Trapped by the Mormons

Beware of blood-sucking Mormons! At least that's the tongue-in-cheek message in Trapped by the Mormons, a campy sendup shot as a 1920s silent movie.

Director Ian Allen (a longtime playwright and stage director) has lovingly re-created the look and indeed narrative style of silent film -- and he's from Salt Lake City, so if he says Mormons are vampires with hypnotic powers, who am I to argue? I suppose this is a one-note joke, more in the style of '70s avant-garde camp than anything else. But, hey, at least it's a funny joke.

There is some very un-Mormon gender bending going on here.

The product of this ingenuity is a slight spin on an obscure motion-picture artifact, but it's surprisingly artfully done.

While positioned firmly as camp, the new Trapped by the Mormons is a surprisingly faithful rendering--at least until the flesh-eating zombies show up.

This kind of thing might tickle a drunk, way off Broadway audience, but on screen it merely shows the futility of following in the faux-silent footsteps of the director Guy Maddin.