DVD Dear God No!

This is not a glossy, over-stylized grindhouse homage like "Hobo With A Shotgun", "Machete", or "Planet Terror". This is the closest thing to an actual Grindhouse film made in this century… Though perhaps it is a little more extreme.

It is shot on 16mm film, there are 31 breasts, all of the effects are practical (i.e. no CGI), and it is fun as hell.

This flick definitely isn't for everybody (there is some extreme stuff in here), but for fans of authentic grindhouse features, bigfoot, bikers, sexploitation, gore, and drug movies; "Dear God No!" is the way to go.

Dear God No! is a perverse and fascinating distillation of subjects extracted from the best exploitation cinema of the '70s. This is what directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez attempted to do in Death Proof and Machete (respectively); however, Dear God No! is the genuine article, and the result is a gem full of bad taste and depravity made with minimum money and null influence from Hollywood.

The exploitation cinema has become a popular model to modern filmmakers, not only because of its implicit nostalgia, but also because it can work as a justification of the lack of talent and low production values we can find in some independent movies. Many directors and screenwriters think that their ineptitude and mistakes could seem intentional if they decide to make a "retro" film. However, that's absolutely wrong. Films like Hobo With a Shotgun, The House of the Devil and Dear God No! prove that genuine talent is needed in order to make a good film with those characteristics, and that the "old film" filters and the period costumes aren't enough in order to get an interesting and entertaining narrative. Dear God No! possesses enough energy and dramatic conviction in order to capture us into the action and keep us on suspense, while making us laugh with its stupidity and ridiculous characters. Sounds contradictory, but it works brilliantly well for those of us who appreciate this underrated cinematographic style.

On the negative side of Dear God No!, some performances from the supporting cast feel too rigid. Nevertheless, the experience of watching this film was so amusing, perverse and energetic that I can enthusiastically recommend Dear God No! to the followers of exploitation cinema who want to watch something close in spirit to gems such as Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS or Thriller: A Cruel Picture. And to the casual spectators, I have to warn that there's quite extreme and offensive material in this film, so proceed with caution. You may end up feeling disgusted…or becoming an addict to a hated and occasionally censored cinematographic stratum. I can assure you it's not an easy-to-satisfy addiction.