The VelociPastor Is Getting A Sequel

The VelociPastor, an indie movie made for about $35,000 in 2017, is getting a sequel, the film's [...]

By Russ Burlingame

The VelociPastor, an indie movie made for about $35,000 in 2017, is getting a sequel, the film's official Twitter account has confirmed. The movie got its widest release in 2019, coming to DVD, Blu-ray, and a limited run of VHS tapes as well as becoming widely available on streaming video on demand platforms. Director Brendan Steere, who had also directed a webseries that inspired the feature, tweeted off a short video earlier today showing a "first printing" on the copier. In case anybody was doubting what it was, the official VelociPastor account tweeted shortly after, "first printing of the sequel script."

In Velocipastor, Pastor Doug Jones becomes infected by a curse in China, resulting in him turning into a Velociraptor when he becomes angry. At the direction of a prostitute he decides to kill criminals, including drug-dealing ninjas, by using his transformation.

That's the official description, and while it leaves quite a lot out, it's a fair characterization. On the Emerald City Video Podcast last year, I compared the film's madcap energy and lack of concern with objective reality to the beloved comedy Wet Hot American Summer. The micro-budget shows in a number of hilarious and creative ways, and makes the film better than it could have been if Steere had made any effort to play more of it straight without some major changes to the budget and/or screenplay.

The VelociPastor went from a modest hit to a cult classic almost overnight, after a Redditor shared shots from the movie on r/funny and the resultant flood of enthusiasm caused the movie to sell completely out of physical copies on Amazon, and to shoot up the streaming list. Steere has repeatedly teased a sequel was likely, but this is the first concrete evidence that it is in (at least) pre-production. The challenge may be recreating the passion that fans felt after being genuinely shocked by how good the first one was, in spite of its shaky premise.

You can check out the first film's official synopsis below.

After a devastating family tragedy, a priest travels to China to find deeper spirituality, but instead is endowed with an ancient ability that allows him to turn into a dinosaur. At first, he is horrified by his newfound superpower, but a local prostitute convinces him to use his newfound gift to fight evil – and ninjas. Gregory James Cohan, Alyssa Kempinski, Daniel Steere, Yang Jiechang, Jesse Turits, Fernando Pacheco de Castro star with Aurelio Voltaire in the Wild Eye Releasing title.

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