Last night I watched "The Passion of the Christ." This morning I awoke with sweaty, twisted sheets, exhausted from terrible crimson dreams. Mel Gibson got me. He clobbered me over the head with a vision of relentless savagery and stupidity. He got me so good that I had to spend hours after the film ended in a nightmarish world where everybody I met proclaimed himself Messiah and demanded I touch their open wounds. No kidding.

I would love to make jokes about this movie to deflate its righteousness. While in the theater, I thought of many quips in an attempt to stave off the film's despair-inducing power. For example, there are many parallels between "The Passion" and "The Lord of the Rings." Clearly, Jesus and Aragorn are interchangeable: in addition to both looking like grizzled hippies, they embody the strong and silent type as they brood over taking their rightful place as the High King. Or when the sun comes up over craggy mountains before the final crucifixion, you can just hear Legolas reciting, "The red sun rises. Blood has been spilled this night." And believe you me, blood certainly has been spilled. It's also hard to deny the striking similarity between the Orcs and Ring Wraiths and the Roman henchmen and hooded Jews.

But this movie is serious business. It's not at all profound, yet it carries a serious, downright sinister meaning. "The Passion" says nothing about Christ and everything about humans, particularly those humans who made and appreciate it. I don't want to know the soul who finds something spiritual in this bloodbath; Jesus is merely an object upon which people show their cruelty. There is no place for compassion or forgiveness in the film, only anger-the rage of frightened spirits screaming through biblical interpretation. I felt trapped in a journey back to the misery and ignorance of the darkest of the Dark Ages. The movie is an ugly step backwards, a throwback to a more brutish time in history and an unrepentant middle finger to progress. Quite simply, it is an endorsement of the primitive, ruthless element in humanity.

If Mel Gibson hadn't publicly proclaimed that this movie represents the truth, it might not be so scary. If this movie hadn't become a cultural division in America, it might not be so menacing. But the film inherently projects itself as "The Way It Was," and not just a possible depiction. Ultimately, the knowledge that "The Passion" is backed by such a mass of faith overwhelms me. It's not a movie to be passively watched, but a line drawn in the sands of Canaan. Every lash of the whip, splash of blood and whimper of suffering asks: Do you, the audience, have what it takes? Can you stomach the truth? There is no kind, wise Jesus to soften the question, no centuries of material comfort to cushion the challenge.