Well if you ever wanted to see what the hillbillies from Deliverance were doing before them city boys got canoeing, well here's ya chance. God damn, James Franco movies. There ain't nothing like them. The pretence of art cinema with the clumsiness and cheap cinematography of a direct to DVD film, his directorial resume is littered with flyover vanity projects that seem to have been made only because the money was there.

Child of God is another one of these pointless Franco films, a character study which tries your patience with its tangential narrative, claustrophobic camerawork and deeply unpleasant characters. I straight out laughed my arse off during several scenes in this film as I struggled to find the point of seeing our protagonist defecate in the first five minutes or hump a dead corpse (there's the spoilers) round about the time he would have killed four people by now in any other serial killer film that was worth a damn.

I would be lying if I said Scott Haze was not at least committed, however I would be nothing except paid off if I said I understood thirty percent of what he was saying or that I gave a full view crap about anything that went on in this film.

The dialogue is stale and the performances are not all that better. The one saving grave of this film might be it's period setting, but considering most of this film takes place in scuttlebutt woods, a few old cars and a stacked wardrobe is not really all that impressive.

I can't find anything else to say about Child of God other than that it's either a boring as hell serial killer film or an indulgent character study that features a committed central performance but has no real story to propel it. It's a plodding effort that I don't see myself remembering much of by next week.

Scott Haze convincingly plays the title role as Lester Ballard, a mentally deficient adult who lives off the land in rural Tennessee. He is the type of man who yells at passing cars. The film is set in the 1950s (?) in late autumn. The only home Lester has known was recently auctioned off. Through a series of circumstances Lester discovers necrophilia, which has never been one of my favorite film topics, except for maybe as a dark comedy which this wasn't.

I will say the acting was excellent. The story was done well, bravo James Franco, but unfortunately didn't go anywhere. This is an excellent crime/ drama/ thriller, I didn't enjoy.

Parental Guide: F-bomb, sex, necrophilia, nudity (Nina Ljeti, Elena McGhee)

James Franco is wicked. If that's a good thing or not is up to you, but he kept and keeps himself busy. Very busy, but not making Hollywood movies (which he does have the looks and appeal to do),but making movies like this. In this case, he mostly settled with directing rather than acting (though he does have a small part in the movie too).

The story is very strange is mainly based on the main performance of our lead, who does a great job with a crazy character (no pun intended). The movie played at Sitges, but at a very late hour, which made a slow paced movie like this almost impossible to watch. From the crowd reaction, I know we were all drained by the end of it (and not always in a good sense). And while this is not solid gold, there is something raw hidden inside the tough exterior ...