I was so intrigued by Nefarious! A Christian horror movie… what the heck is that? I had no idea that this was even a genre and this is coming from a huge horror fan and someone that has seen plenty of faith-based movies. At its core, what we have here is a movie about demonic possession and I am always down with that.
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The Movie Review
The thing is, there are so many great movies about demonic possession (check out, for example, The Exorcist), it is very hard for movies like Nefarious to stand out. To be honest with you, I think the whole “Christian horror movie” tag is a bit of a disservice, as to me, this is just a straight-up horror movie and if I had not read it, I would never have known this was a “Christian” movie.
Most of the movie takes place in a jail. There is a death row inmate called, Edward who is a serial killer, and he is set to be put to death by the electric chair unless he can be proven to be insane. I got a kick out of Edward being played by Sean Patrick Flanery, one of the Boondock Saints!
Before he is put to death, Dr. James Martin is the man who has to decide if he is insane or if he is faking. Edward is claiming that he is possessed by a demon and that it was the demon that did all these things. James is skeptical, to say the least, and is sure that Edward is just trying to get out of being put to death.
I thought that Jordan Belfi did a great job as Dr. James Martin and he and Sean Patrick Flanery had great chemistry together. As James speaks to Edward, he says that he is a demon that is called Nefarious and that he wants Edward to be killed, and that also James will have killed three people before the day is out!
James and Nefarious/Edward start to talk and James starts to get more and more concerned as Nefarious appears to know intimate details about his life! We go on a great ride with James in this movie. I went from being sure that Edward really was possessed to then thinking that he is faking and he is just a psycho.
I am not sure what the “Christian message” in this movie is, to be honest with you, I just took it as a movie about demonic possession and I had a lot of fun with it. It is not packed with scares though, it is more of a psychological horror where you have a kind of uneasy feeling as you are watching it. However, do not expect to be scared so much that you will be sleeping with the lights on!
I am so glad that I found out this was a Christian horror movie after I watched it as that may have put some preconceptions in my mind before I saw it. Instead, this was just a fun demonic possession movie and one that is very easy for me to recommend. There are certainly far better and far scarier movies about demonic possession, but I am glad I checked this one out.