Mormon Spoof Film To Be Shown At Isu

A movie satirizing the Mormon church as the work of space aliens initially was rejected by Idaho State University’s Program Board, but it will be shown at the school after all.

“Plan 10 From Outer Space” will be shown today as a fund-raiser for the ISU Cinema Guild. The movie is described by director Trent Harris as a religious satire spoofing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In the film, a 100-year-old plaque left behind by a Mormon conspiracy theorist is discovered on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. The plaque reveals that the church was founded by villainous space aliens, and the woman who discovers it is drawn into their world.

Harris, who debuted the film at Utah’s prestigious Sundance Film Festival in 1995, denied it is anti-Mormon.

“It’s social satire about the culture I grew up in,” said Harris, who lives in Salt Lake City and was raised in eastern Idaho. “Woody Allen made movies about Jews. Fellini made movies about Catholics. I made a movie about Mormons.”

Student fees are not being used to show the movie, which student body President Shane Ostermeier said was a good thing because “it’s possibly the worst film ever made.”

“It’s not a B movie,” he said. “It’s like a D or F movie. It’s not well put together at all.”

The program board voted not to show the movie because it did not want to appear to have a conflict of interest, board coordinator Juliet Mayer said. Carole Wells, the program board’s movie chairman, is involved in a lawsuit over the university’s policy of allowing credit for religion classes.

“It was a student decision,” Mayer said. “It wasn’t because the movie is controversial. We’re concerned this would appear to be an abuse of her position.”

Wells and the seven other members of the movie committee asked for the film because it was on a list requested by students and Harris had offered to present it.

Wells said she did not have a conflict of interest.

“When you see it, you see it’s not a concern,” she said. “I thought it was fun. It’s most fun for people of the LDS faith because they get the humor in it.”

ISU Cinema Guild member Nick Bugenski said he was not worried about the possibility of offending anyone.

“No one is forced to see it,” Bugenski said. “It’s a comedy. It’s not like ‘The Godmakers,’ which slams the LDS religion. It’s more like the way Monty Python was with the Catholic Church.”