You have to give writer-director Lotfy Nathan points for originality.
His new film, The Carpenter’s Son, is not just any standard telling of the oft-told story of Joseph and Mary and their son, Jesus, but rather a speculation of his teenage years, his conflicts with his devoutly religious father, his growing pains and particularly his temptations as he runs with the wrong crowd, notably a determined Satan in the form of a teenage girl. The passions of this Christ have not been told quite this way before as this is low-budget horror posing as a not-quite-biblical epic. We’ve seen plenty of both before but not in a cinematic mixtape. The results might not fully please devotees of either genre, but at least it’s different.
Nathan leans heavily into his own Orthodox Coptic Christian upbringing and borrows liberally from the rather obscure text of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas with material absent from the New Testament. He dives into largely speculation on the teen years of Jesus (played with curly-haired moptop earnestness by Noah Jupe) and his upbringing by strict and deeply devout father Joseph (Nicolas Cage) and his mother, the more understanding and supportive Mary (FKA Twigs), as he navigates life in the danger zone of Roman Egypt, where his family is in exile. It all starts in rather dark and harrowing fashion with the baby Jesus’ birth, but then switches to AD 15, which also signifies the age of this young man who is seemingly confronted with holy terror in many ways from the nearby leper colony as well as the Place of Punishment where crucifixions regularly take place and imposing serpent snakes invade bodies of the living. Then there’s a mysterious stranger, a fresh-faced young woman (a rather haunting Isla Johnston) who lures him into her trap with true temptation but soon morphs into her actual identity as none other than the devil, albeit one with ruby red lips.
Yes, this territory has been visited many times in other ways, mainly contemporary such as The Exoricst, but to see this kind of horror in what is described as a genre-bending supernatural thriller is a new one for me. For starters, Joseph never has been presented as quite this tortured of a soul, and Cage — fitting more convincingly into the biblical era than, say, Richard Gere did in King David — dives right in to present a man who at one point literally says he is shattering, a father very concerned for his son and often at odds with him, not even sure if he is indeed his father.
Mother Mary is the opposite, completely believing in his goodness and potential for changing the world. Twigs ably fills the role but is not given the kind of acting showcase Cage has here. As for Jupe, he comes off as a typical teen boy in many ways, albeit one just discovering his powers are unique and well beyond his peers. A scene where he mercilessly kills an insect and then brings it back to life is a subtle preview of things to come, notably pulling those snakes right out of the throats of those about to die. Yet he is at a crossroads, and the temptations of this incarnation of this soulful-eyed Satan are providing plenty of conflict.
Shot almost entirely in Greece, with a large Greek crew, the film used locations in Crete and Attica to double convincingly for what might have been the family’s actual homebase. Simon Beaufils contributed the often dark but atmospheric cinematography, while the production design of Jean-Vincent Puzos sticks to what we know in films of this period. SFX makeup designer Oriane De Neve also deserves a shout-out.
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ provided a very R-rated and brutally violent look at the future in store for Jesus Christ. This one relies more on conjuring frights to show us a Jesus we have never seen before. It may well be the first faith-based horror film, a genre mashup and coming-of-age film just in time for the holidays.
Producers are Cage, Alex Hughes, Riccardo Maddalosso, Julie Viez.
Title: The Carpenter’s Son
Distributor: Magnolia Pictures
Release date: November 14, 2025
Director-screenwriter: Lotfy Nathan
Cast: Nicolas Cage, FKA Twigs, Noah Jupe, Isla Johnston, Souheila Yacoub.
Rating: R
Running time: 1 hr 34 mins
