Maybe God Doesn't Love You

Kevin Smith's Red State and its defanged, meaningless ending

Director Kevin Smith enraged the religious right (especially Catholics) with his 1999 movie, Dogma. Though Catholics were probably right to suspect Smith’s motives (Hollywood atheist, of course), the central plot tenets and the fallen angels plan centered around taking Church law and the fact of Christianity seriously. It was religious humans who were mocked, not God Himself. (Yes, God was portrayed by Alanis Morrisette, but the script made clear God is NOT a woman. Or a man).

Undeterred, Smith went on to make another movie that heavily featured religion in 2011. Red State is an action horror movie that involves three teen boys who are kidnapped by a violent fundamentalist doomsday church (modeled off the Westboro Baptist Church—The God Hates Fags people). Lured by the promise of no-strings sex, the boys are held captive with the intent of being hate-crimed as part of the church services.

But things don’t go as planned. For anyone.

The movie, as it appeared in theaters, started off stron…