Opinion: Maybe I’m the ‘Nefarious’ target audience, but I wasn’t moved

I stumbled upon the movie "Nefarious" and decided to go see it. It wasn’t the movie itself that intrigued me enough to decide to go see it. It was the marketing of the movie.

“Nefarious” is being marketed as a horror film. Though “Christian” and “faith-based” appeared in reviews, the words were missing from the movie description, posters, and theater advertising.

I was curious: How could you omit those words from all marketing, label “Nefarious” a horror movie, and expect non-religious viewers to pick-up its intended message?

So I watched the film, failed to pick up any belief-changing message, then researched what the producers had expected me to.

I was supposed to see deeper meaning in the trailer

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"Everything in the trailer is in the movie," said Steve Deace, the Des Moines-based nationally syndicated streaming talk show host who is an executive producer of the film, in an interview with The Family Leader. "It’s just not presented in the trailer the way that it actually is in the movie. So everything is being done here subversively. We are attempting to reach an audience that desperately needs the truth of what we believe before it is too late. And they’re going to get it.”

"Subversive" is a scary word. It brings to (my) mind the '80s, when people accused metal bands of hiding satanic messages in songs that they alleged were revealed when vinyl records were played backward. Unless “the truth” Deace wants to share was hidden in the trailer like that, the trailer I watched didn’t seem subversive.

Instead, the trailer seemed like good marketing, piecing together the action clips to add suspense and tension, despite the fact that seemingly 95% of the “action” in the actual movie is talking.

And, boy, do they talk. Nefarious (Sean Patrick Flanery) is a demon who inhabits the body of Edward, whom he has forced to commit 11 murders. Dr. James Martin (Jordan Belfi) is, according to Deace "a left-wing, atheist psychiatrist, because other than Jordan Peterson, there are no other kinds of those, apparently." The two meet in prison on Edward's execution day for Martin to determine if Edward is mentally competent to be executed, and they talk for about 40-plus minutes straight, though it's mainly Nefarious talking and a doubting Martin asking questions.

After 30 minutes, the “worldview” was supposed to make me question my beliefs

“Make no mistake," Deace said in the same interview, "you will see, particularly when you get about 30 minutes into the film, once we feel like the unbeliever is emotionally connected to the story, we flip the script on them, and the worldview of the movie comes out and it flies its colors boldly the whole rest of the film.”

I didn't feel “emotionally connected.” But Flanery's performance as he switched from demon to tortured Edward kept me watching while Belfi’s “fish-out-of-water” reactions to Nefarious kept me slightly amused.

Then I felt the flip of the switch Deace mentioned when Nefarious stopped preaching in generalities and channeled a conservative religious worldview.

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First was the scene where Nefarious accuses Martin of murdering his elderly mother through "death with dignity, euthanasia, assisted suicide." Then, a long scene where Nefarious beats Martin down on the issue of abortion, instilling a sense of panic and guilt in Martin for his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend's abortion that I didn’t find believable.

Then, there's this dialogue that gets in a culture war dig. Martin makes an idealistic statement that no one I know would ever make in real life: "We've never been freer," he says. "Literacy is at an all-time high. We're working to eliminate racism, intolerance, gender inequality. People can love who they want, be who they want, do what they want. Diversity is no longer a dream, hate speech is no longer tolerated, and politically, we're reclaiming the moral high ground."

Nefarious' rebuttal is weak, directly addressing only literacy before segueing into a disdainful rant that seeks to communicate the screenwriter's opinion instead of addressing Martin's points: "James, the average high school graduate reads at a sixth-grade level. Your basketball players making 30 million a year decrying racism all while wearing sneakers made from slave labor. Here's something for you. Right now. Your world currently has 40 million slaves, more than the Romans had at the height of their empire. Want to know the best part though? Half of those, half, are sex slaves. As for hate speech, you want to hear some irony? We didn't even come up with that one. You did it all by yourself. Sometimes you amaze even us."

Nothing here, nor in the film, posed a compelling argument that caused me to question anything, other than, on occasion trying to follow Nefarious’ stream-of-consciousness reasoning.

“The truth” was supposed to rock my world.

Was "Nefarious" subversive while I was watching it? That is, as someone who isn’t immersed in conservative Christianity and who knew little beforehand about the people who produced the film, did their “truth” unconsciously infiltrate my psyche and take over my beliefs?

No. Instead, “the truth” went way over my head.

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In a review on Bounding Into Comics, Jacob Smith writes, “Belfi plays a psychiatrist … and his character, at least in one aspect, represents the secular world coming to terms with the evil he unwittingly helped create or at least created by his willful ignorance.”

Really? I totally missed that Belfi represented all that.

“This movie is a thriller," Deace said, "but it is with the intent of grabbing the culture by the throat and saying to them, you’re about right to the lip, man, the tape line of the mouth of madness. If you take one more step, you’re belly-flopping and not coming back.”

OK. I can’t speak to the film’s effects on everybody, but nothing that played out on the screen convinced me of the error of my beliefs or had me perched on the edge of a precipice.

Conclusion: A great movie for conservative Christians, not for me

I think those with a conservative Christian outlook will relate to the world view references, appreciate the novelty of a demon as the messenger, and see "Nefarious" as a movie of great meaning and depth, one they won't forget.

While the acting kept me watching, by the end, I wondered what was the point of what I'd watched. But after watching some conservative talk shows to better understand the intent of what I was supposed to get and want to discuss, I want to un-see "Nefarious," forget it, and get my money back.

Rachelle Chase is an author and an opinion columnist, who's also launched a new column, Trailblazers & Trendsetters, at the Des Moines Register. Follow Rachelle at facebook.com/rachelle.chase.author or email her at rchase@registermedia.com.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Opinion: Curious about ‘Nefarious,’ I saw it. Now, I regret it.