{"id":53731,"date":"2026-07-04T02:24:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T06:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=53731"},"modified":"2026-07-05T02:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T06:32:18","slug":"jesus-christ-vampire-hunter-25th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/04\/jesus-christ-vampire-hunter-25th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter – 25th Anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nIt’s the son of God, and a luchador, against a cabal of day-walking vampire lesbians in this love letter to B-Horror and 70’s Martial Arts cinema.<\/div>\n

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As the United States celebrates it’s 250th year of existence with a slew of BBQ, cold beer, and enough explosions masquerading\u00a0 as fireworks to make a small militia nervous, a select few of us were celebrating the 25th anniversary of an indie darling straight out of Canada. Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter may sound like an edgy cross between Passion of the Christ and Blade, but what we get is something that feels like Blacula meets Enter The Dragon with a dash of buddy Jesus. This original piece of Canadian film-making would sit right at home in the Tromaverse, next to the likes of Toxic Avenger or Nuke ‘Em High. And much like the son of God, or perhaps even the undead themselves… Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter returns for its 25th anniversary, spit-polished and ready for a fresh new audience since it’s release in 2001.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A dash of blasphemy, a little bit of musical, and a whole lot of ridiculously unrealistic \u201ckung-fu\u201d action come together in this cult hit from director Lee Bemarbre, and writer Ian Driscoll. Demarbre himself has a career formulated around the kind of offerings seen in grind-house films, low budget horror flicks, and low brow comedy, and that journey took off with this project which was his first full length feature. With Driscoll’s concept, and a budget of roughly $100,000, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter proudly steps into the pantheon of films that are so outlandish, you can’t help but to enjoy it. Much of the charm comes from the performance by Phil Caracas as Jesus himself. Don’t expect him to represent the Caucasian Jesus that’s been shoved down society’s throat for long, as he ditches his traditional robe and beard early on for a much more \u201cbad ass\u201d appearance. The change doesn’t make him look too opposing, but his modern attire is rather amusing in scenes such as one in which his mother calls him through a lamp of the Mother Mary just to see how he’s doing. Half of the comedic appeal that Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter has to offer comes from Caracas’ performance, which still entertains all these years later.<\/p>\n

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Another huge draw for me was the role of Santos, played by Jeff Moffet. Santos is a fantastic callback to the real life luchador, Santo, who starred in 60’s and 70’s b-movies such as Santo vs. Frankenstein’s Daughter and the more relevant title, Santo vs. the Vampire Women. Moffet’s Santos teams up with Jesus Christ to take down lesbian vampires, which makes Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter a spiritual successor to an obscure franchise that’s often overlooked by most movie buffs. The obscure call-backs, and care-free approach to storytelling presented within this film make it an offering worth exploring for those of you who saw Plan 9 from Outer Space and thought, \u201cThis needs more Kung Pow: Enter The Fist in it.\u201d With outlandish acting, dry humor, awkward pacing, and a concept that couldn’t have ever possibly been taken seriously, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter has a little bit of something for everyone. Provided they can stomach some cinematic schlock. While I’d love to be able to entice a new audience without comparing this to unconventional movie mash-ups, that’s simply not possible. It’s Wet Hot American Summer for those who liked Beverly Hills Ninja. It’s the styling of a Hammer Horror production mixed with Jesus Christ Superstar, but with far less musical numbers. It’s the best vampire slaying film featuring Jesus to ever come out of Canada!<\/div>\n
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Remastered. Restored. Resurrected. Those three words are the beautifully appropriate tagline for the re-release of the film which is currently making its rounds to various theaters for its 25th anniversary screening. After airing today in Toronto, fans can keep their eyes peeled for screenings in Vancouver, Canada that are pending a release date. If you want all the kung-fu slapping sounds, mad science, and awkward comedy you can handle, but you can’t actively catch a showing, you can currently stream Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter on Tubi, YouTube, and Amazon Prime. But if you want to see it in all of its restored glory, and can’t catch a showing in its final days in Canadian cinemas, you can order the 25th anniversary edition on a 2K Blu-Ray from CineUnderound. Don’t you worry about it not being in 4K, it’s grainy and gorgeous grind-house grit will do just fine with that smaller resolution. As God intended.<\/p>\n

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It’s the son of God, and a luchador, against a cabal of day-walking vampire lesbians in this love letter to B-Horror and 70’s Martial Arts cinema.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4056,1516,219,631,700],"class_list":["post-53731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-b-horror","tag-canada","tag-comedy","tag-martial-arts","tag-musical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53735,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53731\/revisions\/53735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}