The Carpenter’s Son: Nic Cage’s Bible horror risks blasphemy or bold faith fiction?
Nicholas Cage as the adoptive father of Jesus in The Carpenter’s Son. Photo Credit- Polygon
In an era where Hollywood loves to toy with sacred cows, literally and figuratively, Nicolas Cage’s latest venture, The Carpenter’s Son, arrives like a thunderclap from Nazareth. Set for release in late 2025, this horror-tinged biblical drama casts the ever-unpredictable Cage as Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, with FKA twigs as a brooding Mary. The film promises to plunge into the shadowed corners of the Holy Family’s life: demonic possessions, unholy temptations, and the terror of raising a child who just might be the Son of God. But as the first trailer unleashes its guttural screams and thorn-crowned shrouds, one question looms larger than a crown of thorns: Is The Carpenter’s Son a blasphemous abomination, or a daring artistic exorcism of faith’s darker side?
The trailer, dissected in a probing piece on The Bible Artist blog, sets the stage for what could be either a revelation or a sacrilege. We see Cage’s Joseph, sweat-beaded and fervent in prayer, his wild-eyed intensity channeling the actor’s signature mania. Twigs’ Mary, cloaked in black like a gothic Madonna, hovers over a shrouded corpse evoking Christ’s passion. Then comes the kicker: a young man’s demonic howl, contorted in agony, begging to be freed from an unseen torment. Is this a possessed villager terrorizing the Nazareth household, echoing Mark 1:23-24 where unclean spirits recoil from Jesus? Or and here’s the heresy-adjacent hook, could this be a twisted take on the boy Messiah himself, ruined by infernal forces? The ambiguity is deliciously diabolical, teasing themes of divine weakness and the human cost of holiness. As critics notes, the film might explore the “immense task of raising Jesus,” where dark forces claw at the cradle of salvation, much like Satan’s wilderness temptations in Matthew 4:1-11.
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On the surface, this sounds like prime Cage: an unexpected fusion of faith and fright that could elevate horror beyond jump-scares into theological terror. FKA Twigs, with her ethereal edge honed, brings a modern mystique to Mary, potentially humanizing her as a fierce protector rather than a passive icon. If the filmmakers lean into Scripture’s own eerie episodes, the Gerasene demoniac’s Legion (Mark 5:1-20) or Jesus’ family questioning his sanity (Mark 3:21), this could be a horror film that respects its source, using fear to illuminate faith’s fragility. After all, the Bible isn’t a bedtime story; it’s riddled with exorcisms, plagues, and apocalyptic visions that make Stephen King look meek.
Yet, here’s where the blasphemy alarm bells rings. The trailer’s shrouded figure with thorns screams “crucified Christ,” but if that demonic screamer is meant to be a juvenile Jesus, possessed, tempted, or worse, inherently shadowed by evil, it treads perilously close to heresy. As critics warns, portraying the incarnate Word (Colossians 1:19 declares “all the fullness of God dwelled bodily in Jesus”) as a vessel for demons isn’t just creative license; it’s a theologically wrong. Could God’s presence coexist with Satan’s squatters in the same divine frame? The scriptural answer, is a resounding “no.” Echoing the Pharisees’ accusation that Jesus cast out demons by Beelzebul’s power (Matthew 12:24), such a depiction risks inverting the Gospel: instead of light piercing darkness, we get a Messiah damaged by it. If the film’s endgame is to paint Christianity as “inherently destructive,” as critics speculates, it’s not subversion.
I have long admired Cage’s fearlessness; as seen in “National Treasure” and “Ghost Rider” has the ability for turning pulp into profundity. Here, as Joseph, he risks becoming the fall guy for a script that prioritizes poltergeists over parables. Directorially, if this is another case of Hollywood’s “Bible horror” trend like The Nun’s inferior exorcism or The Pope’s Exorcist’s crowd-pleasing piety), it could devolve into blasphemy-by-boredom: demons as jump-scare props, faith as fodder for memes. Critics nail this fatigue, quipping that such disrespect “has been done so many times in Hollywood that secular viewers might just yawn.”
That said, let’s not crucify the concept prematurely. Blasphemy isn’t black-and-white; it’s a spectrum from irreverent riff to outright ridicule. If The Carpenter’s Son threads the needle, portraying demonic assaults as external threats to the Holy Family, underscoring Joseph’s quiet heroism (a figure often sidelined in Nativity tales), it could be a bold reclamation. Horror, at its best, confronts the abyss; why not use it to stare down the very real spiritual battles Scripture describes? Films like The Exorcist (1973) danced on this edge, earning acclaim for dramatizing faith’s front lines without desecrating them. Cage, with his Method-mad energy, could channel Joseph’s unspoken anguish, the weight of fathering divinity amid Herod’s shadow, into something likely human.
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Ultimately, The Carpenter’s Son teeters on blasphemy’s precipice not because it’s horror-infused, but because it flirts with inverting Christ’s core: light of the world, not a flickering bulb prone to blackouts. If it succumbs to shock for shock’s sake, it’ll join the pantheon of pious pandering that offends more through banality than boldness. But if it honors the terror of incarnation, the miracle laced with menace, it might just forge a new genre: faithful frights that make us ponder, not puke. As The Bible Artist hopes, may it “pave the way for more orthodox and spiritually beneficial Bible horror films.” In Cage’s capable claws, stranger miracles have happened. Until the full cut unleashes, faith and a healthy skepticism will have to suffice. After all, in the words of the carpenter’s true son: “By their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:20). Let’s see what horrors bloom from this Nazareth nightmare.
