Sean Parker
In 2021, the Sohome Horror Film Festival gave us a look at Bad Girls, Christopher Bickel’s underground road movie about a trio of women fed up navigating the misogynistic society that profits off their backs. The film heralded back to the grindhouse era as the women decide to rob a strip club with a chauvinistic cop in pursuit. The spirit of movies like Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry and Two-Lane Blacktop instantly spring to mind before the finale erupts in a violent showdown. While my thoughts on the film landed in the middle, I was quite impressed with Bickel’s presentation. The ability to do much of what he did in Bad Girls while operating on a small budget is no small feat. This year, Sohome brings us his latest film, Pater Noster and the Mission of Light, which might be the coolest title Bickel’s brought us yet.
A little history, first. In 1968, Charles Manson famously met Phil Kaufman in prison while arraigned on the Tate-LaBianca murders. Kaufman was there on a marijuana smuggling conviction and on the verge of being released. Kaufman would go on to assist and drive for The Rolling Stones before eventually managing Gram Parsons’ The Flying Burrito Brothers. That story gets pretty wild, but I’m going to keep this focused. Manson called Kaufman daily, begging Kaufman to release his music. When all the record companies denied Manson, Kaufman raised the money to have a limited pressing released in 1970. Those original copies of Lie: The Love and Terror Cult currently go for over five hundred dollars on Discogs.
Bickel borrows this history, dropping his audience into a record shop run by his Bad Girls squad. But, this time, Morgan Shaley Renew, Sanethia Dresch, and Shelby Lois Guinn become the supporting cast to Adara Starr’s Max. Max is a record collector who could give the fictional Rob Gordon a run for his money. Her crazy bedroom houses thousands of records and is a vibe all on its own without adding Max’s verbose knowledge of rare, out-of-print, and controversial titles—a power she uses only for good, fighting the general behavior of entitled and condescending customers. When a collector comes in with a copy of flower-power hippie collective Pater Noster and the Mission of Light record, her intent to undercut the cost of the record by lowballing the customer is foiled by her boss, Sam (Renew), causing Max to search the bargain bin of the local thrift store where her customer found it.
As a record collector myself, I understand the concept of a fool’s errand. It’s rare to locate hard-to-find items this way, let alone hoping lightning strikes twice in the same location, but I also understand the hunt. Collectors of any kind know about it. The irony that I was watching Pater Noster and the Mission of Light just hours after returning from three stores looking for a Record Store Day Black Friday release wasn’t lost on me either. In fact, I think it added to the fun of watching the film, partially because I had witnessed some of what Bickel’s poking fun at.
Things start getting super trippy for Max when someone from the long-thought-dead Mission of Light reaches out to her after leaving her phone number at the thrift store. Max gets invited to see the grounds of the commune but insists on bringing her friends along after hearing some unconventional stories about the group, particularly when she receives warnings from a local radio DJ (horror icon Tim Cappello) that The Mission of Light may actually be a dangerous cult into some gruesome practices.
Bickel’s use of the hippie exploitation horror genre fits beautifully with his love of that ’70s aesthetic and Tarantinoesque dialogue. Add in that almost all of his effects are practical and look incredible, and Pater Noster and the Mission of Light is the type of underground horror flick fans of the genre are desperately searching for. Plot-wise, it’s essentially a mash-up of High Fidelity and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with maybe a splash of Mandy, too. After the real-life Manson Family murders, underground films began to explore hippie cults in that sense, with Tobe Hooper’s Eggshells, David Durston’s I Drink Your Blood, and Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left. Bickel presents a fantastic addition, which is as rare addition to the horror genre these days as an album by Pater Noster and the Mission of Light is to Max’s collection.
Thematically, Pater Noster and the Mission of Light is a film that asserts many modern concerns in its visceral package. While ideals of Christian unacceptance and hallucinogenic fringe science are pretty well aligned with hippie philosophy, there are also musings on aging and autonomy. The older crowd has its views on how youth is wasted on the young, which is a self-congratulatory cop-out for how the youth feels about the boomer generation’s complacency with how the world is now. This is then fueled with hardcore hallucinogens and buckets upon buckets of blood.
If the film suffers anywhere, it’s probably with light predictability. Audiences will keenly catch on to the systematic horror tropes as the film bridges from the record store to the commune. And, while some of the details of the cult’s beliefs are vague, they only fit with the other films of the era. I think the grindhouse familiarity is a part of the fun that, while modern, feels like a genuine throwback through and through. Meanwhile, Bickel has unrelentingly worked hard on delivering this presentation, and it shows. Everything works well here, from the look of the film to the brutal and bonkers ending. There are bear traps, guts being vomited, a creature birth, and a geriatric blood orgy created from Bickel’s savagely twisted mind to make your skin crawl. It’s demented and amazing. Underground horror fans will want to make sure they catch Pater Noster and the Mission of Light wherever they can find it.
Pater Noster and the Mission of Light played virtually this weekend as part of the Sohome Horror Film Festival. The festival is ongoing, and you can still catch this title and a slew of others like Scared Shitless and Waves of Madness without leaving your couch by purchasing a £49 ticket. Sales end Dec 2.
Pater Noster and the Mission of Light OFFICIAL TRAILER 2024 Independent Underground Horror Feature
www.paternostermovie.com
