Note that Wikipedia defines it as a “ independent Christian horror-thriller film” which is their way of pigeonholing it.
It is true the producers had to make a choice as to whether it should be a “Christian” film or a “horror-thrllier” film, because to classify it as a “Christian” film is to kill the infant in its cradle, no pun intended. So, they probably made the hard decision to classify it as a “horror-thriller” which undercuts the point of the movie, making it out to be simply another “hacker-slasher” movie, which turns many people (including myself) off completely.
I only watched it because of the way it was recommended to me as a reader of an American Thinker article. Otherwise, I would never in a million years have ever watched it of my own accord.
Besides,the performance by that actor who played the Demon is the best I have seen in years. No joke.
But I assure you, it is not a “horror-thriller” movie. I felt no horror in the movie other than the normal pity or horror I might feel at seeing a fellow human being trapped in the figurative jaws of a real demon, with no chance of escape.
I mentioned earlier that as a self-proclaimed Christian (I was baptized as an infant) who believes in God and believes Christ is my Savior, I felt neither a horror nor a thrill in watching this, as I understand I cannot be taken by a Demon like Nefarious if I believe and repent of my sins in this life.
So, it had the power to neither horrify nor terrify me. But I found it fascinating to hear the dialogue of how Satan (through a Demon like Nefarious) would justify his war, and how he would be led to think he is winning in this modern world of ours.
Not Edifying...
I Understand that.
.
Trying to pass on those Things below and Concentrate on The Future with the Things that Will Most Assuredly come To Pass.
.
This Darkness we pass thru in this Age is Good For One Thing and That’s Proclaiming That The Kingdom of God Is At Hand and His Grace will Endure For Ever,
But Now Is the Time to Embrace
The LIGHT or Darkness will Assuredly
Be Your everlasting reward.
.
Thank You Jesus
I don't doubt that.
But you are not the primary target audience. Sure, the filmakers hope that you will watch. Getting movies made means finding a way to recoup the investment. From that perspective, all viewers are good viewers.
Nefarious, however, is a cause movie. The target audience is secularists who deny Satan, deny the idea of evil itself (and prefer to medicalize anything they don't like), profess moral relativism and non-judmentalism, and whose whole moral outlook is an elaborate rationalization of doing whatever they want.
The written plot summaries make the movie sound more lurid than it is. There is a prologue in which an immaculately dressed, elegant psychiatrist is tidying up his well-appointed office for the evening. He walks out the door. A moment later, we see his body plummeting past the window of his office on an upper floor of a building. So: a suicide.
Then we jump to another psychiatrist -- the replacement who is taking over the case from the man who had committed suicide -- checking through the prison gates and meeting the warden, who outlines what is needed and warns him about the prisoner. The job is to make the final determination of whether the inmate is mentally competent to be executed.
At the end, the movie does get to the execution scene, which is graphic -- the demon having taunted the psychiatrist that a gruesome death is his last "gift" to the person he has possessed. Most of the rest of the movie is the psychiatrist sitting across the table from the man who is to be executed in a few hours if the pyschiatrist signs the papers. This is the last call. The case has been through all the appeals. The anti-death penalty crusaders are standing vigil outside the prison. The governor has the last ditch clemency appeal on his desk; he puts in a call to lay down the timeline and make clear that he needs a final decision, one way or another, very soon.
Then the psychiatrist and the prisoner talk. And talk, and talk, and talk. It's basic theology. You know the arguments. You probably won't learn anything.
But if you read the reviews ... well, they are illuminating. The secularists and moral relativists HATE this movie. Most of them sputter incoherently. Very few are capable of mounting any kind of argument. At the risk of hyperbole, they're practially dropping to the floor and writhing like snakes. They thought they were going to see a psychological horror show, and they got sledgehammered right between the eyes with an unflinching exposition of the Judeo-Christian position on evil. They don't like it because the movie leaves them nowhere to hide.
I'm interested in movies for several reasons, but the importance of movies and tv as a front in the culture war is one of them. This is an attack film. It takes no prisoners. If I were teaching a film course, I'd include it -- and pair it with something from the other side. But I frankly can't think of anything nearly as effective from the other side, because lies cannot stand comparison with the truth.