Whether you believe in it or not, there’s a lot of scary stuff in The Bible. It’s got beheadings, monsters, demonic possessions, natural disasters, the apocalypse … I could go on. The point is, if you want to make a horror movie based on Biblical events, there’s no shortage of material. Which is why it might seem odd that the new movie “The Carpenter’s Son” is a horror movie about Jesus Christ, in which his divine miracles — like curing the sick and exorcising demons (you know, the objectively good stuff) — are presented with the same ominous sting music as Damien decapitating his enemies in “The Omen.”
Strictly speaking, “The Carpenter’s Son” isn’t based on The Bible. It’s based on The Apocrypha, aka the unofficial books of The Bible. If you’re not familiar with The Apocrypha, they’re a bit like “Never Say Never Again” and the 1967 “Casino Royale,” in that they’re technically James Bond movies but the studio that currently owns the rights doesn’t consider them canon.
“The Carpenter’s Son” is adapted from “The Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” which depicts the messiah’s early years as a child as he discovers his supernatural powers. Nicolas Cage plays “The Carpenter,” FKA Twigs plays “The Mother” and Noah Jupe plays “The Boy” (Jesus), and look, they’re Joseph, Mary and Jesus, okay? We get it. We all get it. There’s no need to pretend there’s any plausible deniability.
The film begins with the birth of Jesus, and follows Joseph and Mary as they escape Herod’s mass murder of all the young children in Bethlehem. It’s freaky stuff, and genuinely terrifying. Years later, Joseph and his family are still on the run. He’s turned into a stern, paranoid taskmaster. He’s constantly afraid of attracting attention and is obsessed with his son’s moral upbringing. Jesus is a young teenager, and like all young teenagers, he’s knee-deep in a rebellious phase and hanging out with the local troublemaker, in this case an androgynous goth kid who is obviously Satan (Souheila Yacoub).
Satan tempts Jesus with fun illicit acts like touching lepers and playing with wooden snakes. (Whee!) Joseph will have none of that, and throws Jesus in a wooden cage so he think about what he’s done. It’s tempting to say Joseph shouldn’t throw stones, since he’s making his money by carving false idols, but this is a prequel and “shouldn’t throw stones” hasn’t been invented yet.
If you could somehow remove the Biblical context of “The Carpenter’s Son,” the movie might work, since the whole thing hinges on whether Jesus Christ will use his powers for good or evil. Let’s just say there’s no way the ending could possibly be a spoiler. There’s no suspense because there’s zero chance Jesus is going to join Mephistopheles’ Brotherhood of Evil Messiahs. It just doesn’t work.
The question, of course, is whether “working” was ever a possibility, but the answer is yes. Beefing up the supporting cast would have given “The Carpenter’s Son” more x-factors, because although we know exactly what happened to Jesus, we don’t know what happened to his neighbors, his teachers, or that girl he’s crushing on. None of those characters are developed enough to care about, but if they were, there’s a chance the collateral damage in this early battle between Joseph, Jesus and Satan might have been involving and intense.
But the real problem is that, more than anything, “The Carpenter’s Son” is Joseph’s story. He’s the one who has been walking on eggshells for over a decade, in perpetual terror of persecution and execution. He’s the one sacrificing his religious ideals to feed his family, while trying to raise a son to live up to those ideals. And he’s the one raising someone else’s son, and taking it on faith — dwindling, dwindling faith — that God was the real father, and not just some other guy Mary slept with.
When viewed through Joseph’s eyes there is, indeed, a lot of doubt as to whether Jesus is worth all of Joseph’s trouble. So if Jesus is just a normal flawed child, or if he is all-powerful but succumbs to sin and turns into a monster, that’s a scary thought to Joseph. Emphasizing Joseph fighting his doubts could have been disturbing, even if we are way ahead of him and know that Jesus will turn out just fine.
Yes, all that could have been great, but writer/director Lotfy Nathan opts instead to spend as much or more time with Jesus Christ, so Joseph’s perspective repeatedly goes missing. Joseph isn’t a protagonist with a tragically skewed perspective, he’s a naysaying supporting player who can’t get with the program. Nicolas Cage has never phoned in a performance before and he hasn’t started now, but the film’s direction detracts from his otherwise fine work.
Noah Jupe is a perfectly adequate Jesus, and FKA Twigs is a particularly drowsy Mary. The MVP of “The Carpenter’s Son” is Souheila Yacoub, whose take on Satan as an emotionally disturbed and manipulative child is fascinating. There’s a sad sense that Satan wants to corrupt Jesus not because it’s the evil thing to do, but because Satan is incredibly lonely and just needs somebody else to understand him. Of course, to do that, Jesus would have to reject God and embrace sin, which he won’t do. But the moments of horrifying temptation — played, equally, as moments of empathy — have a power the rest of this movie can’t match.
“The Carpenter’s Son” is a Biblical horror movie with interesting ideas. They just don’t seem interesting because the perspective is cockeyed, which nullifies the film’s ability to trouble our hearts. Then again, Jesus Christ famously said we shouldn’t let our hearts be troubled at all. So at least this horror movie has that going for it.
