Badmovies.org Forum

(From John Travola's stirring performance as a puddle of wax in a robe in "The Devil's Rain.")

Okay, going all over the place here, so hang on. And there are spoilers; you'll probably thank me for saving you some bucks and heartache later.

Man, how things change in 25 years, hah?  Back in 1976, religious hardliners took hostages in New York to prevent the showing of "Mohammed, Messenger of God," which they determined to be blasphemous. They shouldn't have bothered, because few people wanted to see the movie anyway--be it for regilious concerns, lack thereof, or the movie's reputed horrid quality. Today, you can buy the video on Amazon.com under the title "The Message" and nobody cares.  (Hell, you can't find "Inchon" anywhere--I knew I should've seen that one in the theatres...)

The reason it was supposed to be blasphemous: Mohammed is never, ever supposed to be represented by false or graven images. He stays offscreen for the entire length of "Mohammed," but apparently his shadow falling within view, other characters reacting to him, and especially the appearance of his arm and staff--in advertisements for the film--violated strict interpretation of this law.

This week, "South Park" featured a full-blown, on-screen, and fairly disrespectful CARTOON version of Mohammed, as a superhero-diety who shoots fire out of his hands, incinerating his enemies. He's part of the "SuperBestFriends," a group of superhero-dieties banded together to fight evil in a spoof of...well, duh. Jesus, Moses (making his second appearance on "South Park" as the CPU from "Tron"), Buddha, Lao-Tzu, Shiva and others--including the totally useless water-breathing blonde guy who can communicate with fish, Sea-Man--make up the rest of the group, all participating in a presidential assassination of titanic proportions. (Look, just watch it sometime.)

I can't help but wonder if Parker and Stone have gotten any threats yet...

Anyway, "Mohammed" was produced by Moustapha Akkad, who produced "Halloween," as well as all its cruddy sequels.

(Here's where I save you money and heartache.)

He's also producing "Halloween 8: The Homecoming," which WILL feature Jamie Lee Curtis in a small role.

"Small role" as in "on screen just long enough to be killed" small role. A plot outline at the IMDB gracefully describes it as "Laurie Strode winds up butchered like a hog" in the opening moments, three years after decapitating what turns out to be the wrong guy. (What?!?)

...like I needed another reason to not see it. All six sequels to date have sucked, why pay eight bucks to get kicked in the snacks again?

Oh, and Busta Rhymes is in it, too. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww. Who's next, Humpty?

There were similar problems in Ireland over the Python spoof, The Life Of Brian. The church heirarchy decreed the movie to be blasphemous, and threatened all good Catholics with excommunication if they saw it. I thought the Catholic creed was based on forgiveness of sin through absolution. If so, why didn't the church urge their parishioners to watch the movie and then forgive them? It can be seen everywhere now - how times change, eh?

Says Squishy, "Who's next, Humpty?"

...dear god, I hope so. I can just picture him impaling that nice Myers boy upon his long, phallic-like nose. And, heck, the guy's even got his own dance, for cryin' out loud!

But I digress.

I have to agree: not even the lure of Jamie Lee Curtis being gutted will get me to watch another damn Halloween flick. I foolishly sat through the last one when someone else rented it. I cried and cried afterwards.

Does anyone think that maybe the boys behind South Park had recently visited the Jesus Christ Superstore? Now that I've finally got cable re-installed after a three year hiatus, I'll definitely have to catch that episode...

This is sooooo weird: every time I enter "Moustapha Akkad" into the IMDb or any other regular search engine, the results page causes my browser to crash. No other harm done, no viruses or spyware--it just drops my browser.

(Whistles "X-Files" theme music...)

I recall both films and the controversy well -- The public stayed away in droves from Inchon, so much so that Reverend Moon -- the power behind the picture -- ran a "Win a Rolls-Royce!" contest for anyone who bought a ticket to the thing.  No word on whether or not anyone ever won the car --
I'm still p**sed off at the South Park boys -- Not gentlemen of honor --
Anthony Quinn plays the brother of Mohammed, Ali, in the Messenger film, & apparently had all sorts of profane things to say about having to constantly act to the camera as if it were a person.