Nicolas Cage could be the perfect pick for a daring horror film about the biblical figure, though not for the reasons many audiences may think. Truthfully, Cage does not even portray Jesus in the new film: his character is listed merely as The Carpenter. The actor is cast as the Joseph in this narrative, working to maintain his beliefs as the teenage character (played by Noah Jupe), their teenage foster child, commences to show miraculous gifts. The reason it’s difficult to envision any other leading star playing this part is that even as his character grows weighed down with multiple challenges, Nicolas Cage seems nearly moving confident that this gloomy, grim small film is worth his time.
Cage has been allocating those years more judiciously lately. He still does more movies than most regular audiences could possibly view — for instance, are you aware that the man has made three separate Westerns in the past three years? — yet he also includes prestige A24/Neon gigs for example Dream Scenario, Pig, and a further title. The Carpenter’s Son appears to be in that category, because it’s genre-adjacent, potentially provocative, and handles a exaggerated premise with gravity.
Sadly, writer-director Lotfy Nathan does not reward viewer engagement. The Carpenter’s Son starts from a compellingly nomadic setting, presented as inspired by an obscure religious text concerning the early years of Jesus. Cage's character, The Mother, and their son relocate from place to place, fearful of faith-based hostility or suspicion over The Boy’s strange powers. “Trouble pursues us,” The Carpenter gloomily remarks. This persists when dark forces target the family where they currently live, getting a jump-start on the familiar Biblical temptation for the son.
At times, the film echoes an demonic possession-type possession movie, but no one of the central roles are clearly inhabited. Rather, they are progressively isolated from each other, when these entities affect a resident female (Isla Johnston, credited as “The Stranger”) that The Boy forms a relationship with, and provides all troubling visions of a bleak destiny. Cage's role in particular grapples with his place in the narrative, at times berating the son he doesn't completely grasp.
The subject matter is apt to stir disagreement, and the director treats it with much sensitivity — too much, possibly. The idea of a adolescent dealing with his eventual sacrifice and lured by mysterious forces is certainly scary, but the filmmaker could be wary of appearing sensational and anxious to telegraph his intentions, thus he frequently withdraws to dimly foreboding cinematography. The roles continually reflect — FKA Twigs, who demonstrated real promise in the 2024 Crow remake, of all things — cedes her performance to her Mother Mary cloak, occasionally interrupted by a few gnarly horror imagery.
Simultaneously, Cage toy with precisely the type of overacting that his ironic fans could be expecting. There is a moment (featured) in the trailer where he erupts and yells “My faith has been shattered!” If that kind of theatrical release is part of a biblical thriller, perhaps a more brazenly silly style would be more effective of the actor's readiness to go over the top when necessary. Rather, the film echoes the weaker direct-to-video movies he starred in during the 2010s — not the cheesy thrillers so much as the serious stories and supernatural thrillers that always sound promising, and usually have some select memorable scenes, but ultimately feel like, indeed, cheap home video fare.
Truthfully, several of these, although simpler, were more watchable as a whole. Here is where I need to disregard my usual practice, not spiritual but career-related: Long ago, a respected mentor persuaded me to remove words like “boring” or “dull” from my analytical lexicon. These phrases communicate minimal other than a personal and generically described impatience, withdrawing from the task of clearly expressing the thoughtful and feeling of watching a particular movie. It’s difficult to communicate boredom without sounding boring oneself. It’s no more expressive as labeling a movie “interesting.” “Explain further,” in other words.
However, I admit, I was bored throughout The Carpenter’s Son. On the positive side, it is a devotional type of dullness, not because this movie is moralizing, but because it takes a sort of patient acceptance to watch it. After a while in the beginning, this feature locks into a repetitive rhythm of ongoing suffering, and fails to
A geospatial analyst with over a decade of experience in terrain modeling and environmental data visualization.
