Nicolas Cage’s Jesus horror movie is the most profound film I’ve seen in 2025

There’s a horde of people ready to be outraged by The Carpenter’s Son, the new horror film depicting the childhood of Jesus Christ and starring Nicolas Cage as Joseph.

And while it is ominous, uncomfortable and frightening in parts, it’s also moving, deep and not at all the movie that they think it is.

Based on the apocryphal gospels of early Christians, as explained at the start of the film, The Carpenter’s Son depicts events in the early life of Jesus.

As something not officially covered in the Bible, it perhaps allows writer-director Lofty Nathan more freedom to explore the reality of what – historically – this could have looked like.

Here, Jesus is called the Boy (Noah Jupe), who lives with the Mother (FKA twigs) and the Carpenter (Cage): names are neither used nor necessary.

They live a transient life, protecting their son from those who perceive him as a threat, including King Herod, who has soldiers out tossing babies into fires in Bethlehem in a bid to eliminate him just moments after his birth and the film’s start.

Eventually settling in a remote village in Roman Egypt, the family is under constant strain considering what the Boy may be and how his powers are manifesting.

You can see why Nicolas Cage would be attracted to playing the Joseph figure as The Carpenter’s Son doesn’t shy away from the tensions between him and the Boy, who he knows is not his son.

He is a devout figure, like his wife, but harsh – and struggles with the test he must believe he has been given from God as a husband and believer.

The film is accent-blind, and it is slightly jarring to hear Cage speaking in his usual drawling American tones while the rest of his family is British, and especially when the language is more archaic.

But the welcome Cage freakout moment to add to the YouTube compilation is reliably present too, when he screams at his wife that his faith ‘has been shattered’ in an acting decision that manages to somehow be both 100 miles an hour and also perfectly judged to match the pain of the moment.

By flowing between specificity and interpretation, Lofty has produced a horror film about Jesus which is both haunting and powerful.

This is not something that some people will be willing to accept however, if the sheer number of comments and review bombs accusing the not-yet-released film of being ‘blasphemous’ are anything to go by.

It is of course a sensitive topic, but The Carpenter’s Son’s priority is clearly to provoke thought over the early life of one of the world’s most important religious figures rather than baiting Christians with a disrespectful take (or attack) on their religion.

It’s actually one of the most original and intriguing films I’ve seen this year and undeniably proves that a ‘horror’ movie can be so much more than what people usually expect from this oft-dismissed genre.

Yes, technically, The Carpenter’s Son is a psychological horror film – but it’s also a family drama, an historical epic, a spiritual film and a biopic too. It is provocative in all the best ways rather than merely for cheap shots.

The horror elements are all linked to the temptation the Boy faces from Satan, here depicted as an androgynous girl (Isla Johnston, credited as ‘the Stranger’).

You know exactly who she is before she says it, while Jupe’s Boy is initially more of a restless teenager, plagued by visions he doesn’t understand of his crucifixion and resurrection. But his healing gifts grow in power and become more difficult to hide.

The film’s most potent horror moments come from the unseen evil present in possession, the victims of which writhe in pain, vomit black sludge and speak in tongues. It’s all atmospherically – and psychologically – terrifying because you don’t know how far it will go. Be warned too that, unsurprisingly for a film featuring Satan and demonic possession, there are quite a lot of snakes.

The Carpenter’s Son is a genuinely profound movie that deserves to be considered on its own merits and break through the noise being generated by naysayers expecting to be insulted by something they have not yet seen.

I think many will be surprised by the film they want to classify as controversial.

The Carpenter’s Son releases in UK and Irish cinemas on Friday, November 21.

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