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Nicolas Cage could be the optimal choice for a audacious scary movie centered on Jesus Christ, though not for the reasons certain viewers could guess. Truthfully, the star doesn't actually play the central religious figure in the new film: the part he plays is credited simply as The Carpenter. He is positioned as a father figure in this story, working to keep his beliefs while The Boy (acted by the young actor), his teenage adopted son, starts to show supernatural abilities. The reason it’s difficult to picture another major actor playing this part is that even as the role becomes stricken with multiple difficulties, Cage himself seems nearly touchingly convinced that the dark, bleak small film is a valuable project.

The Actor's Latest Projects

Nicolas Cage was allocating those years more selectively lately. He yet stars in more movies than most regular audiences may ever watch — as an illustration, did you know that the man has made several different frontier films in the past three years? — but he also includes esteemed independent films like Dream Scenario, Pig, and Longlegs. The Carpenter’s Son seems like in that category, as it’s not strictly scary, possibly controversial, and takes a campy-sounding premise in a earnest manner.

The Film's Storyline and Handling

Regrettably, filmmaker the director fails to repay viewer engagement. The film opens in a compellingly nomadic context, presented as based on an obscure religious text concerning Christ’s childhood. The Carpenter, The Mother, and their child relocate frequently, anxious of religious persecution or doubt about their son's strange powers. “Trouble pursues us,” The Carpenter sadly observes. This persists when dark forces attack the family where they currently live, getting a jump-start with that well-known scriptural test for The Boy.

At times, the film echoes an demonic possession-type possession movie, except that not one of the central roles are clearly inhabited. Instead, they are progressively isolated from each other, as these powers influence a local young woman (the actress, credited as an outsider) who the son connects to, and provides each character unsettling premonitions of a dark tomorrow. Cage's role notably grapples with his place in this story, at times chastising the son who mystifies him.

Discussion and Care

This material is apt to invite debate, and the director handles it with plenty of delicacy — overly, perhaps. The idea of a teenage boy dealing with his future martyrdom and lured by unknown powers is indeed scary, but the filmmaker could be hesitant regarding looking exploitative and keen to telegraph his goals, so he often retreats into gloomily threatening cinematography. The figures constantly ponder — FKA Twigs, who displayed genuine potential in a recent film update, surprisingly — surrenders her role to her Mother Mary cloak, sometimes broken up by some gnarly horror imagery.

Cage's Portrayal and Movie's Shortcomings

Simultaneously, the actor dabbles in precisely the type of melodramatic acting that his ironic fans may desire. An instance (also included) in previews where he loses control and screams “My faith has been shattered!” Should such of florid outburst is included in a Jesus-themed horror movie, perhaps a more boldly ridiculous approach would be more effective of the actor's readiness to be extreme when necessary. Instead, The Carpenter’s Son is closer to the weaker low-budget productions he starred in over that period — excluding the campy action films so much as the dramas and paranormal movies that typically appear interesting, and often contain some select Cage moments, but ultimately feel like, frankly, cheap home video fare.

Frankly, a number of those, although simpler, were more watchable as a whole. At this point I must violate my usual practice, not religious but career-related: Long ago, a beloved editor persuaded me to banish descriptive terms like “boring” or “dull” from my analytical lexicon. Such terms express scant other than a subjective and generically described impatience, disengaging from the task of vibrantly communicating the intellectual and emotional experience of seeing a specific film. It’s difficult to communicate monotony without appearing dull personally. It's equally vague as labeling a movie “engaging.” “Say more,” that is.

Yet, I acknowledge, I grew weary throughout The Carpenter’s Son. To the movie’s non-exploitative credit, it’s a religious style of stultification, not due to this movie is moralizing, but as it demands a sort of dutiful submission to sit through it. After a while soon after starting, the film settles into a monotonous pattern of ongoing suffering, and fails to