Our First Look at Nicolas Cage’s Jesus Horror Movie Is 20 Seconds of Agony

Nicolas Cage has become his own genre at this point, and for every risky triumph (Longlegs, Dream Scenario, Mandy) or intriguing lurch into the edgier fringes of the mainstream (Renfield, the upcoming Spider-Noir series), there have been several misfires. It remains to be seen where The Carpenter’s Son will fall, but the premise is bonkers enough to make us pay attention. Yes, this is the Jesus horror movie, and the first teaser is here. It’s short, but it’s still extremely unnerving.

We first learned of this film over a year ago, when Deadline explained it would explore “the rarely told story of the childhood of Jesus with a horror take,” noting that writer-director Lotfy Nathan drew “inspiration from the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas for the screenplay. Dating back to the 2nd century AD, the text recounts the childhood of Jesus.”

We also got an official synopsis at that time: “The Carpenter’s Son tells the dark story of a family hiding out in Roman Egypt. The son, known only as ‘the Boy,’ is driven to doubt by another mysterious child and rebels against his guardian, the Carpenter, revealing inherent powers and a fate beyond his comprehension. As he exercises his own power, the Boy and his family become the target of horrors, natural and divine.”

FKA twigs (The Crow) plays the mother character; Noah Jupe (A Quiet Place) is the Boy. Souheila Yacoub (Dune: Part Two) is also in the cast. But that teaser is all Cage, presumably playing the Carpenter, reacting to the “natural and divine” horrors swirling around his grimy existence. The flies buzzing at the end are an especially eerie touch.

The Carpenter’s Son hits theaters this fall, and we’ll be curious to see if it eclipses the pious yet notably gruesome The Passion of the Christ as the most horror-filled take on Jesus yet to hit screens.

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