Cruel & Unusual could be taken as religious propaganda - especially of the desert cults like Christianity or Islam. But that hardly matters, as it is a fantasy (like religions, in fact). We are so used to daemons and second comings and what-not in fantasy stories, really all that can just be taken as a given.
But the approach of this film is what's so original. It's extremely 'crisp', and 'sharp' - presented almost like a Science Fiction film, in the coldly analytical, urgent way it unfolds.
All the performances are good, it is cut beautifully, and it never drops the pace.
I have seen some idiot reviews elsewhere on the web, including by magazine reviewers who obviously never actually saw the film and include all sorts of false detail that wasn't actually there.
And I think that may be where this film hit a big snag - it's distribution was so low that everyone assumed it was either some awful straight-to-DVD release, or assumed they already knew what the story was.
In doing so, they missed out on a great, very dark little piece of fantasy film making. Sure, it may cover some ground that's been covered before, but that's in the nature of the beast: Fantasy, ironically, is a limited field - Science Fiction is less so, and Reality is not limited at all. All writers of scripts and books know this, whether they admit knowing it or not.
I really liked Cruel & Unusual and wish the disc was easier to come by.
A particular highlight was the use of a great Shriekback track in one of the film's darkest scenes.
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