Jesus Christ – Messiah or blood sucking parasite? A new film is threatening to rock the Christian faith to its very core, with its allegation that Jesus was actually a vampire who gathered followers by drinking their blood and infecting them with the curse of vampirism. “It’s high time we assessed the origins of this so called ‘Church’ of Christ,” says Kirk Laramie, director, producer and writer of Vampire Jesus, which is due to debut on cable channel Firmament TV next month. “It’s clear that, over the centuries, its acolytes have done their best to sanitise its origins, but it is equally clear that is founded upon the activities an undead fiend who fed on the blood of his followers!” Unsurprisingly, senior religious figures have moved quickly to dismiss the film’s claims, describing them as ‘blasphemous’ and ‘highly offensive’. “To be sure, this utterly outrageous stuff, slanderin’ the greatest man who ever lived – a beacon of goodness and morality, not to mention bein’ the son of God,” declares Brendan O’Fugh, Catholic Bishop of Skibbereen. “I ask you – how can these fellas possibly compare a church that relies on the generous contributions of its members to some kind of blood drinkin’ aristocratic supernatural beast that flounces around in cloaks and other fancy clothes and hangs out in some Gothic pile?”

Laramie is undeterred by such scepticism, contending that the vampiric origins of Christianity are obvious. “Come on, it is there for anybody who has ever watched a Dracula movie to see,” he says. “Jesus rose from the tomb, for God’s sake! After apparently being killed by Roman vampire hunters in an elaborate ritual! That’s another thing – the crucifixion. Why do you think that vampire’s – which pre-date Christianity, incidentally – are so scared of the cross? It obviously repulses them because their Lord, Jesus Christ, was killed on one!” Laramie also points to the speed at which Christianity spread as evidence of the so called Messiah’s true nature. “It was like an infection – one spread by blood,” he says, “It was exponential – as each new acolyte was ‘converted’, they in turn ‘converted’ several more. These supposed ‘conversions’ were initially dome personally by Jesus, then subsequently by his disciples. Again, it all sounds suspiciously like vampirism: one bite and you are a member of the cult.” But Bishop O’Fugh remains unconvinced, thinking the whole thesis of the film ‘ridiculous’. “Now look, I’ve seen my share of these films and they make it clear that these undead fellas can only come out at night – the sun makes ‘em crumble into dust,” he muses. “There’s nothin’ in the Bible about Jesus bein’ nocturnal, now is there? He and his disciples were always out and about durin’ they day. Surely that alone shows this film is a load of bollocks?”

But Laramie believes that O’Fugh and other critics are being far too literal. “I don’t think the aversion to light is meant to literal, but rather allegorical,” he explains. “Lets not forget how secretive the early Christians were – always keeping to the shadows, so to speak. Besides, it isn’t actually established vampire lore that they can’t come out during the day – Bram Stoker had Dracula wandering around London in daylight, after all.” Most damning, from Laramie’s perspective, are certain of the rituals still performed by the church. “How else do we explain all that ‘drinking the blood of Christ business’ if it isn’t symbolic of the origins of their blood cult?” he asks. “They were, quite literally, founded upon the blood of their ‘saviour’. And what, ultimately, does this blood offer? Life everlasting! Just like the bite of a vampire! Immortality, through the sacred blood is their aim!” According Laramie, although the church has spent centuries attempting to conceal its origins, many vestiges of its blood sucking past, like the blood of Christ, can still be discerned. “Just look at the structure – all those Lords and Princes at the top, in the form of Bishops and Cardinals, in their robes, living in their palaces, or should I say castles, lording it over hordes of devoted followers, who support them with their figurative life blood in the form of their money,” he opines. “Like a vampire’s victim, they give their lives to their overlords on the promise of eternal life or, if that doesn’t work, then dire threats of damnation.”

Bishop O’Fugh, who is calling upon all Catholics to boycott the film when it is shown, is exasperated by Laramie’s allegations. “This really is appallin’,” he declares. “Tryin’to make out that the Catholic church, one of the greatest forces for good in this world, is founded upon evil. Next thing he’ll be claimin’ that our nuns are the Brides of bloody Dracula, preyin’ on the children in their care in orphanages! Outrageous! When Jesus said ‘suffer the children unto me’, it wasn’t so that he could drink their innocent blood! OK, I know a few choir boys might have been buggered in vestries, but that’s a different kettle of fish altogether – their immortal souls weren’t bein’ put in peril. Just their arses.”

The Sleaze has contacted a number of occult experts to ascertain their opinion of the theories put forward in Vampire Jesus. Whilst most were positive in their assessments, Britain’s self-styled top vampire hunter, former ‘Bishop’ John Salford, expressed some reservations. “It’s the business with the cross I’d take issue with,” he told us. “When they apparently cower from the cross, could it be that they are actually in supplication to the symbol of their revered founder?” Indeed, Salford, who claims that his own suspicions as to the true origins of the church led to his resignation from the West Midlands Catholic Church, an obscure splinter group from which he obtained his Bishopric for fifty quid, noted that, in his experience, the sign of the cross alone was never effective against the vampires he encountered. “Personally, I always found silver more effective, whether in the form of a cross, bullet or dagger,” he reveals. “Personally, I’ve always suspected that this had something to do with Judas’ betrayal of Christ to the vampire hunter Pontius Pilate for thirty pieces of silver.”