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Bells of Innocence

Tuesday, July 26, 2005 Update by Andrew "Linguica" Stine

Overview: "Bells of Innocence" is a good Christian film, in that it includes a hero who attempts suicide onscreen, an angel who is a total asshole, and a little girl who murders people. So in other words, it's not really a Christian film at all, and so none of the confusing plot twists make any damn sense because you can't just say Jesus did it. Directed By: Ali Bijan, 2003. The Case For: If you hate Chuck Norris, you can watch this and see just what he's been reduced to. The Case Against: Chuck Norris doesnt bust out any karate moves on anyone. OK, I get that he's old, but what the fuck, he's not an actor because of his dramatic talents. Oh and also the movie is absolutely horrible.

Ever since Time Changer I've been wanting to return to the world of stupid Christian films. Unfortunately I was sidetracked by a lot of crap about zombies and vampires, not to mention strangely obscene emails written by people of faith, suggesting I perform acts that I am pretty sure are so mortally sinful they would literally make the ground rip open and pull me down into Hell right then and there. But when I came across "Bells of Innocence," it had the perfect combination of Christian morals and old washed-up martial artists that ensured I would get to see something very special, if by "special" you are trying to avoid hurting this movie's feelings, because it is legally retarded.

The movie opens outside "Ceres, Texas" in 1932, where a white man and his white grandson are tending to a nighttime fire. Despite obviously being white as the driven snow, the two are dressed in full stereotypical Plains Indian attire, possibly because they sneezed upwind of an Indian village and three days later collected the belongings after all the Indians died of the common cold. As the grandfather and grandson stoke the fire, suddenly torches appear in the distance and a man dressed in blatantly modern-day clothes stumbles up to them, scared out of his mind. I honestly thought that maybe the man had traveled through time, but as nothing of the sort is ever implied again, I can only assume that dressing a 1930's character in a plaid shirt and jeans was done by the director as a test of Christian faith, just like so-called dinosaur bones. The man starts screaming about bells and warns the kid to run, because his Indian costume is so convincing that the white mob would just kill him anyway. As the kid runs off, the mobs catches up with the grandfather and kills him, while the man in the plaid shirt is struck by lighting for no apparent reason. Luckily, watching a man be turned into a human fulgurite distracts the mob, and the child manages to escape to safety when he comes upon a man on horseback whose stilted, lifeless dialog sounds suspiciously like that of Chuck Norris.

The movie cuts to the present day, where a pastor addresses his church congregation, explaining how three of its members are going to be delivering bibles to a small Mexican town. The fact that a Protestant church delivering Protestant bibles to a Catholic community makes no sense seems not to faze anyone, which I can only attribute to the assumption that the bibles are simply a cover story for a massive heroin ring. Unfortunately, as this is a Christian movie, that remains only a theory. The pastor introduces two of the three: "Conrad," a square-jawed, heavy-browed model Christian soldier, and "Oren," a fat, pasty whining idiot, casted to cater to the fat whiny Christian demographic.

The third man going on the trip, "Jux" or possibly "Jax" or "Jox" depending on which character is pronouncing his bizarre name at any given time, is not such a great Christian because instead of attending church, he is at home sprawled out on his bed. As he stares at the ceiling, dramatic music plays and there's a sepia-toned flashback showing Jux in happier times, out playing in a park with his young daughter. "Playing" apparently means something a little different in a Christian movie because there's a quick shot of his daughter hugging him before Jux shoves her bike towards a busy street, where she is immediately creamed by a passing car. Maybe all Christians teach their children to ride a bike by forcing them to react to a certain death, I don't know. It would make sense considering the very first thing a newly baptized child has to do is avoid drowning.

As the three survey their surroundings they see nothing but vast stretches of dirt, so they do the sensible thing and start walking in random directions. They hike for hours, the silence occasionally interrupted by Oren's whines that he is tired, or thirsty, or hungry, or that his feet hurt. As they wander the wasteland, the camera pans to show Chuck Norris on horseback, watching them from behind a rock. He doesn't reveal himself or offer any sort of assistance to the stranded men, because he is an asshole. Eventually the three lost souls hear bells ringing and make their way to a small town which looks suspiciously like an "Experience the Old West" tourist destination. A sign says "Ceres, Texas," telling us that this is the same place where 60 years before, an angry mob chased a guy who got struck by lightning. There was probably supposed to be some more ominous message intended, but it got obscured by the fact that the movie sucks.

As they enter the town, the townsfolk are all present on the streets and sidewalks to stare at them, since the local economy seems to be driven entirely by random wandering. The three men begin to get creeped out by this, possibly because everyone is leering suspiciously at them, but more likely because they are deep in southern Texas and the entire population of the town is 100% lily white. This is obviously impossible, so either the town is trapped in a wormhole leading to Minnesota or Satan is involved somehow.

As the three look around the town, Jux notices a little girl jiggling a gumball machine. Moved by tender feelings for the little girl who reminds him so much of his dearly departed murdered daughter, Jux puts a quarter in the machine and gives her a gumball. She smiles at him in an incredibly creepy and flirtatious manner and then leaves without saying a word, setting in motion the epic romance the two will embark upon through the course of the movie. The three men then make their way into the local saloon and ask for drinks and a phone. "We have no phones," says the cold, reserved waitress, and it soon turns out that Ceres, Texas is utterly cut off from the outside world, with no phones and no cars. The men are disturbed by this news and order Dr. Peppers, which apparently magically appear in the sequestered community.

As the three men try to figure out what to do, Chuck Norris wanders up. "I believe this is yours," he says mysteriously, and hands them a book. Conrad recognizes it as one of the bibles from their plane. Apparently Chuck Norris found their plane and ransacked it, probably again because he is an asshole. "How about a shortwave radio?" Chuck, whose name in the movie is Matthew but no one cares, asks them. He then walks out the door without elaborating, because he is an asshole. The men, intrigued, follow him outside and Chuck gives them direction to "Diana's" place, Diana apparently having a radio they could use.

The three men walk through the town towards Diana's place, while all the local children stare at them with their best Children of the Corn impressions. Eventually they make it to Diana's house where Diana, apparently the only person in town with a car, offers to drive them to where the radio is. In the car, Oren attempts to strike up a conversation with Diana's creepy son Jeremy. "So Jeremy, do you like sports?" he asks. Jeremy rolls his eyes and says no. "OK, excellent, very good," Oren answers, glad that the perfunctory formalities are over and they can spend the rest of the car ride in a good Christian silence.

After a while they arrive at their destination, an old ramshackle house out in the boonies. A large non-indigenous snake is curled around a fencepost in possibly the most blatantly obvious Satanic symbols known to mankind. Diana knocks on the door and Chuck Norris answers. "These men need to use your radio," she says, and Chuck lets them inside. To reiterate:

• Chuck Norris meets the three men in the town saloon and tells them to talk to Diana about using a radio
• The men meet Diana and ask to use a radio
• Diana drives the men to go use the radio, which belongs to Chuck Norris

The next morning, as the three men come out of the hotel, Diana drives up and tells them to meet her at her house in an hour. Wait a minute, if the town has no gas stations, how does she drive her car? Must be Satan, I guess. Meanwhile, Lyric talks to Emeritus, the local agent of Lucifer, and it becomes clear she isn't as angelic as she appears. "You were touched by the one named Jux, Lyric," says Emeritus, adding another layer of perversion to the relationship between the two, but it's soon explained that for some reason the devil children can't be touched by someone who worships God because it will taint them somehow. There's probably more prosaic reasons why children shouldn't be touched by strange men, but I guess you don't change what already works.

While Oren tries to teach the local kids how to play football, Conrad and Jux go and meet Diana, who explains to them the dark secrets of Ceres. "An unholy force holds this town," she explains. "They take away the children's souls." Diana tries to convince them to take her son Jeremy with them when they leave, despite the fact that Jeremy is obviously already a brainwashed agent of darkness. Conrad and Jux murmur noncommittal Christian noises and leave. They track down Oren, who is attempting to follow in Jux's footsteps and give candy to local children, and explain to him how the children are in grave danger and thus the three of them need to get the hell out of there before the bad shit goes down. Way to go, guys. As they talk, there's a random shot of a peacock standing on a rooftop, which is somehow related to Oren's failure of a "peacock joke" although it's never explained what the symbolism is for and merely stands as another testament to the director's massive drug habits.

Later, Jux comes across Lyric again, who is nursing a splinter in her palm. Always eager to be the knight in shining armor, except when it comes to actually saving children's lives and not just relieving a tiny bit of pain, Jux pulls out his Swiss Army Knife and uses the tweezers to extricate the splinter. "I love you, Jux," she says sweetly, then runs off before Jux can lose control and try to make out with her.

From this point on the movie starts getting increasingly bizarre. The three men are invited to a harvest festival where they drink drugged fruit punch and watch a children's choir chant in Latin. After some fevered hallucinations they wake up in a jail cell which is magically unlocked by the power of Chuck Norris's mind. When the three leave the empty jailhouse suddenly an angry mob of townspeople appears, literally holding torches and pitchforks, and they are chased through the streets of the town before Chuck Norris shoots fire out of his fingertips and makes a wall of flame appear between the three men and their pursuers. It turns out that Chuck Norris is actually an angel, because I guess all angels are notorious assholes who love to abuse their powers.

The next morning, Chuck Norris explains to the three men why they have been brought to Ceres. "You have been chosen," he explains. "That's why your plane was forced to land." The three of them must join together to save the children and cleanse the town, although how this is to be accomplished is never really explained. "You must put on the full armor of God to protect yourself from the power of Lucifer," Chuck says. This seems to involve walking down the road in slow motion while bad rock music plays. Meanwhile, ghouls and agents of Satan run around grabbing children while their parents howl in anguish. None of the evil minions attack the three heroes, though, probably due to their God-armor, and they keep wandering the streets doing absolutely nothing until Jux happens to see Lyric, whose sweet smile pierces his armor and makes him go crazy. He shoves the other two away and lets Lyric lead him into a church, where the ghouls start performing some sort of ritual which involves sacrificing Diana for some reason and then torturing Conrad and Oren and trying to make them denounce God. None of this really makes any sense but by this point I had stopped caring entirely.

Soon Satan's messenger Emeritus has focused in on Jux, whose suicidal and pedophilic tendencies make him a perfect target for conversion. He hands Jux a pistol, which just so happens to be the exact same pistol Jux played Russian roulette with at the start of the movie, and Jux waves it around at everyone as he struggles with his emotions. "Don't do it, Jux! Don't kill!" shouts Conrad, who is more concerned about Jux not shooting someone than his possibly damning the entire world to the reign of Satan. Finally Jux's God-armor wins out. "I choose my daughter Amy, who represents the purity within all of these children!" he screams in what I swear is an actual line. Apparently the screenwriter has never heard of subtlety. Jux then gives the pistol to Lyric, who then shoots and kills Emeritus for some reason, even though she is evil. Then there's some weird flashes and suddenly Jux wakes up!

Yes, Jux wakes up back in his bed at home. The whole fucking movie was a dream. Wait, let me rephrase that, the whole goddamn movie was a dream Jesus H. Christ. The only thing worse than spending 80 minutes watching a retarded movie is spending 80 minutes a retarded movie that ends by invalidating the entire thing anyway. But then it turns out the director felt the same way, because as Jux is about to leave to fly the plane to Mexico for real, Lyric suddenly appears in his bedroom, screaming in a baritone devil-voice before shooting him dead. Wait, so was it all a dream or wasn't it? Jux woke up in his own bedroom, but the movie ends with Conrad and Oren reuniting with their families in the somehow-reborn town of Ceres while the ghost of Jux is reunited with his dead daughter, so I don't know what the hell was supposed to have happened. One thing is for certain, though. No loving God would tolerate a movie like this.

- Andrew "Linguica" Stine