'The Lock In': Is This How Modern Fundamentalists View Porn?

JESUSLAND (aka COLORADO SPRINGS)—Remember The Blair Witch Project? (Optional: Wish you didn't?) Remember what a big splash it made among horror movie fans, with its "found footage" depicting the witchy horrors lurking for a group of teens in the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland? It made beaucoup bucks, got critical acclaim... and was imitated by cut-rate producers the world over. And now a group of Christian fundamentalists d/b/a Holy Moly Pictures are giving it a try as well with The Lock In, set to be released on January 9. For those who aren't too religious, there's apparently a practice of some churches called a "lock in." It's similar to the slumber parties put together by groups of friends, where all spend the night a one of the parents' houses, doing whatever teenagers (and even some pre-teens) are wont to do when they spend the night together, which most readers here have probably had some experience with themselves. However, at church lock-ins, the kids don't get to drink beer (or anything alcoholic), smoke pot (or, really, anything) or surf the internet for porn. They do get to listen to hours and hours of sermonizing and discussions of sermonizing—except at the First Baptist Church of (Somewhere) that serves as the setting for this movie. According to the movie's website, "Pastor Chris" organizes a church lock-in in 2010, and one of those locked-in kids, Justin, brings a video camera to capture all the hilarity—or, in this case, evil! Y'see, according to the movie's trailer, one of the kids sneaks a porno magazine into the lock in, and of course, all hell breaks loose... literally. "Two days after the lock in, Justin reportedly broke down to his parents that he experienced something 'evil' at the lock in," according to The Lock In's website. " He also claimed he captured everything on tape. "After watching the footage, the parents met with church leaders to discuss criminal charges they were considering filing against the church for child endangerment, neglect and torture," the promotional material continues. "A special hearing was immediately organized to find out what was on the tape." If one can judge by the trailer provided, some pretty bad shit went down at First Baptist, including one kid growing fangs and lots of kids running around the church screaming their heads off (possibly literally, but we haven't seen the film). Anyway, "Two pastors, six elders and an unknown number of overseers met at an undisclosed location to view the footage of the tape," the promo material continues. "It was reported that two of the elders resigned their duties immediately after viewing the footage. "Pastor Chris, after viewing the footage, turned in his immediate resignation to the church board." The Lock In appears to be just the ticket to scare the little ones away from pictures of naked people, though the reaction of teenage viewers is likely to be, "What the fuck???" (But then again, according to a recent study, about a quarter of them are sexting each other anyway...) The movie can be ordered from Holy Moly's website for a mere $5.99, but for that price, all you get is a digital download which can be played on any device that can handle mp4 files. We don't plan on ordering it ourselves... but if you do, do let us know how much you enjoyed it!