adjective [ attrib. ]
• of or relating to a supposed nonphysical realm of existence to which various psychic and paranormal phenomena are ascribed, and in which the physical human body is said to have a counterpart.
If you remember, my last encounter with Friday the 13th: The Series, Episode 3.3, Crippled Inside was about a high school girl who possessed a magical and cursed wicker wheelchair that allowed her to astral project and commit physical acts of revenge on a villainous gang of high school boys.
Well this one, Episode 1.12, Faith Healer, was directed by David Cronenberg, and is about an evangelist who claims to heal the diseased and dying. Despite common sense I initially hoped it was going to be the same Crippled Inside story, told again. I hoped the whole series was just variations on that concept. It wasn't, of course, though the first scene features a young blind man in a wheelchair. He's in a church and the evangelist circles him as he explains to the gathered crowd how the ethereal hand of god will heal the boy, using the evangelist as a vessel of course, and but then just as he's about to demonstrate a party-pooper intervenes and accuses the evangelist of being a fraud. He pops a contact out of the boy's eye and asks the audience: why would a blind man wear contacts? As the crowd gasps, the evangelist dashes out of the church...
CUT TO:
In the alley an old man in a wheelchair, angry from betrayal, verbally lashes out at the evangelist. Old dude's pissed because he wanted to be healed. The lying piece of shit evangelist simply runs past the wheelchair bound old man; but despite the geriatric condition of his aggressors, he's frantic, and he falls into some trash ditch at the end of the alley. Among the garbage is a Roger Rabbit kind of cartoony oversized white glove, which for some mystical reason the evangelist immediately wants to stick his hand inside.
BIG MOMENT:
A diseased woman approaches him - her disease is a melting face of sores. Very Cronenbergian. She's pissed like the previous wheelchair man and accosts the evangelist regarding his deception and amorality and wickedness, etc., false advertising etc., and but do I have to tell you that the goddamn glove really fucking heals? Swear to God it does. He touches the woman and she turns middle-aged and red-headed and cured. The evangelist is stoked - his luck really turned around in short order.
CUT TO:
SHIT, the woman's affliction is in the glove! You can tell because it's full of sores now, too, and when the evangelist goes to pull the glove off parts of his skin rise up with the glove, exposing a bloody fleshless interior in his forearm, very Cronenbergian. The guy understandably freaks out, which attracts the attention of a policeman who is serendipitously across the street.
NO SHIT:
The fucking glove can pass on the disease to other people! And not only that, but through the science of this process, the disease is magnified and worsened and the gloved victim dies of horribleness in complete agony and terrible, ultimate suffering. Adios officer.
DUDE'S REALLY EXCITED:
Because his shtick just went legitimate. You don't see him fist pumping the air though (because this is fucking Cronenberg), you see him on a television commercial, advertising his real-deal healing powers. Those kids with their bullshit whatever recurring plot line which ties together the series see him on tv. And in this season the uncle is around with the bullshit kids and anyway for some reason I forget they need to get the glove, which is this episode's cursed object!
SOME DULL SHIT ABOUT THIS OR THAT:
Anyway the uncle, Jack, is old friends with the skeptical party-pooper from the first sequence, whose name is Jerry. And anyway Jack and Jerry
GO UP THE PLOT HILL, UNTIL:
Jerry confronts the evangelist for a second time. The evangelist is mortified at first, because of their history, but the glove has bolstered his confidence so he accepts Jerry's challenge: he'll heal whomever Jerry selects to be healed, in order to prove to Jerry that now he's authentic.
Jerry reveals to Jack, whom he's tied up, that HE suffers from a fatal disease; Jerry himself has some melted chocolate colored puss sores on his stomach. That disease is called Very Cronenbergian. HE's going to be the one to be healed.
DRAMATIC CULMINATION:
The evangelist tricks Jerry and doesn't heal him! Dead serious. Well, Jerry's pissed, and he starts firing his Marine pistol, which I forgot to mention. A security guard gets shot, and the evangelist does too. He escapes after Jerry shoots him twice.
HE (THE EVANGELIST) HEALS HIS OWN BULLET WOUNDS USING THE GLOVE:
But while running away crashes his car. Stuck in his car, he has no one to pass the disease (the disease of being shot) onto this time. This passing on of the ailment was demonstrated again before, besides the lady, which I forgot to mention. It was another lady, in an alley, and it involved a poodle in flight.
Also, Jack is tied up because Jerry double-crossed him because using cursed objects for personal gain is very morally reprehensible, and although Jack and Jerry are best friends, there's still no reason for Jack to allow Jerry to fucking use the devil's powers for personal gain, for Christ's sake. Forget about that for a moment though, because the evangelist is in the car and can't move, and Jerry is on the hunt.
CAN YOU FUCKING BELIEVE:
Jerry makes it to the car in time to see the evangelist die from internal gun fires, and the evangelist expires in front of Jerry's eyes.
WHICH IS FINE WITH JERRY, WHO TAKES THE GLOVE FROM NEXT TO THE DEAD EVANGELIST:
And then Jerry plans on healing himself and passing the disease onto Jack. Thankfully the cousins show up in time though.
OH FUCK:
Earlier, in that second demonstration of the glove's powers I forgot to mention but then mentioned, there's fucking pulsing face sores on a woman in an alleyway. Very Cronenbergian.
Thanks again Vendredi Antiques for the image.
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