Movie Review: Nefarious

 Nefarious is a christian horror movie telling the story of a possessed man. The demon in control is one ancient entity named Nefariamus, but the government thinks it's just a mentally ill man who needs to be declared competent for execution. 

They select a guy named Dr. James Martin (like the rainbow Jesuit lol), a disbeliever, who is taunted by the demon while he tries to do his psychiatric analysis. 

The Good 

+ The guy who plays Nefarious does a good job. 

+ The movie had very little music, something I appreciate because other movies (including the Passion of Christ) have a bad score that distracts from the scenes. 

+ The movie is fairly tense, specially by the end. While it is not exactly a terrifying movie, it was sober and sharp enough to keep me interested. 

+ The movie makes possession scary in a different way from other movies. You see, films like The Exorcist rely on gore and over-the-top violence for their scares; Nefarious makes possession itself scary. An entity controls you and you can't stop them. They are evil and evil they will make you do. This is arguably the best part of the movie. 

+ Hell was also talked about, and they also did a decent job with this, but I think it could have been a little bit more intense. Perhaps dream sequences showing a glimpse of the cave with no water could be useful. 

+ The final jumpscare was predictable but decent, but funny and unnerving. 

The Bad

+ The character of Nefarious: I don't see why a demon would be so desperate to share his evil plans with a man. For part of the movie Nefarious repeats conservative talking points, but within the movie there is no reason for this. 

You want Martin to go to Hell while also warning him about Hell. You want him to become your prophet but you also explain to him how evil and weak you are. Perhaps a sequel could improve some of this character errors, and fully explain the motivations of Nefarious. 

+ Another thing that could be improved is the dialogue. You see, if most of your movie is going to be people talking to each other, the dialogue should be particularly beautiful. Once the novelty of watching a christian horror movie wears off the dialogue might become boring for some viewers. Some additional elegant prose would greatly benefit this flick. 

The Amusing 

+ The Glenn Beck cameo. It's so ridiculous it's actually funny. Might scare the normies away from this movie but at least it wasn't Ted Cruz. 

+ The face Dr. James Martin does during the interview. Don't misunderstand me, the guy does a decent job, but he always stares in with the same scared face. 

Conclusion 

I wouldn't call this movie good, specially when compared to other christian movies like The Reluctant Saint and The Song of Bernadette. 

However, unlike other movie productions this film clearly didn't have a millionaire budget, and I know protestants directors are often mediocre and content themselves to preach to the choir. This movie could have been worse and yet I can perceive the filmmakers tried harder than in other time. 

In conclusion Nefarious is not a good movie, but is not a bad movie either. It offers good acting, interesting themes and decent suspense, but with some  confusing characterization. Let's hope this movie has a good sequel that amplifies the lore without adding heresy or ruining the original movie.