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.