- Katie Hartfiel
Awesome Filtered Movies- My Review of VidAngel
It's cheaper than RedBox...
It's better for your soul...
It shows up on my TV while I'm sitting in pajama pants eating Pringles...
Best of all- I get to pick which words, sex scenes and violence is muted or cut from my (or my kid's) movie. Is this a dream come true?
Here's how it works- VidAngel is a service that sells you a movie for $20 and allows you to sell it back after watching it for $19. While you own the video, you can legally opt to have it filtered to your choosing. Detailed options allow you to pick the exact words or phrases, types of violence or level of sexual intimacy that you would personally like to omit. Choose as many or as few filters as you would like.
Tonight, my kids watched the Lion King for the first time. I was so excited to mute words like "dumb" and "idiot" and exclude disturbing scenes. While I still had to fast forward though a few scary moments, overall I was super happy with the level of appropriateness for my little eyes and ears.
As for big eyes and ears- my husband and I personally gave up R rated movies years ago. When considering a PG-13 movie, we usually look it up on the Plugged In Movie Review by Focus on the Family to see what sort of objectionable content we can expect. It can be so disappointing when a movie sounds to interesting... yet has serious language or other issues. I have high hopes that VidAngel will be a fantastic resource for us as well as our kids! You're never too mature to want purity for your own eyes and ears as well!
One of the major perks on a spiritual level to an opportunity like this- is a chance to look deeper at my own filters in my brain. As i go through the list of words and references and violent content, I have to ask myself on each line how I feel about certain content. I love that this service will challenge me to grow but also help me to keep my home protected!
For the next few days VidAngel is running a promotion that will allow you to get FREE movies for a year when you and 5 friends watch a filtered $1 movie before June 4th, 2016. A win for everyone! Let me know what your experience is in the comments below!