It's the end of the world as we know it LEFT BEHIND

Some movies are so ill-conceived from start to finish, they achieve a certain otherworldly quality. Seeing them is like stepping into an alternate dimension where up is down, left is right, and Kirk Cameron gets top billing. Welcome to the world of "Left Behind," a movie that was never meant to be shown in theaters -- and it shows.\nThe film is based on the first volume in the best-selling series of Christian novels and was released straight-to-video last year. It quickly sold three million copies. The film's producers apparently then made the questionable leap of logic that those three million people, who already paid $20 for the video, would pay another $7 to see it again on the big screen. \nThe plot: People start disappearing all over the world (well, almost; we'll get to that). Mass chaos ensues. An eerily ageless Kirk Cameron, playing crack reporter Buck Williams ("You bring me a story, and you know I'll drive it down to the bone."), is on the case. He's assisted handily by lantern-jawed airplane pilot Rayford Steele (Brad Johnson). Since Buck doesn't get to enjoy the film's helpful editing, he doesn't notice that there's usually a cross lying on top of the clothes left behind by the people who disappeared. Yes, you guessed it: It's the Rapture, and the ones who have "placed their faith in Christ alone" get to go hang out with God while everyone else nervously awaits the Antichrist. Bad news for all those people, in, um, what's that place? Oh yeah, Asia. After all the disappearances, the United States rather quickly cedes rule to the United Nations, and there's a whole subplot involving the rise of the aforementioned Antichrist, seven years of evil, etc. \nDirector Victor Sarin follows the maxims of low-budget filmmaking: He doesn't get bogged down in moving the camera around too much, and he disguises the incomplete and alarmingly cheap sets by shrouding almost every scene in 75 percent darkness. This movie will completely creep you out, although not for the reasons the filmmakers intended; it's just unfathomable that someone would make a film centered around the premise that people who don't believe in Jesus are gonna pay bigtime. Talk about throwing the first stone.