The Carpenter's Son (2025)

Director: Lofty Nathan*

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Noah Jupe, Isla Johnston, FKA Twigs

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. This had not been on our schedule for Beyond the Cabin in the Woods, but as we approached Predator: Badlands (2025), I got the sense that film was going to shape up to be more action than horror, I—and I fully admit this—pushed to make this our final film of the season. I got everyone’s approval, had them watch the trailer.

I thought it was going to be an absolutely batshit swing for the fences, featuring a Nicolas Cage past his tax troubles and doing precisely what he feels like at any given time.

Did I Like It: Boy, was I wrong.

Helpfully, I knew this film was going to be a chore within about 90 seconds of it beginning as Joseph (Cage, ultimately just playing Cage) gets just a taste of angels (as of treat) as his adoptive son is born.

And then we had to sit through 90 more minutes of an inexplicably bland film punctuated by a mostly reigned-in Cage. My expectations of the film, not unlike Joseph’s calm throughout the ordeal, is absolutely shattered.

Who the hell was the film for? Anybody (me, it’s me) who’s theology was largely formed by watching Dogma (1998) will walk away from the film feeling they were sold a false bill of goods, and that the film is oddly reverent and would actually fit in a double feature with The Passion of the Christ (2004), and desperately try to remind people that a film is not a sermon. Anybody deeply religious will likely turn their nose up at the film because on its face it looks like it is sacrilegious.

Nobody’s happy.

*What’s the over-under on the revelation (pun not intended, but accepted) that Lofty Nathan (who doesn’t appear to exist before this film) is actually just Cage wearing some kind of fun hat? Asking for a friend.

A Quiet Place (2018)

Director: John Krasinski

Cast: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe

Have I Seen It Before?: Yes. It feels so strange to come back around to films that I had first seen just before I started writing these reviews. In fact, I had to double check to make sure I hadn’t already written a review. I guess that is what life will be like from now. That, and Purell. And, if this film is any indication, silence.

Did I like it?: I think the only flaw you can lay at this film’s feet is one of which most viewers would indict most horror films. Why are the characters making the decisions they make?

The Abbott family (even after this second viewing, I am almost certain that they are never referred to by name during the film, and only during the closing credits) have made valiant efforts to exist within this eradicated world, far more than I would ever be interested in. I’ve thought this while watching The Walking Dead, but if wi-fi was down for longer than 48 hours, I’d be ready for early checkout from the planet. 

But was there any talk (or gesturing, naturally) on the subject of birth control in this house?

I suppose I can understand the grief of their youngest child dying at the claws of the ear-o-morph influencing Mr. (Krasinski) and Mrs. (Blunt) to find comfort in the prospect of giving birth to another child, but as prepared as these folks were for life under the audio goblins, they were not prepared for post-natal care. In all fairness, though, I do tend to look at people having kids in our current situation as being cursed with an excess of optimism.

While I can never fully escape this line of thinking when watching the movie, the writer in me realizes it is essential to the creation of tension throughout. Nary a moment is wasted in the film, even with those parts where I’m screaming at the screen “Why would you do that to yourself?!” It’s a tightly packed thriller that you would never have expected to come from the guy who spent the better part of ten years smirking at the camera.

This doesn’t even being to cover the sound design of the film. Pitch perfect in every single moment, all the more impressive when a film insists on this level of pristine sound design.

Honestly, I’m willing to forgive the pregnancies if we can all decide to focus on the sound.