“Let’s Start a Cult” is a rude and raunchy farce that’s amusingly in step with our times even as it strains for laughs in all the most vulgar places.

It’s a star vehicle for co-writer and walking, eating, sweating and cursing sight gag Stavros Halkias of the working class comedy “Tires” on Netflix. Here, he’s a delusional, gregarious goof-off, the odd-man out in the Cosmic Dynasty death cult.

They die, and he’s excluded from their death ritual, sent on another errand that he’s too scatterbrained and distracted by his appetites to carry out.

Ben Kitnick’s film sets up the cult life, cult ethos and cult vibe with “interviews” with the seven members semi-secluded on a Midwestern farm, all followers of the redheaded messiah and “Father Shepherd” Will (co-writer Wes Haney).

He’s the one who dreamed up this ethereal afterlife destination “Jalenazano,” where “energy dolphins” and other magical creatures reside, if only he and his devotees can shed their mortal bodies, “the chrysalis from which we emerge as our true selves!”

It’s the spring of 2000, and Will has attracted a collection of self-esteem-starved souls seeking meaning. Chunky monkey Chip (Halkias) is their mouthy wildcard, a victim of his needs and impulses — he masturbates and eats blurts-out whatever on his mind at this moment.

Sharing a sacremental drink from the same cup as the cult lady with herpes sores?”Can I get maybe another cup?”

Chip is always getting sent to “The Punishment Barn” to  shiver and sleep and reflect on his latest transgression. But after the cult members have talked about their faith and their dreams for that videotape Will entrusts slovenly, scatterbrained Chip to deliver than vhs to a TV newscaster who will spread their message to the world.

Chip’s junk food run distracts him from his task, and when he gets back, they’re all dead. He covers his tracks and goes home to the family gravel distribution business (Ethan Suplee plays his sneering, abusive brother). But when the news finally gets out that the cult has killed itself, it turns out that Will wasn’t among the dead. He’s wanted.

Chip, forgetting all the impulses that didn’t pay off — karate training in Japan when sumo was his best bet — and life paths he never followed through on, vows to track the con-man/murderer down. But when he finds Will disguised as the world’s worst kid’s party clown, “justice” and “revenge” are forgotten.

Let’s start another cult, “do it RIGHT this time,” with Chip as “co-leader.” All they need are the right sort of lost, dorky dead-enders and they’ll be ready for “transcendence” all over again.

Katy Fullan plays a volatile, self-esteem-starved young woman raging at the judge who took away the child she wasn’t fit to raise. And Eric Rahill is just the guy they’re looking for among all the recruits strolling out of the Armed Forces Recruitment office. “Strong?” No. “Focused?” No. Tyler looks rejected and dejected, even though he showed up wearing storebought Army combat fatigues.

“They say dress for the job you want!”

This motley crew makes its away cross country, stealing, adding to their ranks and hiding their true goal — this “family” is a cult, and this isn’t our first — from the new acolytes.

The gags are profane and slapshticky, with Halkias looking for laughs in the simple act of a rotund slob running. The sinister subtext is kept on simmer until it pops back up, and a retired lady wrestler (Sarafina Vecchio) is introduced for some third act lowdown and dirty chuckles.

But the big laughs aren’t here and a dirty, crude collection of gross jokes and body-shaming sight gags can only get you so far.

Any indie comedy that achieves “kind of watchable” is a win. But “Let’s Start a Cult” has “Dumb and Dumber,” “Billy Madison” ambitions and never comes close to achieving them.

Rating: unrated, mass suicide, sex, nudity, profanity

Cast: Stavros Halkias, Wes Haney, Katy Fullan, Eric Rahill, Sarafina Vecchio and Ethan Suplee

Credits: Directed by Ben Kitnick, scripted by Wes Haney, Ben Kitnick and Stavros Halkias. A Dark Sky release.

Running time: 1:31