REVIEW: PATER NOSTER & THE MISSION OF LIGHT

PATER NOSTER is a hippy, trippy, blood-soaked throwback film from Director Christopher Bickel that proves you can do quite a lot with essentially "the budget of a decent used car."

The film opens with a weirdo cult scene in progress, then quickly shifts to the record store where protagonist Max (Adara Star) works with her friends.

The film sets up the characters well, with a good dose of retail humor and establishes that this is going to be a fun film. One of the customers brings in an ultra-rare and valuable find, a vinyl record from the 70's band PATER NOSTER & THE MISSION OF LIGHT. Vinyl Junkie Max is quick to pounce on it and find out the source of the goods, a local thrift store.

The story deepens when it turns out that PATER NOSTER (Mike Amason) is still active, and despite warnings of cursed record albums by cult radio DJ Dennis Waverly (Tim Capello) Max & company decide to seek out the band.

The second half of the film turns into a full-on folk horror cult film, and it mostly works. There is quite a bit of blood and gore, some of the over-the-top variety, and probably one chase scene too many. Some of the trippy cult scenes went on a bit too long for my liking and could have used a tighter edit, but the payoff was worth the wait! Overall, the cast gave a very solid performance, and a few bumps aside, it's an enjoyable watch with a good soundtrack. As a bonus, the end credits are creepy as hell and tell their own story altogether, which was a nice touch.

So the moral of the story here is, if you ever have the sax player from THE LOST BOYS tell

you not to fuck around with old cults and cursed records, you better take heed!