Posted on 09/05/2026 7:20:30 PM PDT by rlmorel
Official Summary: On the day of his scheduled execution, a convicted serial killer gets a psychiatric evaluation during which he claims he is a demon, and further claims that before their time is over, the psychiatrist will commit three murders of his own.
This movie came out in 2023, and I had never heard of it. Here is what the jacket looks like:
This sure looks like the kind of movie I barely even pause for, the kind I scroll right past.
That is because normally, I am not interested in "Horror" movies, which this movie was classified officially as. As a kid, I kind of enjoyed horror movies, but as I got older, I came to accept that in real life, there was more real-life horror present than any kind of movie could ever present to me.
Why would I need to accentuate evil in this world by watching a movie?
I heard about this movie from an American Thinker article: So Much Evil! Still Don’t Believe in the Devil? Evil is out there. But so are the signs of good by Alicia Colon.
The American Thinker article linked to above is about what so many of us see as evil uncovering its face in the Lindsay Clancy trial in a most public way. We saw it recently in women in Massachusetts with their joyful celebration of Maura Healy authorizing abortion up to birth, and I know for a fact I was far from the only person who viewed that discordant display of misplaced joy with both revulsion, horror, and shame.
And then this. These pink-shirted females expressing support for this woman who placed these three children face down on the floor, and strangled them one-by-one with exercise bands:
This evil crime, and those who wish to find a way to excuse it, is a modern expression of evil that is a harbinger of a deeper corruptness and evil in our society, no-our world, that is a poison on our soul.
It is in this context that I read that American Thinker article above, and was prompted by this excerpt below to watch this movie:
"...A few years ago, I watched a fascinating film called, “Nefarious,” that clearly explained what is happening in the world today.
There is a battle between good and evil being waged and the evidence of that is clearly seen in the daily news reports. Pick up a New York newspaper and you will read reports of innocent people being pushed in front of subway trains or stabbed for absolutely no reason. The cover of yesterday’s New York Post is about a woman shot dead by the NYPD after she stabbed two strangers in Times Square, killing one.
The film Nefarious is basically about a demon explaining how the Devil works on seducing humans into evil by bribing them with whatever we desire. He also explains that demons hate humans because God loves us. and what his plan is for the human race.
It is a powerful film and I highly recommend it..."
I am on a journey to Christ, and this excerpt above from Alicia Colon's article insinuated itself into all the threads that are being woven in my mind, specifically with respect to the concepts of Good and Evil.
I am a Conservative. I don't need to drink any Kool-Aid on it. I started out in my young life with conservative principles ingrained in me. We can all agree that conservatives in this country (and elsewhere) are subjected to lifelong propaganda and indoctrination from Teachers, Media, and Government that conservatives are wrong about everything. Over my life, I have come to view this as a blessing in disguise.
I say that, because this unending, nonstop stream of propaganda and criticism by the Left has forced me to examine, reexamine, and examine again my premises and beliefs. Like many of you, I have not been able to rest on my laurels and relax.
I have been forced to engage in introspection on an ongoing basis for decades. And today, I am able to view that as a wonderful thing. Leftists have no such "blessing in disguise". It is a wonderful freedom for the intellectually lazy and emotionally incontinent (as it turns out many of them are) They have no such burden of introspection, asking themselves "Could I be wrong about all this?"
As such (as a Conservative) I have come to the conclusion that the subject of Evil (which is the subject of this film "Nefarious") is what is called a "cleavage point". That is, the point you could put a chisel on, tap it with a hammer, and things will split evenly into two pieces. In this case, putting the chisel to "Evil" and striking it with a mallet splits humans into two types:
They believe we are all manifestly good under the skin. These same people believe that if you fix our human societies, and remove the imperfections such as racism, sexism, bigotry, poverty, and so on, that the good that is inherent in every single person will overcome any evil that might develop.
They believe that if they can alter society to remove bad things by trying to shape and mold human behavior...to engineer it, that they can produce a Utopia of peace, equality, prosperity, and happiness.
We as Conservatives believe that Evil is inherent in human nature. It can't be "engineered out. And even good people, given the right circumstances, can do Evil things. We accept that any one of us could be those Nazi Concentration Camp Guards, if all tumblers lined up.
It is why we revere what the Founders of this nation accomplished when they created and implemented the US Constitution. That document, all by itself, shows that the Founders were profoundly Conservative by nearly any metric. It shows that they innately and intuitively understood that power, any power, even in the hands of people viewed as manifestly "Good" who may have only the best of intentions, can become corrupted and misused power, and they endeavored to engineer the Constitution to remove as much of the risk that Lord Acton later recognized so clearly with his famous observation nearly 100 years after we ratified our Constitution that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
That is why this movie caught my eye and compelled me to watch it that very night. We see very real Evil in this world. And it is being openly foisted on us by parts of our government (as was done by Governor Maura Healy in Massachusetts) even as other parts of our governments are battling it. And this movie is all about evil.
In the movie, a very real flesh-and-blood man sentenced to death, openly states he is a demon, engaging in demonic possession. Evil in our world, right in front of us. The Psychiatrist, obviously does not believe him because he is, himself, an atheist. No such things as "Demons" in his world.
Kind of like ours, right now.
90% of this movie takes place in one room, an interview room in the prison as the murderer (Edward Wayne Brady) on Death Row awaiting execution that evening is being interviewed by a psychiatrist (Dr. James Martin) on a last minute legal maneuver to have him evaluated to see if he is sane enough to be executed. As it says in the official summary for the movie, the prisoner wants to be executed. He doesn't want to be found insane. He has a purpose for wishing to be executed.
Nearly the whole movie is dialog. The two of them sitting across a metal table from each other. It isn't for everyone. We are too used to fast paced movies, with green screen CGI going on, car chases and such. But it isn't. And I was expecting it to be just that, but it isn't. Just discourse on the nature of God and this world he created.
I thought the movie was absolutely brilliant. Just brilliant. And because it meshed so closely with the specific nature of these theological paths I am going down (as well as what we see in the news today) I was entranced by this discourse between a man claiming to be a demon, and the Psychiatrist who was ostensibly sent there to evaluate him, but as we find out, there was more to it than that.
The actor playing the murderer was fantastic. The closest comparison I can make is to the "Joker" character played by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight Batman movie. The movie was panned by critics (for reasons that should be wholly obvious to anyone who is a conservative) but I believe if the core material was not something that would be rejected by the Left and their community root and branch, this man would have won an Oscar.
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Here is a part of dialogue from the movie that really hit me. In it, the murderer is asking the Psychiatrist about his girlfriend:
NEFARIOUS: Say, James, what's Melanie up to today? As a matter of fact, what's she up to right now? She doesn't have a clue you're about to break up with her, does she? Of course you're not gonna until you have somebody else lined up though, right? Because you're that kind of guy. But you already have your sights on somebody, don't you? Yeah. I can smell it all the way from here. She thinks she's doing this to maintain the relationship. She'd like to have a child with you, James. (STUTTERING) Oh, but you're just not, not quite ready yet, are you? After all, you're only 35. Imagine the joy in your little Cinderella's heart when she realizes she's butchered the baby in her belly for nothing.
Look, I don't know what you think you know, but any decision that was made between me and my girlfriend was her choice.
NEFARIOUS: Well, I think we both know better, James.
Stop it.
NEFARIOUS: Don't you think you should be there-when it's being done?
DR. MARTIN: I said, stop it.
NEFARIOUS: Hold her hand, maybe? I'll tell you what you could do, James. You could walk right there to the guard station, pick up that cell phone and make a phone call that stops everything in its tracks. You could apologize to her. Tell her you made a horrible mistake, that you love her, you wanna spend the rest of your life with her, you wanna marry her, and you wanna hold that child. James, you could tell her that. You could make your life about sacrificial love. And you could play live-in therapist for the rest of your life.
DR. MARTIN: I can't do that.
NEFARIOUS: No, James, why not?
DR. MARTIN: It's... It's complicated.
NEFARIOUS: (NEFARIOUS CHUCKLING, SLAPS TABLE) That's my boy, James! That's him right there.
DR. MARTIN: You don't understand.
NEFARIOUS: Oh, I think I do, James. I think I understand. It's another problem easily solved though, isn't it?
DR. MARTIN: That's not it. Like, I care about it, but I'm...
NEFARIOUS: What?
DR. MARTIN: I'm not ready to be a father.
NEFARIOUS: (SOFTLY) Oh. (HESITATES) It's her body. She can do what she wants. "Do what thou wilt-that shall be the whole of the Law."
DR. MARTIN: You arrogant son of a-Who...Who are you to judge me? This is my life. I...I can live it the way I want.
NEFARIOUS: (BANGS ON TABLE) Yes, James! I couldn't have said it better myself. But it's still murder.
DR. MARTIN: Says who?
NEFARIOUS: Says all of creation, James. The creator creates, and we destroy, and we do all of it through you. We always have. Did you forget your history, Jimmy? Even in ancient times, the arch-demon Moloch was celebrated by tossing infants into flaming bonfires, accompanied, of course, by the beating of drums to drown out the screaming. Later on, they erected a giant bronze statue with outstretched arms kindling fires beneath the palms, and when they toss a little infant into those open palms, they'd flinch at the red-hot metal, but then they'd willingly roll themselves off into the flames.
DR. MARTIN: What does any of that have to do with me?
NEFARIOUS: Oh, nothing, James! Especially since the priests now wear surgical scrubs. The killing takes place in the womb. So there's no screaming to be heard anyway, and the remains are tossed into gas-fired crematoriums. No, James, no. No, no, no. There's no parallel. whatsoever to you. Can you imagine the agony the carpenter feels when we rip a child to pieces inside its own mother's womb? Because that's what we do, James, you and us. We do that together.
DR. MARTIN: You're sick.
NEFARIOUS: (SOFTLY) Yeah. That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me, James.
Film ping
This would be interesting.
I hope so. It is not the kind of movie I would normally watch, judging a book by its cover. Horror films aren’t my cup of tea.
It was a real surprise to me.
I have seen it twice.
One of the scariest movies I have seen since the Omen or the Exorcist.
Did you ever watch “Fallen” with Denzel Washington?
"Ti-iii-ime, is on my side."
And there is always that part of me that wonders "What did the critics say?" with the nagging "Do their opinions carry more weight than mine does?"
So I had to look up a few. Rotten Tomatoes pans it, which is fine, because to me, if the critics pan something and I like it, I respect my own opinion more than I do theirs...with the notable exception of "The Critical Drinker". If he dislikes a movie, I have found that will as well, so I trust his judgement.
The first review I found at random was this one, from a journalist whose boss "requested" him to do a movie review on the movie, and his reactions were nearly identical to mine: LINK: He Told Me Not to Look It Up: A Jersey Javelin Assignment I Didn’t See Coming
Heh, I wonder if his boss saw it and had the same impression I did, and wanted his own reviewer to validate it.
In this case, I wanted to see if any of my fellow conservatives here had seen it, and what they thought of it.
No. On the basis of that alone, I am putting it on my list of movies to see. Thank you.
This "everyone is inherently good" doctrine sounds so gentle and nice, but is hellish in the real world. Here's why: If you say everyone is inherently good, you nonetheless have to admit (if you have any functioning brain cells) that everyone is doing bad things. But if people are inherently good, that means they have to blame something outside of themselves for the evil they commit.
So instead of accepting responsibility as sinners, they pick scapegoats. Everyone has them, but in the minds of "inherent good" people these scapegoats become The Source of All Evil, to be blamed for everything that goes wrong in society. And so this creates a powerful moral imperative: Get rid of the scapegoat, by fair means or foul, and you can create a Utopia on earth.
And so these folks, when they take control of a society, inevitably engage in genocide against the people/institutions they scapegoat. After all, if you just kill all the capitalists, the dirty jews, the n*ggers, the white crackers, the Church, whatever the case may be, then you've eliminated the root of evil. So the ends always justify the means, no matter how horrible. Utopia is just around the corner once the genocide is complete, or so they believe. Because they won't admit their own sinful nature.
I have seen the movie. I have watched the video clips..
Yes,’I know what evil lurks in the hearts of men.”
It had taken a lot of ‘work’. So much so I hope never to come to a “triggering moments” ever again. I’m too old,. I get upset, and my gut goes nuts. (Must be my own fashioned limiter,eh?)
I’ve seen evil. I see it more today than in the ‘80’s, and that is a lot. Societal engineering can never heal the human condition. Socialism and communism both tried, but bred more monsters, for the good of the state.
None of them could see how very reap.this movie could be.
The suicide at the opening was not caught by me the first time, it happened so fast. And The ending was screwed up. I wont spoil it. But it was not even close to real. .
it scared me .
Two of my top list movies are “Red Eye” and “The Green Mile”
Yes, this movie felt so real. Fr. Dan Rehill, an exorcist, says it’s the closest thing to real life. He said he couldn’t believe they let the movie be made.
Why is it so hard for you to believe it?
Is my physical existence any more improbable than your own? What about all that hoo-hah with the Devil a while ago, from that movie?
Nobody had any trouble believing that the Devil took over and existed in the little girl. All she had to do was was wet the rug, throw up some pea soup, and everybody believed.
The Devil you could believe, but not God, huh?
I work in my own way. I don't get inside little children. They got enough to do just being themselves...
And they think that because THEY believe human nature is malleable, and THEY can be the ones who pound it into shape.
Much evil comes from that mindset. Further down, that is the abandonment of God, which Whittaker Chambers so eloquently elucidated in his seminal work "Witness":
“It [Communism] is not new. It is, in fact, man's second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: "Ye shall be as gods." It is the great alternative faith of mankind. Like all great faiths, its force derives from a simple vision. Other ages have had great visions. They have always been different versions of the same vision: the vision of God and man's relationship to God. The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God.
It is the vision of man's mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of man's liberated mind, by the sole force of its rational intelligence, redirecting man's destiny and reorganizing man's life and the world. It is the vision of man, once more the central figure of the Creation, not because God made man in his image, but because man's mind makes him the most intelligent of the animals. Copernicus and his successors displaced man as the central fact of the universe by proving that the earth was not the central star of the universe. Communism restores man to his sovereignty by the simple method of denying God.”
The way the murderer went back and forth between his human side, whimpering and terrified, and the arrogant Nefarious (who seemed to let the human speak on occasion, just for effect) was an amazing acting job.
Deliver Us from Evil
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2377322/
Having seen evil and experienced terror, I don’t go near these thing anymore.
I like “The Green Mile” one of my favorites, too, but...I have never seen “RedEye”!
That is now on my movie list! I watched the preview and it sold me!
I wholly understand that mindset.
It is scary and creepy. Not in a guy jumping out from being a bush scary, but what the devil has going on in day to day life. Scary in how it messes with your mind.
This is actually a religious movie. But not in the cliche Jesus comes to save the day way. This is more of a go to confession and own up to your mistakes way.
I endorse seeing this movie.
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