Film director plans to release faith-based movies laced with profanities

Spencer Folmar appears in a screen capture of a video from his YouTube channel. | YouTube/Spencer T Folmar

As writer-director Spencer Folmar is preparing to release his new faith-based movie that contains 32 profanities, he is expressing his plans to make more films littered with "F-bombs" in an attempt to cater to a wider movie audience.

Folmar's upcoming movie, "Generational Sins," is reportedly overflowing with profanity, and it has earned a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America. But it has received the approval of the faith-based Dove Foundation, which stamps its seal of approval on family-friendly movies.

Despite the PG-13 rating, the Dove Foundation placed the film in its new category for viewers aged 18 and above. Dove President Suzy Sammons said that the movie "has not only cautionary elements in it, but positive ones. There's an overt godly message with Christian values."

Sammons' non-profit organization has reviewed 12,000 movies since its founding in 1991, and its recommendations are used by over 750,000 people. She noted that films like "Hacksaw Ridge" and "Passion of the Christ" are other examples of movies that might also warrant Dove's new 18-plus recommendations.

Folmar has described his work as a "hard faith" film, hoping to trademark the phrase before he releases more profanity-laced movies.

The writer-director noted that "Generational Sins," which will hit the theaters on Oct. 6 via Freestyle Digital Media, is not only for Christians.

"We're not only targeting faith-based moviegoers, we're also going after 'Chreasters' — people who only go to church on Christmas and Easter," he said, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

"If we tell stories of adults struggling with faith, adults will run toward them, so we're working hard on creating this new genre," he added.

Folmar's production outfit, Third Brother Films, reportedly has more such movies in the works, including one based on Johnny Cash's "The Beast In Me." But the writer-director is already drawing backlash from some critics such as MovieGuide, which is accusing him of marketing his movie based on the unusually large number of cuss words it contains.

MovieGuide, which is a website that reviews family-friendly films, contends that movies "don't need to be filled with foul language, explicit sex, drug use and the like to reach out to people that aren't walking with God."

It has given "Generational Sins" its lowest ranking when it comes to language, due to the 32 uses of profanity in the film.

MovieGuide further noted that films with no foul language made an average of $61.4 million domestically in 2016, while those with more than 25 curse words made an average $34 million.

In a recent opinion piece for The Christian Post, Folmar contended that the movie industry needs movies like "Generational Sins" because they "are gritty and true-to-life films" that has the chance of being seen by non-Christians.