Short post today to recommend a film that I’ve not seen but at least two writers I respect have — and both enthusiastically recommend it. It’s made for Christian audiences, but avoids the pitfalls that most movies aimed at that audience stumble into: low production value, terribly moralistic and sappy messaging, idealized relationships, and avoiding the depiction of realistic evil.
I’m gobsmacked and thrilled to report that a movie of this quality is opening this weekend, Nefarious, based on the novel by conservative TV commentator and author Steve Deace of The Blaze. I heard about it from Eric Metaxas, who’d seen the preview screener and highly recommended it. I sat with a friend to watch it, and we were riveted. Imagine the insights of The Screwtape Letters conveyed with all the intensity of top-notch courtroom drama like To Kill a Mockingbird. Or the “Grand Inquisitor” scene from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, set on death row in a U.S. “red state.”
I don’t want to give away too much, and drain the film of its power to surprise, unsettle, and challenge. Suffice it to say that it’s an, intense, occasionally violent psychological thriller of a similar genre to The Exorcism of Emily Rose. The story is simple: a smug secular psychologist goes to evaluate a serial killer on the verge of execution … to see if he’s lucid enough to undergo capital punishment (as our law requires). But the killer insists he’s possessed by a demon. Is that proof he’s really insane?
The film confronts genuine evil — not confusion, bad ideas, mere human weakness, or even the sordid fact of Original Sin.
No, Nefarious brings us face to face with principalities and powers, the bloodless calculating entities who cast their shadows today in the abortion industry, the transgender movement, and the intolerant new gospel of the Antichrist we refer to as the Woke cult. We hear the subarctic voice of deathless spirits who whisper in our ears, who teach us to love the sin but hate the sinner, who manage our culture and politics and arrange for the State to groom our children.
I will make the disclaimer that John Zmirak makes: not every Christian will be comfortable seeing this movie. If you’re easily disturbed by intense situations and the portrayal of stone-cold evil, this may not be the film for you. As I said, I’m recommending it based the strong recommendation of Zmirak and Eric Metaxas, not on having seen it myself (yet).
The reason I bring it to your attention is that it opens in theaters today and a movie’s staying power is often determined by how well it performs at the box office. As this is its opening weekend, I’m encouraging you to help make it a strong one.
Whatever you choose to do, have a good weekend. I’ll be back Monday.
