Christian films have long been criticized for pulling punches and one dimensional characters. Looking to be a stark contrast to the Hallmark status quo of the faith-based film industry, is Nefarious, a narrative fiction based on Steve Deace’s book Nefarious. The plot summarized by the trailer is as follows. 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. The movie promises to be a supreme acting performance of Sean Patrick Flannery, best known for the cult classic Boondock Saints.
Steve Deace is the host of the Steve Deace Show on Blaze TV and is a devout Christian. His book Nefarious is a play on CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters. Although Steve Deace has a history of horrendous pop culture takes, his insistence that his own movie is to snuff so far lives to the hype with the first trailer. It’s rare for a bad movie to have a great trailer ie Phantom Menace but the Nefarious trailer presents an actor and script driven movie that looks to rise above its low budget.
The R rating is perhaps the most surprising element of this trailer, as Deace has said in the past that the movie was going for PG-13. The rating appears to be a continuing trend of Hollywood handing out R ratings to movies that were rather PG, like The Menu. Nonetheless, this probably helps its box office prospects as the movie is set for release on April 14th. The April 14th release date wisely places it in-between the much anticipated The Super Mario Bros Movie and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Overall, the trailer presents a promising premise and if it’s anything like the book it will be a cutting polemic of our culture.