Bad movies starring Degrassi actors 3

This video is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website-building tool perfect for content creators, business owners, and Russian mirror ghosts. That joke will make sense later. What’s up Degrassi alumni?! Welcome back to another faux-Canadian installment of Bad movies starring Degrassi actors, the first and stupidest series on my YouTube channel. Did you know they don't sell Baja Blast in England, where I live? One of the many reasons I can't stay there after I graduate. If you’re ne

w here, because unbelievably, I think I’m actually starting to attract subscribers who DIDN’T subscribe because of my Degrassi videos, I’m pretty into that show, and my favorite way to engage with it these days is not by watching Degrassi, but by watching dumb movies that star actors who were made famous by Degrassi. It’s all very cerebral, what I do. If you haven’t seen my previous videos in this series, I’d recommend you do that now, they’re all conveniently located in my Degrassi playlist. Bu

t to review, Degrassi was produced in Toronto, Toronto happens to be a film production hub, especially for low-budget films, due to those sweet sweet Canadian tax breaks. Degrassi had a very large cast that spanned multiple decades, most of whom have not become particularly famous or made the jump to Hollywood (with a few notable exceptions), meaning that if you watch a low-budget movie produced in Toronto, it’s very likely that you’ll see some familiar faces. And we’ve had some great times in t

hese videos so far. We’ve covered Lifetime movies, Syfy originals, Disney channel originals, Lifetime movies, poor attempts at artistic horror, country musicals, and of course, Lifetime movies. I’ve got a fresh batch of garbage for you today, a real cross-section of different Degrassi cast eras. I usually save these videos for the summertime, but I feel like we could all benefit from summer arriving early this year. I’ve organized these films from least entertaining to most entertaining, which m

ight be a bad idea since generally a lot of people don’t watch videos all the way through, but I’m taking the chance that it might also work as an incentive to get you to watch the video all the way through. But don’t worry, even the least entertaining movie was still entertaining. I try not to include boring movies. There were a couple I started watching for this video and didn’t end up using because I didn’t think they were funny enough to include. I care about you guys. Only the best bad Degr

assi actor movies for my subscribers! And please excuse the digital Miles Hollingsworth painting, I have to move countries again soon, and one of the things I brought home with me over winter break was all of my wall art. So, this will have to do for now. Queen of Spades. Queen of Spades features Eric Osborne a.k.a. the boy himself, Miles Hollingsworth III, as well as Jamie Bloch, a.k.a. Yael from Degrassi. IMDB tells me that the lead actress, Ava Preston, was also in Degrassi, specifically the

final television film, Degrassi: Don’t Look Back, but I have no memory of her role in it because I only watched that movie one time and I was pretty drunk while doing it. Sorry if that makes me sound like a careless reviewer but honestly you couldn’t pay me to rewatch that era of Degrassi. [Tristan:] So here’s where the story gets really frickin’ creepy. Anyway, Queen of Spades is a pretty straightforward supernatural horror film based on a Russian legend similar to Bloody Mary. You summon the Q

ueen of Spades in the mirror, and she kills you or whatever. In this movie, this group of teens summon the Queen of Spades and subsequently get picked off one by one. I feel like I don’t need to tell you much more about the plot, because if you’ve seen a horror movie, you’ve probably seen Queen of Spades. Movies like this might as well be AI-generated. Part of what makes it feel so generic and really disappointed me about the movie is that once we see the Queen of Spades, it’s just a lady in a b

lack dress who lurks in the background sometimes. I will never forgive the Conjuring series for creating a whole epidemic of low-effort horror where the monster is just a lady in black lurking in the background. I’m not saying The Conjuring necessarily created that concept. I mean, you have the actual Woman in Black and whatnot, but I feel like The Nun and La Llorona and whatever other movies in that franchise have been so popular that now you see this a lot. When people don’t want to take the t

ime to design an interesting ghost, it’s just this lady. Oh no. I hope she doesn’t show up in my mirror! That would be soooo scary! There’s also a really flat, cheap look to all of the lighting and staging. The camera quality looks nice, but it seems like there’s no effort put into making anything look particularly interesting. Most of the movie is set in this apartment complex where all of the kids live, which I found kind of interesting, but I think they could’ve done more with that location,

especially how they chose to characterize that location could’ve been interesting. Our characters are these three… high schoolers? Question mark? And our protagonist, Anna, who is 13 but hangs out with the older kids. As if any self-respecting group of high schoolers would hang out with a 13 year old. Because I said that, now I’m probably gonna have a bunch of people in the comments like ‘actually, I hung out with older kids when I was in the womb, so, check mate." Speaking of the womb, listen t

o this line from Eric Osborne: [Eric:] The last time I waited this long for a joint, I was in the womb. You know I always have a lot to say about Eric Osborne’s acting in these movies, and this time is no different. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s really good most of the time, but he has such a strange, stilted cadence that I think works best in specific roles, right? I think it’s hard for him to blend in sometimes. In this scene where the kids are all smoking together, I think he’s talking wei

rd because he’s trying to act high. Which is theoretically a good thing, like it’s good attention to detail. But none of the other actors seem to have made that choice, so it just comes off like he talks weird. [Eric, stilted:] Well, the legend says that, um, if you call her she'll appear and she will grant the wish if she's at peace, but if she's not, then she's gonna cut you when you sleep. And amazingly, we do get an Eric Osborne death scene. I’m collecting them like Pokemon cards at this poi

nt. [Degrassi theme song plays] Other than that, I was also very tickled by the fact that at the beginning of the film, the two boys in the group are seemingly like, aspiring YouTubers? [Matthew:] We're trying to get some footage for YouTube. That's how you get paid nowadays. [Eric:] What was that exhale for? They’re like, we have to get this on video… for YouTube. [Jamie:] You guys wanna summon a f*cking demon? For what? For followers on YouTube? Amazing. I love that at this character’s funeral

, it’s clear that the filmmakers didn’t think of a last name for him, so all the programs and stuff just say, “In loving memory of MATTHEW”. No last name. I love this Russian expert character that the kids eventually consult about the Queen of Spades. You can tell he’s Russian because he’s constantly drinking vodka, and his name is Smirnoff. [Eric:] His name is Smirnoff. [Jane:] Subtle. I love that the climax of the movie features Chekhov’s poolside defibrillator. And I love that the movie ends

by teasing a possessed cat! [Spooky music] I think all horror movies should end that way. That being said, they very much steal the ending of The Exorcist. Right down to the exorcist character getting possessed and then falling or jumping out of a window to end the possession. But I guess The Exorcist didn’t have a possessed cat. So. I know that I’m technically ranking this one last, but I also feel like my standards have gotten really low, because I wasn’t even that mad at it. Like when I finis

hed the movie, I was like, ‘well at least I didn’t actively suffer while watching it.’ Mississippi River Sharks. Yeah, you’ll never believe it, but this is a Syfy original movie. It stars Cassie Steele a.k.a. Manny Santos as our protagonist, Tara. In Mississippi River Sharks, a small town on the Mississippi finds their fish rodeo, which I did not know was a thing, interrupted by a swarm of deadly freshwater sharks. This movie intrigued me not only for the presence of Cassie Steele, but also beca

use as a Minnesotan, I grew up very close to the Mississippi River, so I thought maybe I could relate. You know, to an extent. Alas, although as far as I remember this film does not say exactly what state it’s supposed to be set in, it seems to be in the southern part of the Mississippi. There’s not a hugely midwestern feel to it. This movie also introduced me to the fact that there are sharks in the Mississippi. At first I thought they had totally made up that concept for the movie, but no, app

arently there have been bull shark sightings in the Mississippi River. So despite how tempting it might be to call bullshark… thank you, this movie does ~technically~ have some basis in fact. Not a lot of basis, but some. In terms of context, as you might already be aware, the Syfy channel has gained a sort of renewed relevance since the 2010s for their output of really over-the-top shark-related monster movies. This isn’t the only type of original movie Syfy puts out, but it’s definitely one of

the most visible. This really took off with the Sharknado franchise, and you might have also heard of like ‘Sharktopus’, ‘Mega-Shark’, ‘3-Headed Shark Attack’, those are all Syfy franchises in a similar vein. Given how long they’ve been making this brand of ridiculous horror or monster movie, I would guess that they were trying to create this niche for a while, and finally hit something bigger with Sharknado. Like maybe that one was finally ridiculous-sounding enough to break into the mainstrea

m. However, and I think you’ll hear this from a lot of bad movie aficionados, I wouldn’t say the Sharknado movies are truly great bad movies. They’re trying so hard to be cult movies and rely so heavily on the shock value of their titles and premises that they don’t really have that likable earnestness that the greats possess. Even say, Lifetime movies, which I think are also not necessarily unaware of what they are, have a certain naïve camp to the demographics they depict and pander to. The co

nservative woman pearl-clutching is so unique to Lifetime and so seemingly earnest in some ways that they usually edge out Syfy originals for me personally. And I think the Sharknado brand of blah also applies to Mississippi River Sharks. It’s mostly just a very generic, low-effort attempt to justify an eye-grabbing title. But, an interesting facet of Mississippi River Sharks is its inclusion of metatextual elements. Allow me to explain. This film opens with what you think is just a campy scene

of shark violence, but is quickly revealed to be a scene from a Syfy-style shark movie within this actual Syfy shark movie. This introduces the character of Jason London, a fictionalized version of this actor, Jason London. He’s playing himself as like an asshole egotistical actor. Which is kind of funny. Or would be funny if I had any context for who Jason London is besides vaguely recognizing his face. No offense. So there’s this whole series of movies within the movie that the characters are

all aware of, the whole town is obsessed with these movies and even host like a Jason London meet-and-greet at their annual fish rodeo. Apparently in this universe, Jason London is the most famous man alive. [Announcer:] Your favorite action hero and mine, JASON LONDON! [Guy:] I'll be on that podium, raising the trophy in victory, standing next to the best guy I know... Jason London. Also his catchphrase in his shark movies is “who’s your daddy?” [Jason London:] Who's your daddy? And then of cou

rse when the real sharks start attacking, it turns out that he’s not nearly as badass or smart as he is in his movies and he kind of begrudgingly becomes a member of the main group that’s trying to figure out how to combat the sharks. And I was into this. I kept trying to figure out what it was reminding me of, and I think it was the movie Fright Night, when the horror show host suddenly has to deal with a real vampire and has this arc where he goes from cowardly poser to brave, real vampire hun

ter. But Mississippi River Sharks wastes that dynamic and just kills the character off pretty early on. [Jason London:] Oh, shark. Boo! Most of the movie is just very generic and boring. It’s kind of sad to see Cassie Steele have to put on a serious face and act in this movie. But she got her check. So who am I to judge? I have to tell you about the main thing that made me laugh about this movie, and it was in fact Degrassi-related. You see, because this film involves sharks showing up in unexpe

cted waters, you have multiple lines from characters warning other characters that there are sharks in the water. [Man:] There are sharks in the water. There are sharks in the water! [Cassie:] There's a shark in the river. [Jason London:] There are sharks in the water! [Guy:] There's sharks in the water. [VV Brown, singing:] Baby, there's a shark in the water! Baby, there’s a shark in the water. [Voice on radio:] You ain't gonna believe this, but we’re getting more reports of sharks in the water

” [Jane:] Canada in 2010 when the VV Brown Degrassi promo dropped: So that was pretty entertaining, but on the whole, I would not call this movie a pleasant or productive use of my time. Poison Ivy: The Secret Society. Poison Ivy: The Secret Society is a direct-to-television sequel to the direct-to-video film Poison Ivy: The New Seduction, which is itself a sequel to the direct-to-video film Poison Ivy II: Lily, which is itself a sequel to the theatrical film Poison Ivy. I haven’t seen any of th

e other films in the series, I believe the original film was somewhat well-received. I don’t think that’s true of any of the sequels. The Secret Society stars Miriam McDonald a.k.a. Emma Nelson as an orphaned country bumpkin college freshman who is lured into an elite secret society of sexy college girls who are dangerous or something. Now, here’s the thing. Like I said, I haven’t seen the original film. And I think I was vaguely aware that the original is an erotic thriller. So it would make se

nse that this sequel would contain some sexual content. What I was not expecting was for this film to be straight-up softcore p*rn. [Girl:] Maybe I can jog your memory. [Boy:] I'm sure you can. Yeah, maybe 15 minutes into the movie, this s3x scene starts, and you’re like okay, this will be brief, there’ll be a tasteful cutaway to the next scene. No. It lasts over two minutes, which might not sound like a lot, but in movie s3x scene time, I would say that’s a lot. And not only does the actress ge

t naked from the waist up, but it’s just really involved in a way that isn’t typical of your average, non-softcore p*rn s3x scene. When I say involved… How do I say this. I’ll just show you a screenshot of my notes from this part of the movie. And that’s just a little more intense than I am used to in… not p*rn. Like that’s an unsimulated act, right? There’s also this really tacky music playing the entire time that I think most people would classify as “p*rn music.” [P*rn music] It’s just very s

trange. Because up to that point, it’s not like the movie has been great, but it has felt like a movie. It has a plot and a budget and… I just wasn’t expecting that. There’s currently like a war on s3x scenes being waged online right now, and to be clear, I’m not one of those people. But I would wage a war on this movie specifically. And I regret to inform you that there is also a s3x scene featuring Miriam McDonald, it’s not as bad as the first one, but she does go topless, and I was reminded o

f, I think Redlettermedia said something once, about how sometimes when they’re watching a really terrible B movie and an actress takes her top off, they’re like, ‘Oh honey, not for this.' [RLM:] No honey, no- oh, no, not for this movie! Don't do it for this movie! Oh no! [Screaming] [Jane:] Not for this movie. But, ultimately, I am a woman… lover. You know, I support women’s rights AND women’s wrongs. No. What I mean is, Miriam McDonald made this choice, and got paid, and I love that for her. I

can only hope that this was a safe environment where she had the agency to advocate for herself. Anyway. This film aired on Lifetime. Which is confusing, because I never see graphic content on Lifetime. I can only imagine that they aired a censored version on TV. I did read that the DVD release contained extra footage, so I assume that’s the version I watched. It’s actually quite a bizarre film on the whole, because on the one hand you have this pretty graphic sexual content, and then on the ot

her, you have some very moralistic themes and framing that are typical of Lifetime films. Really the whole narrative is about this innocent country girl being temporarily seduced by the sinful life of the Ivy society, one focused on sex and… crime? It’s still not super clear to me what this society does—but ultimately the protagonist has to wake up to how corrupt this group is and go back home to her small town where her high school sweetheart has been dutifully waiting for her to join him on hi

s dude ranch. Why would you want to go to college or have new experiences or meet new people anyway? There’s a ready-made housewife position for you right here at home with the only boy you’ve ever kissed. She does say at the end that she’s going to finish college before settling down with her 45-year-old high school boyfriend, so I’ll take it I guess. [Boyfriend:] And then you go back? [Miriam:] For the next four years. They also do that Lifetime thing where they make the villains kind of straw

man feminists, so I love that. [Miriam:] I can't believe he taped us. [Girl:] He's a man. I honestly don’t even really remember what the secret society’s nefarious plan was, or what the evil thing they did was, but I’m sure it was something. [Girl:] If someone throws eggs at your house... you burn theirs down. I mean, for the record, that is terrible advice. Danger Next Door. Danger Next Door is a Lifetime movie starring Jake Epstein a.k.a. Craig Manning. The actress who played the art teacher i

n Degrassi, Ms. Dawes, also shows up in a small role. I know that might not be as sensational a Degrassi cameo, but you know, it counts. This movie is about a young couple who experience a mugging which convinces them to leave the city for a quiet home in a small town, but they soon realize that their neighbors seem a little suspicious. It’s so funny, they never reveal where this is supposed to be taking place, so they just keep referring to it as “the city” [Woman:] Honestly ever since I got pr

egnant I've been thinking of getting out of the city. [Woman:] Where are you coming from? [Jake:] Just the city. What city??? I want to know! After the couple gets mugged, the way the doctor was treating them at the hospital was making me laugh. They’re so distraught, understandably, but the doctor keeps being like “You’re fine. You’ll be fine.” Like they’re overreacting. [Jake:] Are you okay? Is everything okay? [Woman:] The baby's okay. We're okay. [Doctor:] You two definitely need to go home

and get some rest. You're going to be FINE. I think it felt more weird because we never see them interacting with the police or anything? So it feels like what happened is not being fully acknowledged. I have to say, I found Jake Epstein’s acting in this just hilarious. And it’s hard to explain why. I think of all the actors from Degrassi, it’s particularly difficult for me to extricate Jake Epstein from Craig Manning. Like, his voice still sounds virtually identical to how it did when he was on

the show. [Jake, sounding boyish:] Have you been looking? Oh wow, you have. [Craig:] You're a little short, but that just adds to the cuteness. I knew from the opening scene that this would be a fun watch. It’s incredibly awkward, and again, it’s hard to even articulate why. [Jake, awkwardly:] Whoa, that's a big pour, thank you. For one thing, it’s obviously just terrible Lifetime dialogue. There’s a lot of clumsy exposition. [Jake:] You're not just a great litigator, but you're gonna make a gr

eat partner. The YOUNGEST junior partner in your firm's history. And just lines that no one would say in real life. [Jake:] I'm also proud to call you my baby's mama. [Jane:] Ugh. But also. I feel like both of these actors, bless their hearts, are trying to make the lines sound natural. They almost have a bit of a mumblecore-type affectation? [Jake:] Can you-- can you just, please? [Woman:] Okay, okay. [Jake:] Um... nope, that's it. But it’s terrible, unnatural Lifetime dialogue, so they’re tryi

ng to inject this realism into it that just isn’t meant to be there, so it makes it sound stilted and weird. [Woman:] And now-- if I might propose-- a toast in return-- [Jake:] Oh, sure. The end result is very strange. I was in love with it. I also really enjoyed the campy premise of the seemingly-perfect elderly neighbors who are actually evil. I almost wanted them to go further with it. Like, the wife of the central couple is pregnant, and at one point in my notes I wrote “I hope the neighbors

are baby thieves.” And they sort of are. They kidnap the wife, I think because they had a pregnant daughter who died, and they want to make the wife their new pregnant daughter. I don’t always pay that close of attention to the plots, okay? I’m here for the vibes. And the Degrassi actors. One really weird thing about the villains in this movie is that kind of their whole thing is that they keep this big garden, and they’re really passionate about organic food. One of the ways they start to over

step the couple’s boundaries is that they’re trying to control what the woman eats, presumably for the baby. [Woman:] It's not good for what's happening... inside of you. But that doesn’t really end up having to do with anything. I thought because they were emphasizing the garden so much, maybe there would turn out to be bodies buried in the garden. But no such luck. Towards the end of the movie, I had to ask, is this supposed to be like a critique of organic food people? Did the writer have som

ething against that? It’s a confusing element of the story. I like when the couple move in to their new house, they’re like ooh-ing and aah-ing at everything, as if it’s their first time seeing it. [Jake:] It's big! [Woman:] Look at it! [Jake:] Wooow. [Laughs] I mean come on! [Gasping] Surely you toured it before buying it. I like how when the wife gets a new job in town she’s immediately asking her female boss if she has a MAN. [Woman:] Well, what about you? You got a man at home? [Jane:] Women

, am I right? I feel like there’s not even that much funny stuff I can tell you, you just have to trust me that this is a very funny watch. I would recommend it. But before I tell you all about our last and craziest movie, let’s hear a word from our sponsor. Squarespace is a website that you can use to make other websites. [Jamie:] Says who, this website? [Eric:] Yes, the website! But as if that wasn’t intriguing enough on its own, Squarespace has just about every feature you could ever need, wh

ether you’re a business owner, an artist, a blogger, or some sort of freakish combination of all three. I feel like a lot of us Degrassi heads specifically are either content creators or maybe sell products like pins or tee shirts, and Squarespace is a lot of help for all of that stuff. You can use a Squarespace site to host videos, display your art, sell merchandise, or even set up memberships or subscriptions. You can also purchase domains from Squarespace really easily. Maybe this will reveal

my level of tech literacy, but I always kind of just assumed that domains were really expensive, they’re not, an average one is like 20 dollars per year. So it’s actually pretty accessible if you want your own domain. Something I’m using my website for is film writing, I recently had press access to the BFI Flare film festival and I used the blog section of my site to share some highlights from that experience. I like how easy it is to add pictures to a blog entry and embed links and whatnot. Y

ou can go to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to make your media immersion dreams come true, go to Squarespace.com/mulcahy for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Mulcahy: It’s my last name. Degrassi: It goes there. Thanks Squarespace for sponsoring this video. Adam’s Testament. Some of you might remember that I actually tried to watch Adam’s Testament for my first Bad movies starring Degrassi actors video. I guess at the time I thought it was too bad or we

ird or something, and I didn’t finish it. [2021 Jane:] Don't get me wrong, this movie is really, really bad, like actually worse than most of the ones I'm going to talk about, but it's also not very entertaining. But luckily for you and me, my standards have dropped quite a bit since then. I was so young and green two years ago. That was probably about 50 Lifetime movies ago. I didn’t know how bad it could get. And the thing is, I like to end these videos with a bang, you know? Something really

out there like Thicker Than Water or Country Crush, a significant discovery in the Degrassi-related bad movie canon. [Munro, singing:] Where love AIN'T make believe! And I was finishing up writing this video feeling like I hadn’t really found that movie yet. So, I caved and decided to give Adam’s Testament one more chance. Am I glad I did that? Yes and no. Adam’s Testament is a Christian film starring Luke Bilyk a.k.a. Drew Torres from Degrassi. The film is about a troubled Christian father desp

erately trying to lead his wayward son Adam back onto the path of righteousness. Or something. The guy’s wife, Adam’s mom, died a few years earlier and that’s why the family has been thrown off course. She died because she dropped her pile of loose-leaf printer paper in the middle of the street, got distracted by some sort of religious pamphlet that happened to be among the papers, and got hit by a drunk driver. [Music] It’s kind of difficult to describe to you what the movie is about beyond tha

t setup, because almost everything about it makes for a near-incomprehensible viewing experience. I won’t beat around the bush. This movie is about spiritual warfare, so it’s not just a faith-based movie, it’s literally about angels fighting the devil. And for some reason the devil himself has like, chosen Adam, Luke Bilyk, the son character, as his target for bringing to the dark side. So you have the devil, who’s honestly the only actor doing anything fun in this movie. He’s the only one slayi

ng. He first shows up tap dancing on the roof of a car, so he’s already way more likeable than any of our Christian characters. [Tapping] [Devil:] Ha! His whole thing is that he is always disguising himself to lead the human characters astray. I guess that’s what the devil does. And in the movie, this is both confusing and hilarious. For one thing, they use it way too much. Like early on, we learn that when the mom died, the dad, who’s a cop, somehow killed the drunk driver in revenge. This in i

tself makes no sense, because the driver is in an ambulance, we see the dad say to the EMTs like, don’t worry, I got this, and then we see on the news that the ambulance like flew off a cliff into a fiery wreck. [Newscaster:] A man was found dead in the back of an ambulance earlier this morning after it went off a cliff and burst into flames behind this industrial facility here. So it’s like, was the dad driving the ambulance? Was someone else driving the ambulance and the dad somehow made them

go off of a cliff? How did he pull this off without killing anyone except the drunk driver who was in the back of the ambulance? It doesn’t matter. But it turns out that the devil disguised himself as one of the EMTs so that he could convince the dad to take this deadly revenge. [Devil:] Attaboy. [Sirens] But then, a little later, there’s this flashback scene where we see Adam run into this man playing the guitar at school. Adam has a passion for music. In the present timeline, he’s playing in a

rock band in some seedy bar, but in the past, before the mom died, his dad wanted him to go to Julliard and I guess be more of a Godly musician. But Adam walks in on this guy playing the guitar. And it all looked so banal and innocuous that I immediately was like, ‘oh it would be really funny if THIS guy turned out to be the devil in disguise’. And then as the two of them start talking, it becomes clear that that’s exactly what’s happening. [Guitar guy:] And I have bargained with the best. [Ada

m:] Bargained? [Guitar guy:] You can have anything you want in this universe, you just have to take it. Which raises a lot of questions for me. Are we meant to believe that playing the guitar in kind of a funky way, or anything other than the most bland acoustic strumming is like, sinful? What is the purpose of this? What is the devil trying to do here? The guitar guy, as the devil, has this line where he says “You know music is just like science.” [Guitar guy:] Music is... it's like science. An

d I was like oh my god, is this movie’s version of Christianity anti-music because music is too scientific? I don’t know. I don’t know what any of this is supposed to mean. But then later, the dad is at a bar and a woman starts flirting with him and they hit it off. And it’s revealed that the devil is the BARTENDER. And the implication is that the devil has somehow tempted the dad into sinning with this woman. And it’s like, again, what are we even supposed to take away from this? In the univers

e of this movie, how are you supposed to avoid the devil? It seems like you can be doing virtually anything, no matter how innocent, and the devil might still be pulling the strings. At which point, like, does it even matter? Is it a sin to play the guitar? Is it a sin to start talking to new people after you’ve been widowed? But that’s just like, the minutiae. What’s really baffling about this movie is just how not a movie it is? They barely frame any of the religious stuff around the character

s or the story, you just have scene after scene of characters yelling bible quotes and references at each other. The majority of the movie is not about our original human characters, but just like bible fanfiction. [Michael:] Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. At least, at the very least, your average evangelical Christian movie is about something. They usually tell a human story and then faith plays into it. This is just a story about the devil

being evil, and a bunch of angels trying to defeat the devil. It’s like a superhero movie. They could have just told the story of a dad trying to reach his troubled son through faith without making angels and demons literal characters, and I still probably would’ve disagreed with the spiritual message, but at least it would’ve been a story. One that a viewer might have been able to relate to in some way. I have always been so confused by this interpretation of Christianity, because it feels so d

isconnected from any of the values or potential tangible good that can come from being religious. It’s like playing with action figures. I guess maybe you could get some people to believe by telling them that the devil is a real, physical supervillain trying to take over the world, but like, to what end? What does that do for anyone? But whatever, I’m not here to discuss religion. I’m here to tell you about the funny stuff in this movie. Because I certainly don’t expect or want you to watch it y

ourself. There are a lot of funny little details to dissect here. Like I said, there are some flashback scenes, back to when the mom was alive, and the dad is wearing the funniest wig in these segments. It looks like the haircut I gave myself last summer. At one point Adam meets our main angel character, who manifests on Earth as a homeless man, and he and his angel buddy are playing what appears to be a loose cover of Blow, Gabriel, Blow. [Man singing:] Do you hear that playin'? Yeah I can hear

that playin'. [Sutton Foster, speaking to music, more uptempo:] Do you hear that playin? [Ensemble:] Yes I hear that playin'! [Man singing:] Well it's Gabriel playin'. Will you be ready when I blow my horn? [Sutton Foster singing:] Why it's Gabriel, Gabriel playin', Gabriel Gabriel sayin'... Will you be ready to go when I blow my horn? I only know this song because last year I got really into the soundtrack of the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes, where this song originates. Like correct me if

these lyrics stem from anything else, but all I can find on them is the Cole Porter song. I just get a little satisfaction from knowing that they’ve selected a song written by a gay man, poking fun at gospel music, meant to be sung by a vampy club singer. The film does not credit the song. It lists it as “Gabriel’s Horn” written and performed by the director. He’s no Sutton Foster, I can tell you that much. Speaking of music, Adam also gets a brief original song… [Adam, singing badly:] It's gon

na find you in the night... You better run for your life... You know, on second thought, maybe his dad is right. Maybe he should’ve stayed in school. By the way, this movie is free to watch on YouTube, and comments are turned off. I can’t imagine why. Something I really enjoyed about Adam’s Testament is that it’s a fascinating window into what evangelical Christians think ‘edgy’ people act and look like? The movie’s ‘den of sin’ is this pretty tame-looking bar called Purgatory, subtle, and every

body in there is just kinda wearing black. Maybe they’ve got some eyeliner on. You can tell Adam’s strayed from the path because he rides a motorcycle and his girlfriend wears thigh-high socks. Apparently the only god-honoring way to play the guitar is to gently fingerpick on your acoustic. [Acoustic strumming] Only major chords, and you better not have a dark-colored guitar. People in this movie also speak Latin on and off? It’s really awkward, like they’ll say a sentence in English but say one

word in Latin. And the movie has the gall to subtitle that one word, it’s crazy. [Man:] Now what brings a [unintelligible] and a [unintelligible] into our [unintelligible]? The end of this movie is pretty funny. Adam’s dad dies for no reason, and Adam plays his godly guitar music at the funeral. I was losing my shit at this little kid’s face. After the funeral, the devil shows up at the graveyard, and the angels also show up, and they all just kind of back the devil into a grave and he lights o

n fire for some reason. I’m not super clear on why. It’s surreal. [Devil yelling] And then we end on some really low-quality drone footage with what I think are supposed to be the angels floating back into the sky. Slam dunk. I would like to study the brains of the people who made this. I’m not a big fan of faith-based movies on principle, because usually, by nature of having that agenda to try and proselytize, the movie has to present a fairly uncritical portrait of whatever religion it’s promo

ting. It can’t really authentically engage with its material because it’s trying to sell you something. But Adam’s Testament isn’t just bad because it’s Christian propaganda. It’s bad because the filmmakers seem to have fundamentally misunderstood what movies are. This is like the Room of Christian movies. It’s kind of unbelievable. But again, that doesn’t mean you should watch it. I felt bad even watching it on YouTube because every time an ad played, I was presumably sending money to whoever m

ade it. Usually with these films I’m like ‘well I can’t judge the actors for appearing in these bad movies, they just did it for a check, and maybe I’d do the same thing if I had the power to get cast in a stupid movie.’ But I feel slightly differently about this one. I’m judging Luke a little bit. Surely you could’ve found another Hallmark Christmas movie or something instead of this. All in all, I have to say, given the choice between this boring group of sad boy angels, and this slutty group

of tap-dancing demons, I’m gonna have to go with the demons every time. I hope you’re all satisfied with the new additions to our Degrassi actor movie collection. I like doing these videos because it’s such an effective way to get a sampling of different types of bad movies. Like I NEVER would’ve known about the existence of something like Adam’s Testament if not for this video. Maybe that’s a bad thing, actually. Sometimes I worry that we’ll run out of material for this series, but honestly I d

on’t think that’s going to happen for the foreseeable future. I can just click on the IMDB of any number of Degrassi alums and find all sorts of buried treasure. As always, don’t be afraid to share your bad Degrassi actor movie recommendations, I do keep track of them. One idea that’s come up before is to do a ‘GOOD movies starring Degrassi actors,’ and I’m not opposed to that, I just tend to enjoy talking about bad movies more than good ones, so I haven’t gotten around to it yet. But I know the

re are some good contenders for a list like that. I have several videos in the pipeline. If all goes according to plan, my next video should be the start of a pretty in-depth series on a certain TV show. If you follow me on Twitter, you probably already know what that’s about. Do subscribe to my YouTube channel. It’s all I have. And watch out for sharks in the water. Even in fresh water. You can never be sure.