The trailer for an upcoming horror film about Jesus Christ, starring Nicolas Cage, has sparked backlash online, with people calling The Carpenter’s Son akin to blasphemy.
Why It Matters
Depictions of Jesus in cinema have been the topic of controversy for decades. Martin Scorsese’s 1998 film, The Last Temptation of Christ, saw an Integralist Catholic Group set fire to a cinema that was showing the film, and Scorsese was subject to death threats to the extent that he had to use bodyguards during public appearances for years.
Similarly, Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of Christ was widely criticized and named the most controversial film of all time in a 2006 issue of Entertainment Weekly. More recently, Netflix’s film Mary, about the life of the mother of Jesus Christ, sparked debate among viewers when it was released in 2024.
What To Know
The Carpenter’s Son is a reimagining of The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, an apocryphal gospel that recounts Jesus’ childhood.
Magnolia Pictures, the film’s distributor, describes The Carpenter’s Son as follows: “A remote village in Roman-era Egypt explodes into spiritual warfare when a carpenter, his wife and their child are targeted by supernatural forces.”
The film stars Cage as The Carpenter (Joseph), singer FKA Twigs as The Mother (Mary), and Noah Jupe as The Boy (Jesus). Isla Johnston plays the film’s antagonist, called The Stranger. The film is directed by Lofty Nathan, an Egyptian-born, British-American filmmaker who previously directed films including 12 O’Clock Boys and Harka.
Backlash has been swift following the trailer’s premiere, and the internet has been flooded with negative reviews of the film, despite it not yet being released.
A Google review from user David Badin reads: “A disgusting attempt to defame and mock the Christian faith. The phrase most used in the Bible is ‘do not be afraid’- this false, twisted, horror is blasphemy and holds a very dark agenda.”
“This is blasphemy when I first saw this trailer I thought it’s going to be a normal Christian movie but when I rewatched the trailer I realized that this movie makes me want to barf,” another Google review read.
A third Google reviewer wrote: “disgusting, blasphemous, satanic potrayal of Jesus, Jesus is not the Devil, he isn’t evil, he doesn’t hurt his people, he would never do any of these things, te fact that Hollywood hasn’t learnt their lesson since the LA fires earlier thsi year proves how evil they are, because they know they wont make it to heaven and they want others to fall down with them.”
The response, though, has not been wholly negative. One social media user wrote on X, “Hmmm okay, I’m intrigued,” while another wrote, “An idea so crazy it might end up being a masterpiece.”
What Is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas?
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas is an apocryphal gospel about Jesus’s childhood, dated by scholars to the mid-to-late second century. The text is not part of the accepted canon of Scripture. The stories in the gospel are not found in canonical gospels, and the text has been described as fictional.
What People Are Saying
Magnolia Pictures’ description of The Carpenter’s Son: “A remote village in Roman-era Egypt explodes into spiritual warfare when a carpenter, his wife and their child are targeted by supernatural forces in The Carpenter’s Son. Joseph (Nicolas Cage), Mary (FKA twigs) and their teenage son Jesus (Noah Jupe) have lived for years under threat, clinging to their faith and traditions. But a stopover in a small settlement unleashes growing chaos when a mysterious stranger (Isla Johnston) tries to entice young Jesus to abandon his devout father’s rules.
“With every pull of temptation, the boy is lured into a forbidden world, as a terrified Joseph realizes that a demonic power is at work. Violent, unnatural events inexplicably follow Jesus, and he begins to experience nightmarish visions of the future. Finally, he learns the fearsome truth about his new playmate, as well as the child’s real name: Satan. Writer and director Lotfy Nathan, drawing from his Coptic Christian background, delivers a meticulously crafted, genre-bending supernatural thriller packed with unshakeable images of the divine and demonic at war.”
X user @belemciagaa: “hate for the carpenters son movie when the passion of the christ is literally a gore horror movie.”
X user @sometl_c: “Hollywood really can’t resist twisting scripture into horror.”
X user @pukerrainbrow: “Will this movie deepen faith or just fuel debate about how far art should push boundaries?”
What Happens Next
The Carpenter’s Son is scheduled for release on November 14.