Tropic Thunder was the last good movie

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5741101&forum_id=2:#49036724)

but much better than the Jordan Peele negro horrors like Get Out and Us that hollywood pushed the last few years.

in this case, there was actually a horror movie to watch here if you tuned out the stupid "message."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5741101&forum_id=2:#49037186)

I can’t decide whether it is a cursed movie. The sequence of the vampires reciting the Lord’s Prayer hit me in a very wrong and unsettling way, but I’m still on the fence as to whether that’s being unsettled by the visual or if there is something more deeply evil about it. Remmick insists that the prayer is a comforting lie, and yet the only character to correctly assess what’s going to happen from the beginning is the old church man (“the devil’s gonna follow you home”)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5741101&forum_id=2:#49097341)

Vampire media in general is often not made by or for an explicitly Christian demographic but it's happy to invoke Christianity as shorthand for remembering that good and evil exist, and while it may sometimes trivialize Christianity, nothing wrong with a secular audience associating the trappings of the faith with 'good' when the chips are down

Obviously it's easy to get from there to just wallowing in the works of evil for gratuitous titillation--think of pre-Code stuff like Sign of the Cross, which turned martyrs into proto-grindhouse fodder--but there's power in the gut check of seeing something that represents evil and knowing and feeling that it's wrong. It's like getting your bearings.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5741101&forum_id=2:#49097349)

Compare to something like "Office Christmas Party" which is just loaded with contempt and resentment for social values.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5741101&forum_id=2:#49097351)

I’ve seen a lot of people online making the eternal mistake of taking characters statements at face value. So, there are statements in the film to the effect that Christianity was thrust upon enslaved populations. This is taken as evidence of the films “message” about Christianity. I think it’s more complicated.

Spoilers

The movie starts with a prologue about the power of music to both bind a community and to attract or invite evil

The blues man secondary protagonist is the son of a church man who is both knowledgeable about scripture but also can’t reconcile his love of music with the church. His father is austere but as noted above, ultimately proven correct.

The Juke joint scenes are sort of primal, lots of vice and temptation but also joy. The music and atmosphere does unequivocally invite the presence of evil (the vampires )

Michael B Jordan characters (well one of them) forbid the blues man from following his musical aspiration and threaten to harm him if he ever comes back to the juke joint. An express equation of the juke “scene” with wickedness

Ultimately when the vampire “battle” occurs the humans are overpowered . The blues man utters the Lord’s Prayer (perhaps as a plea for help, perhaps as a reflex to seek comfort). The leader vampire acknowledges the comfort of the words but he and his vampire minions say them along side the blues man in apparent mockery. This sequence has been questioned as a challenge to Christianity, but it’s not clear to me that the prayer was uttered to ward off the vampires in the first place. In other words, there’s no expectation in the film that Christian relics or rituals will be effective against vampires (and really, why would they be? Vampires would have been extinguished centuries earlier if it were that easy).

The lead vampire is killed in a sort of twist involving a deal between the Mike B Jordan brothers ( one a vamp and one not) and the blues man returns to his church, but he cannot bring himself to give up the guitar.

He lives on afterwards but still in fear of the vampires.

It’s a movie about the nature of sin and temptation, and duality. But the people who view the story as an unambiguous attack on Christianity are missing forest for the trees. If anything, the anti christian vitriol comes out of the mouth of a literal demon (vampire) and the Christian teachings would have protected the blues man had he not defied them in the beginning. But, there is a darkness to the film that I can’t ignore.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5741101&forum_id=2:#49097377)

Downside of me was the plot wasn't that interesting and the vampires / action sequences weren't that engaging.

Also, the scene where the 80s rappers appears is just very, very bad.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5741101&forum_id=2:#49113667)