Religion is a fertile topic for storytelling, especially the fire and brimstone variety. Organized religion has seemingly caused as much pain and suffering as peace and enlightenment, and odds are an audience member will bring their own complicated experiences with the subject matter. So the faith themed indie Nothing But the Blood is tapping into promising material with the potential to connect directly to viewers.

Too bad it hits such easy targets, and doesn’t fully explore the dark side of its reactionary church.

The scrappy, low budget film centers on Jessica (Rachel Hudson, also a producer), an ambitious small town journalist who jumps at the chance to report on the opening of a local sect of a controversial fundamentalist church. While interviewing Michael (Nick Triola), she can’t help but spring some “gotcha” questions about the church’s more notorious practices; he rebuffs her but convinces her to attend a service, where she discovers her love interest Thomas (a bland Jordan O’Neal) is also a member and Michael’s brother.

Her disdain for the fiery sermon delivered by their preacher father (Les Best) is supposed to stand in for the audience’s perspective, but she comes off as more than a little smarmy. For an investigative journalist, she’s not terribly open minded. Her relationship with Thomas will develop and draw her further into the church’s circle—which also includes her abusive ex, Seth (Austin Lynn Hall).

Writer/director Daniel Tucker and his team do a good job overcoming their obviously limited resources with sharp camerawork by Henry Ceiro and pretty waterside locations (the film was shot on location in Austin, San Antonio, and Plugerville, Texas). But the ambling narrative is all over the place, as are the performances. There are bursts of melodrama and bloody violence, as when Seth and his goons storm in and beat the hell out of Thomas, or when Jessica’s friend Katie (Vivian Glazier)’s mom suddenly dies off camera. But these events don’t seem to have real consequences.

Jessica and Thomas continue their love affair and have a little girl, Arcadia (Aria Goodson), who looks to be about nine the first time she appears onscreen (“I guess some years have passed!” I figured). The tension with the church and its sinister patriarch continues, but other than a fleetingly referenced incident or two, we don’t really see what it is that’s so bad about it. We’re apparently supposed to take it as a given that they’re loathsome—the biggest evidence is Seth’s Lifetime Movie character, who does everything but twirl his mustache to show how villainous he is (he also delivers a line about being “a great fuck!” that recalls Kyle McLachlan in the camp classic Showgirls).

Arcadia is little more than a plot device; when she comes to harm, apparently at the church’s hand, Jessica abruptly shifts into lethal avenger mode—I Spit on Your Congregation? As she sneers Bible verses at Seth and Michael, and enacts gruesome violence with wide eyed Thomas in tow, I got the sense that this over the top finale wasn’t quite earned by anything that came before it. We knew the church was going to be Bad, but rather than gradually deepen our understanding of the members and build up to a climax, the film throws out bewildering twists—including a gay subplot that didn’t quite sit right with me—and suddenly lurches from melodrama into blood-soaked revenge territory. I didn’t even fully understand what happened to Arcadia.

I admire the crew’s ambition—they go all out and manage to cover a lot of ground on a slight budget. There are plenty of interesting ideas in the mix here, albeit in a messy, unfocused script that would have benefited from a few more revisions. The whole thing has a pulpy quality that keeps you watching and engaged, even through the sillier moments. Everyone has to start somewhere, and Tucker and co. might follow up his feature length debut with a more polished and compelling film.

Nothing But the Blood is out now on VOD and Blu-ray .