An evangelical propaganda piece in which the hero is a dead-eyed Mississippi preacher of the fire and brimstone variety, "The Burning Hell" alleviates the misery of its hectoring tone via re-enactments of biblical stories full of heavy-handed imagery and enjoyably wooden acting but ultimately adds up to little more than a sad indictment of its own fear-mongering ways. Basically its message is that if you don't believe the same way that Estus W. Pirkle does, you're an evil person and you're going to hell and hell is not a very nice place by the way. Everything in the bible is literal and you're a charlatan if you say otherwise. Not convinced? Here's a volunteer actor with worms on him and flames superimposed over his visage. Scary, ain't it? Well, it's quaint at least. Seriously, though, it's hard to imagine this bitter sermon converting the uninitiated, despite that being the basic plot of the movie, because the pastor himself is so charmless and angry. Essentially it's a movie made for evangelicals to push onto unsuspecting friends and relatives, who I can only hope find as much comedy in it as I did.
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