Movies
[Official Review] ‘Dear God No!’ A Throwback That Lacks Depth
Reviewed by Mike Ferraro
What a film. Dear God No is a throwback genre film bringing us back to the glory days of Grindhouse cinema. Writer/director James Bickert made the brilliant choice of shooting this film on actual 16mm film – a giant step in the right direction of filmmaking! As you’re watching, you can’t help but miss the format. It’s not like digital cinema has cinematography as a whole. It’s just so painfully obvious how it all lacks a certain depth. With this film, it’s nice to see things like how the foreground separates from the background, a little bit of grain covering the whole image throughout the entire picture, and how the lighting looks way more realistic.
But that is about all for which we can really praise.
Dear God No tells the story of a Jett (Jett Bryant), the leader of a devil-worshipping motorcycle gang, who spend their time raping nuns and murdering people. The group decides to pick on a group of wealthy college types at a cabin in the middle of the woods.
In this cabin, Dr. Marco (Paul McComisky) has been dabbing a bit with trying to cure the dead (most notably, his dead wife). With that, however, also comes a giant sasquatch-like creature, roaming the woods and knocking off heads of passersby. So when the undead wife comes from out of the basement as this gang prepares themselves to rape a pregnant lady, they just see it as another opportunity to rape someone else. If Dead Girl taught us anything cinematically, it’s that thou shall not rape that which no longer lives.
Since the Tarantino/Rodriguez created Grindhouse double-feature from a few years ago, filmmakers far and wide have created films of that ilk to keep the genre going. Only a few of them have really succeeded (like Hobo With a Shotgun and maybe Bad Ass) and the others just try too hard. Dear God No definitely falls into that latter category. The harder the filmmaker tries to shock us – and there are moments – the easier it becomes to not care about what we are seeing. It’s one thing to shock for a purpose but it is another to shock for no reason whatsoever, simply because you are trying to tap into certain genre requirements.
The DVD is chocked full of special features regarding the making of the film. It even contains traces of its marketing campaign – most notably, specific genre related spots (torture porn, zombie). We are also blessed with 2 commentaries – filmmaker and actor – if you are so inclined to sit through this film a couple of more times. That is not going to be an easy task.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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