Meet The New Gods, Same As The Old Gods

When you think about it, Clash of the Titans (the remake, 2010), is Greek mythology’s version of Christianity. You have God (Zeus), Satan (Hades) and Jesus (Perseus), all playing with the lives and minds of humanity. Kinda like beer.

In this case, Argos, a city of the unwashed, is fed up with the Gods not answering their prayers, and destroys all graven images. This, of course, angers the Gods, and they let Hades make them pay for their blasphemy.

The Gods call for the sacrifice of the queen’s supermodel hot daughter, Andromeda. If they don’t BBQ her alive in 10 days they will unleash the Kraken, a mega creature feared by the Gods themselves. Probably because the darn thing is twice the size of Argos and has a wide variety of long tentacles with which to crush and knock over stuff. Just looking at it will cause you to colorize your toga.

Giant scorpions, snake women, gargoyle harpies, flying horses, the Kraken… Christianity was never this cool or fun.

Evil Reunion

Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) is the backstory about Father Merrin, the priest who drove the Hell out of Linda Blair in The Exorcist (1973).

Turns out Merrin is an old buddy of the demon Pazuzu, whom he first encountered in East Africa and then again in Holland during WWII. Even Pazuzu’s stink breath was no match for the war atrocities Merrin witnessed. So the priest/archaeologist heads to Egypt where he thinks he’ll knock back a few cold ones, pet a camel or two, hang out and leave a pyramid in every bathroom.

But the call comes in to return to Africa, this time to scope out an ancient church that was just discovered buried under dirt. (People in that part of the world know nothing about vacuum cleaners. Heathens, I tell you.)

Merrin arrives in Kenya and upon entering the Centuries-old church, notices the place is in pretty good shape despite being buried under elephant crap that long. What the hoohaw, thinks Merrin; this can’t be a church as it was built several millennia before Christianity plagued the world.

But I didn’t come here for a history lesson. I’m here to see evil stuff, which includes babies being born with maggots on ’em, a little boy being torn apart and eaten alive by wild hyenas, another little boy’s head turning all the way around without that snap, crackle and pop sound…

All this leads up to Merrin having a reunion with his ’ol BFF Pazuzu, who looks like a white-faced, stupid Goth wussy. While the demon stuff is icky, it serves no purpose other than to gross you out. I’m OK with gross out, though there’s no impending sense of religious dread causing an immediate need to wash your naughty parts in holy water.

If Pazuzu wants to get back to being truly evil, he needs to quit listening to weenie-ass Goth and start banging his horned head to some righteous heavy metal. And to quit making prequels/pointless sequels.