Release Year: 2005

Duration: 17 min

Availability: Worldwide

Related: Campus, Environment, Life & Culture, Politics, Shorts, Seventh Art Releasing

“We burned fuel to get here today, children”, says Reverend Billy, “we’re all sinners, it’s complicated...” Filmmaker Rob VanAlkemade follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping on their ten-day “Stop Big Boxes” tour of California. Their goal is to spread a message to Americans to learn to seek the unknown and to “put the odd back in God” by cutting back on consumption. During the tour, the Church conducts cash register exorcisms, (resulting in LA County jail time for the Reverend), parking lot revivals, and hypnotizing sermons, where the Reverend occasionally loses consciousness from absorbing the evil living inside congregant’s credit cards. The documentary concludes in New York City shortly after the Republican National Convention, when Billy is arrested in Times Square on Stop Shopping Day after pleading with the public to “be creative” and “slow down the shopping however you can.”