One additional thought about Wake Up Dead Man:

Johnson, like any liberal or ex-evangelical, is tempted to respond to political polarization by a mirror-image of it: a world of goodies and baddies; if you’re not with us, then you’re against us.

But in the new film, it is clear as day that the priest, Fr. Judd, doesn’t see the world that way. The world is made of nothing but sinners. He views each and every parishioner as a broken soul like himself, in need of Christ’s grace, and he knows that Christ wants each and every soul for himself like a lover longs for his beloved.

The “bad” characters, then—not the murderers, but the normal sinners, some of whom are meant to code MAGA or right-wing—are not vilified as beyond redemption, or even as one of “them” compared to “us” (non-sinners). There are no non-sinners, and thus no “us” or “them.” They are all messed up, whoever and wherever they are, just as we are also messed up, if we are willing to look in the mirror. What each of us needs is forgiveness, because no one is right, not one.

Each of us is a dead man. Each of us needs to be raised from the grave our sins have made. Each of us needs the voice of Christ to call us into life.