New York Times - December 15, 2005

REVIEW SUMMARY

This would-be cult curiosity represents the cinematic debut of Cherry Red Productions, a Washington-based theater company whose self-proclaimed psychotronic productions include "Cannibal Cheerleaders on Crack," "Romeo and Juliatric" and "Worm Girl." I can't speak for the stage work, but the joke of this movie ends with the title. The drag king Johnny Kat stars as Isoldi Keane, a dashing if rather ghoulish recruiter for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who deploys his mesmeric powers on the impressionable young women of Manchester, England. Foremost among these is naïve Nora Prescott (Emily Riehl-Bedford), soon to abandon her earnest fiancé (Brent Lowder) for the polygamous pleasures of Salt Lake City. Directed by Ian Allen, this mercifully short trifle is a remake of a notorious 1922 flick of the same name, one of several such xenophobic oddities shot in early-20th-century Britain. Fidelity to the loony, unintentional kitsch of the original makes for a labored exercise in facile camp in the update. — Nathan Lee, The New York Times

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