Review: 21 questions about the Jesus horror film ‘The Carpenter’s Son’
2025 / Dir. Lotfy Nathan
☆ 1.5/5
Watch if you like: being angry because you’re either offended or really bored, depending upon your religious affiliation.
Director Lotfy Nathan’s new Jesus horror movie, The Carpenter’s Son—which focuses on Jesus as a fifteen-year-old coming into his powers while being tempted by Satan—left me befuddled with only questions:
In what world would Nicolas Cage (Joseph) and FKA Twigs (Mary) ever be married?
Why does Jesus have the stereotypical TikTok boy haircut?
Why is Jesus peeping on his naked neighbor?
Who asked for a scene of Nicolas Cage washing FKA Twigs’ feet?
How does a 90-minute movie feel as long as Sátántangó?
Why does everyone besides Nicolas Cage have a British-ish accent, and he just sounds like Nicolas Cage?
Why does Joseph despise Jesus so much that he is constantly yelling at him and locks him in an animal pen after he cures the leper?
Why is Satan (Isla Johnston, delivering a shockingly moving performance despite having nothing to work with) a child covered in self-harm scars?
Who thought it was a good idea to have Nicolas Cage try to do the Hebrew pronunciation of Satan (Suh-tawn)?
If the movie was filmed in 35 mm, why does it look like cheap digital video, and who gave this movie the budget to shoot on film?
Why are all of the frequent night scenes lit darker than the Battle of Winterfell on Game of Thrones?
How does the tiny, remote village the family is hiding out in manage to have an entire leper colony and an extensive torture facility?
What blackmail did the producers have on FKA Twigs to make her be in this movie?
Was bad Gen AI used to make the incomprehensible hell scenes?
Why does it feel like Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are in some sort of Oedipal arrangement?
Who is this movie for? Do faith-based audiences want a Jesus horror movie with gore and nudity? If it’s for a more secular audience, couldn’t there have been a bit more hand-holding for people not familiar with the non-canonical Infancy Gospel of Thomas that this is based on?
Even if they are well-known religious figures, can’t Joseph and Mary still have character backgrounds and arcs?
Why is the only enjoyable part of this movie when Joseph shrieks at Mary, “MY FAITH HAS BEEN SHATTERED… BECAUSE OF YOU!” and why couldn’t he have brought that level of Wicker Man derangement to turn this into a fun bad movie instead of an actually bad movie?
Couldn’t we have gotten Uncle Baby Billy’s Teenjus, a show about Jesus being a teenager in Nazareth, instead?