Ave, fellow passion play fans
Season 2018 has brough already some results, but nothing I would call excellent so far.
Yesterday I found something which may be worth checking out if you like such stuff.
Its from the "Greater Grace Church", which has lots of videos on YT. Their passion play 2018 is remarkable for several reasons: Its not only the traditional Jesus passion story, but they also included some type of (fictional) back-story for the crucified thieves in some scenes telling how it came to their crucifixion and why one of them became the "good thief". Interesting aspect adding more atmosphere to the whole concept, I like it.
The crucifixion itself is depicted in a way I would consider as rather convincing in showing the full horror and brutality of the execution. No, there is no nakedness (obviously), but the really horrifying screams of agony, the resisting victims, the crying for mercy, the rough, simple crosses, the fake nails, the atmosphere of unbearable pain and agony, even the acting of the "roman soldiers" - thats all really very well done in my opinion. One of the best I haver seen since years.
The crucified guys are not exactly "super-hot" in their appearance, but more "normal guys", you can identify with.
The only negative aspects I noticed are that the crucifixion takes place partially under very bad lighting conditions (too dark), there are some audio distortions and the whole thing is over too quickly, even if the breaking of the legs is included, they die far too quickly.
But beside that its a highligh of the season 2018 (so far) in my opinion. If you check out the other videos you may find similar ones from recent years, but in far worse video quality, but also with gruesome crucifixion scenes and especially intense screaming.
enjoy...
best regards
Ty.