and seems like he escaped from the cast of The Rev. His movements can’t be accomplished without weird grunting, stupid sound effects, and constantly scattering of paraphernalia. Besides his sideshow, the other characters stepped right out of a Bob Jones\Unusual Films movie like The Treasure Map, Appalachian Trial, or Project Dinosaur. There are also some shades of Pamela’s Prayer here. The Christian message presented is cringeworthy and full of patriarchy. Besides all of this, there is basically no story to speak of here as a majority of the runtime is filled with home video footage of a vacation to a western ghost town and a lot of forceful ‘Bible lessons’. There is little to no purpose in this nonsense, and it’s actually very annoying, thus landing it the rare award of having negative points.
Acting Quality (-1 points)
One has to question if some of these cast members should have been around children due to their erratic and disturbing behavior, especially the idiot who played Sam Starr. Even if this sideshow is supposed to be funny, it’s only funny because it’s so pathetically absurd. Other cast members, as previously mentioned, are just on loan from Bob Jones and contribute nothing good except driving home Christian stereotypes. Thus, this is another negative section.
Conclusion
Lost in Silver Canyon joins the ranks of those Christian films that are so offensive in their presentation that they warrant negative points. The only reason to watch this film is to get a good laugh at the expense of Sam Starr, but otherwise it’s another total embarrassment to Christian film. This is how people think Christians act, and sometimes they aren’t very far off. Hopefully films like these will serve as motivation to make better ones so that any negative movies will be totally forgotten.
Final Rating: -3 out of 10 points
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