Altitude has released a new trailer for the upcoming biblical horror film The Carpenter’s Son, starring Nicolas Cage, that takes a new spin by drawing on the director’s Coptic Christian background.
You can watch the trailer here:
Synopsis:
A remote village in Roman-era Egypt explodes into spiritual warfare when a carpenter, his wife, and their child are targeted by supernatural forces in The Carpenter’s Son.
Joseph (Nicolas Cage), Mary (FKA twigs), and their teenage son Jesus (Noah Jupe) have lived under threat for years, clinging to their faith and traditions. But a stopover in a small settlement unleashes growing chaos when a mysterious girl (Isla Johnston) tries to entice young Jesus to abandon his devout father’s rules. With every pull of temptation, the boy is lured into a forbidden world, as his father Joseph realises to his horror it is the work of a demonic force powerful enough to rival his faith.
Writer and director Lotfy Nathan (12 O’Clock Boys, Harka), draws from his Coptic Christian background, delivering a meticulously crafted, genre-bending supernatural thriller packed with unshakeable images of the divine and demonic at war.
The Carpenter’s Son stars Nicolas Cage (Longlegs, Mandy), Noah Jupe (A Quiet Place, Honey Boy), Isla Johnston (The Queen’s Gambit), Souheila Yacoub (Dune: Part Two), and FKA twigs (Honey Boy, The Crow).
Director’s Statement:
“As the writer and director of The Carpenter’s Son, I want to share some context about where this film comes from and what guided me in making it.
The film imagines a little-explored moment in the biblical narrative: the holy family’s time in exile, and the boyhood of Jesus during those years absent from the New Testament. Its inspiration came from the ‘Infancy Gospel of Thomas’, an apocryphal text introduced to me by my father, an avid collector of historical religious texts.
I grew up in the Coptic Orthodox Christian church. My grandmother, who raised me, was a devout believer. I was surrounded by faith as long as I can remember – I have respect for the way religion can provide people with a moral compass, community, and a sense of purpose. At the same time, since I was a child, the stories and imagery of the Bible have always fascinated me. Particularly, the parts left untold. Writing the script compelled me to research and learn far more about Christianity than I had before. In the process, I internalised aspects in ways I hadn’t expected.
While some may categorise The Carpenter’s Son as ‘horror’ or a ‘supernatural thriller’, for me, those labels are not meant to be a provocation. I see genre as nothing more than the choice of colours a painter might use in rendering an image. It’s my take, and my way of illustrating that time and place, with naturalism in mind, and having dwelt on what it would have meant to live in a time before science, before the age of reason, where every moment carried the weight of unseen spiritual forces.
It is also worth remembering that Christian culture has long engaged with art that grapples with the darkness of evil alongside the promise of redemption. From the Sistine Chapel’s visions of heaven and hell to Dante’s Inferno, images of terror and the supernatural have historically deepened the faith by illuminating what is at stake in the human soul. To look unflinchingly at evil is, paradoxically, to better understand the necessity of the good. That is the spirit in which I made The Carpenter’s Son.”
The Carpenter’s Son is in UK and Irish cinemas on November 21st.
