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Religion and horror make natural companions, and not just in The Exorcist. The Carpenter’s Son takes its scare imagery from the original sources — including Bosch and the grislier Flemish crucifixion paintings. Indeed, the specific inspiration for Lotfy Nathan’s film is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, an apocryphal early Christian text about the youth of Jesus.
Set in biblical-era Egypt, the movie stars Noah Jupe as an adolescent — credited as “the Boy”, but clearly the teenage Jesus — travelling with his mother (avant-pop diva FKA Twigs) and adoptive father (Nicolas Cage). A moody, stormy-browed rebel, the Boy discovers he has unusual abilities — healing leprosy, casting out CGI serpents. This is essentially an exalted form of superhero origin story.
Despite its febrile visuals, The Carpenter’s Son is very much an art film; writer-director Nathan previously made well-received Tunisian drama Harka. Some imagery is indeed unsettling, from red skies to a squirming vision of the damned. And there’s an extraordinary embodiment of Satan: a wild-eyed, scar-faced young woman (Isla Johnston). She is all the more unnerving for coming across rather like the brainiest girl in sixth form, expelled for taking an unimaginably wrong turn — which, in a sense, is how she evokes her banishment from heaven.
The other performances are less striking: Jupe is solid at simmering angst, but FKA Twigs gives an altogether pallid rendition of his mother. As for Cage — all furrowed brow, bared teeth and very incongruous American delivery — this performance is not to be counted among his more relishable recent freak-outs, although connoisseurs will enjoy him raging, “My faith has been SHATTERED!!!”.
This is a serious-minded, atmospheric but tonally incoherent venture. Going gothic with the Gospels is hardly disreputable: after all, Martin Scorsese did it with The Last Temptation of Christ. Casting Cage and Twigs, though, is a temptation that Nathan should have resisted.
★★☆☆☆
In UK cinemas from November 21 and in US cinemas now