Dangerous Faith
Dangerous Faith is a ministry that strives to light a fire inside of Everyday Christians to live radically for Christ so that we can glorify God by advancing His Kingdom.
Dangerous Faith
#47: Dangerous Life– A Review of the Christian Horror Movie "Nefarious"
*Spoiler alert!*
The Dangerous Life Team gives their thoughts on the Christian horror movie "Nefarious." They talk about spiritual warfare, the acting quality in the movie, and much more!
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Welcome to another episode and video of the Dangerous Life version of the Dangerous Faith podcast. Glad to be with you. I need to find a simpler way of saying that. It's all dangerous faith, but our type of videos and podcast episodes are dangerous life, where we talk about Gen Z issues. But today we are going to cover the movie Nefarious. I watched it yesterday. We have some people who watched it this morning, which was pretty impressive and yeah, but collectively I just thought it was interesting to talk about and it'll lead to good conversation. So just something broad. What are our thoughts on Nefarious and anyone have any initial Blake, it was great, I loved it. Blake loved it. Okay, now, starting with that, are there any more details we could go into about what we liked about it? It was good. Amen, justin, with the follow up, maybe I can pass it to Zeke and Chloe about something a little bit more substantial with the movie Chloe, what do you think?
Blake Tetro:Yeah, I thought it was great, very eye opening.
Nate Williams:We're loving this great word we're getting there.
Blake Tetro:I thought it was really eye opening, just because, honestly, you just don't see many movies that are made like that about that topic. So I really honestly learned a lot from it.
Justin Weygand:Good. Okay, Justin, to go to the eye opening point. I hate to say this, but some of the best Christian points were sadly brought up by a demon and I think Christians need to watch that movie honestly, seriously.
Nate Williams:Okay, that reminds me a little bit of the screw tape letters in a way, just the way it was designed with CS Lewis. Now, spencer, do you have any thoughts on it?
Chloe Adams:No, spencer, you watched it?
Nate Williams:this morning and there was not a thought that went through your mind with the movie. No, no, it was great, it was awesome.
Spencer Smith:We're just watching.
Nate Williams:We are working on expanding our vocabulary here amongst all of us. I was just like if they didn't start laughing.
Spencer Smith:I could have kept going with my pot but I heard the laughing
Justin Weygand:when it was a good.
Spencer Smith:It was epic.
Chloe Adams:It was pretty chill. No, nice use of a synonym right there.
Spencer Smith:I thought the acting by the guy who played Edward was really good. That was really what stuck out to me, and the points like how he verbalized how the spiritual world is and how it connects to us was just very eye opening, as we've said previously, but it was just. It was a good movie.
Zeke Adams:Absolutely Well, I know this is kind of an unpopular opinion, but I think it was a great movie. I'll add to my greatness about that is let's add to your greatness about my opinion on the movie. Yes obviously.
Zeke Adams:No, I'm going to agree with Spencer. I think it's something that we take for granted, like we read in the Bible as Christians, that we're not at war against against flesh and blood, against spiritual powers and principalities. So I think it does a good job of that, of helping us to see that in a modern day version. It kind of my eyes of like I wonder how many things are going on around me that I don't think about or I don't know or don't see.
Nate Williams:Yeah, I think you're right, justin. I thought you were leaning forward, getting ready to roll. I love how they didn't go in any one direction too much, so they didn't downplay mental illness. That's real, that's legitimate. But also they didn't shy away from that. Demons are active. I thought the, or the theology was really solid. I don't know what I was thinking there when it comes to spiritual warfare, but the theology seems solid and it kind of made me pause that even as a Christian, we can give, not that we can be demon possessed, but we can give a foothold to the enemy by like a series of yeses.
Nate Williams:I like the way Nefarious put it, which you're right, Justin, kind of sounds weird to say. I like when Nefarious described saying a series of yeses to invite demonic activity incrementally into your life to the point where eventually it controls you if you're not a believer. I thought that was very powerful. Does this movie affect the way you view things happening in culture?
Justin Weygand:at all. Actually, before we go on, I did have a question. You brought it up Do you not believe in demon possession?
Chloe Adams:It sounded like that's what you said, oh no, no, he was saying, as Christians, we can't get possessed.
Nate Williams:I'm willing to be fact checked. I'm willing to be wrong. I often am. I think that the strongest descriptor I would say for Christians is demonic influence. We can be impacted negatively by demons, but I wouldn't say demonic control or possession.
Justin Weygand:That whole topic. Any movie involving that typically scares the crap out of me. You can ask him after we got done watching the Nun. I was praying and I thought I was possessed.
Nate Williams:Yes, it can be very powerful based on what you're saying. Zeke, do you want to say something?
Zeke Adams:I'm good, okay, no, I will save it for later.
Nate Williams:Save it for later. Okay, all right, but anyways, let's, let's. When it comes to culture and someone, I guess we have to be careful, because anytime someone acts out, we don't want to go up to them and say, hey, you have a demon. I don't think that's wise, but do you do? Does this movie change the way you view culture, like the way people behave, the way people act, at all for you?
Chloe Adams:Yes, and I'm gonna just go because it was a. It was one of the topics in the movie, but my claim is from when nefarious is talking about abortion and he talks about the, the. How was it? Was it the Canaanites?
Nate Williams:Molec, yeah, I think the.
Chloe Adams:Canaanites? Yeah, I don't. And that's not Sodom and Gomorrah, is it? No, I always get. Yeah.
Chloe Adams:So in the Canaanites, what they would do for anybody who doesn't know is they would Along with a plethora of other terrible things. One of the things they would do is they would take infant babies and they would put them on these statues or a bronze, bronze, bronze statues of this, of this. It was a god, right, or was it a demon? A bull, and it was named mullet. And what they would do is, when they would place the babies on there because it's a bronze statue and it'd be searing hot, there would be a flame underneath it. The babies would obviously recoil from the searingness of the heat, and then they would fall into the flame and burn alive and it'd be like a sacrifice to mullet. And In order to drown out the crying, they would pound these drums.
Chloe Adams:Well, nefarious brought that up. But then he says it's no different from today in our culture, with abortion, only this time they wear scrubs and surgical masks and they Take apart the baby inside of the mother's womb, the place where God knits us. So that was. I still get chills just thinking about that. That is just so deep. Like you, you think like we're nowhere near like they, like the cananites were, and then you look at that and you're like we're right there with the cananites, if not worse.
Justin Weygand:Yeah, justin, take. To go on to the abortion thing, the imagery that he used, I'm sure not imagery, it's just, it would be fact. He said it's just as gosh. Sorry, a specific line in the movie, the specific ocean, but it's the specific line in the movie that got me and really just hit me hard was when he's saying, no, my brain's blank Talking about the abortion. He says, oh, imagine how the carpenter feels when us, through you talking about people on the carpenter, jesus, obviously, when we rip apart the baby in the womb, we dismember it.
Justin Weygand:Yeah that the imagery is a. You know he's Directly doing a shot of Jesus.
Spencer Smith:It's terrible terrible Spencer and talking about Mollick and Sacrificing it to something. When the abortion happens, it's a sacrifice to your own pleasure, so it's to yourself. You're putting yourself as your own God in that situation when you have that abortion, to your own security, to everything else. So it really puts it in perspective that, oh yeah, we don't have this giant flaming bull in front of us that we're sacrificing it to, but there is something out there that we're sacrificing the child to yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, it's when, when you put it like that, which begs the question on a little bit, when you get into faith, type films.
Nate Williams:I thought those moments were very powerful, but that's because we agree in general with the worldview of the movie maker. When, what do y'all think about the preachiness? Was it a preachy movie or was it not bad in that area? And neither thought any thoughts this.
Chloe Adams:This is going to be such an opinionated question because we all, like I, to me it didn't seem like it was preachy. But we grow up but, like I said, we're part of the a Christian atmosphere, so we, we don't really. I didn't, I didn't see it as preachy, but you take somebody that's secular and Maybe not having faith in anything, it's gonna sound preachy to them. So it's just, it's just kind of like one of those, like I don't necessarily know if it was preachy it did. To me it wasn't preachy, it just seemed like an honest conversation.
Justin Weygand:Yeah, justin, so I I will say on to that, I don't know the background of the, the person who made the movie, I don't know if this was specifically targeted towards Christians or anything like that. This seemed to me like in a way it could be preachy, but in a good way and I In a way kind of to me if I'm gonna scare you straight movie Because you really see the evil side of the things that they're doing. It talks about these things that are brought up in society so much abortion, the Physician-assisted suicide. When he started mentioning that I was like, wow, this is, this is not something I expected to be brought up in the movie and it goes over. It kind of a little bit gory to. That's terrible.
Chloe Adams:It also brought up the fact. Did you catch the part where he said that we have Athletes getting paid thirty million dollars talking about oppression? Did anybody catch that part?
Justin Weygand:and he says that the what did he say was that we made it. It was a hate speech. Yeah, the hate speech.
Chloe Adams:We came up with that, not the demon. These like he's, like we. The demon was like you got us on that one, you came up with that one.
Spencer Smith:Yeah.
Blake Tetro:Honestly don't think it was super preachy. I mean, yeah, the demon was telling the atheist all about you know, the gospel message and like just different things at a certain point in the movie. But that kind of made me realize that demons, you know, demons believe. It says that. One point in scripture says even the demons.
Blake Tetro:Yeah, even the demons believe in, they Shutter, you know, and that's kind of crazy to me that, like even demons can believe and even know more than Christians and still, you know, be demons, like, isn't that? That's just crazy to me. And then scary, yeah. And then there's like Some point in the movie it's it's been a few weeks since I've watched it, but when was it like a Christian came in or something or the priest came in, yeah and at first the demon was really scared right, because he thought like oh, this, this is probably you know God through this preacher or whatever.
Blake Tetro:and and then, like, as the priest keeps talking and talking, the demon realizes oh, he's not really a true like calls him a poser.
Nate Williams:I think, yeah, he does and then the demons.
Blake Tetro:Like comfortable with him means like, okay, you're on my side. I thought that was that was pretty scary.
Nate Williams:Yeah, yeah, and I think that's where a lot of Artheology today is, where we're really uncomfortable. Talking about the spiritual world, we do need to be careful. We all know, people, that everything's explained by angels and demons. You don't want to go that direction, but a lot of pastors and Christian leaders Do downplay the, the nature of the spiritual world, and it's real and there there's actual legitimate evil. That explains a lot, zeke um.
Zeke Adams:So something we talked about today in Sunday school actually was Paul's critique on certain pastors. So if you read in Philippians 1 he talks about, there's some pastors who are out there preaching the gospel for wrong motives, he says, for selfish ambition, for envy and rivalry. And yet Paul's response to them is our joist calls, the gospels get being preached. But then you also see him in places like Galatians. I think it is where he's rebuking those who are preaching a false gospel with good motives, good motives of I want to make people feel better, I want people to feel loved Best the wrong gospel. I think that's something that we get.
Zeke Adams:We don't really take a look at both sides today, like there's our bad preachers with, we would assume, good motives of wanting to help people, but they're preaching. They're not preaching the gospel that we know and a gospel that's any other gospel won't help us, it won't save us, like Paul says. But those we can look at, those who are have bad motives, have done bad things and we're like, yeah, they shouldn't do that, like Paul says, but cross is being preached, people are being saved. So amen to that.
Zeke Adams:Yeah, yeah but from the movie I think it sounds like this is a preacher who's preaching with what he thinks. Things are good intentions, but a bad message. It's not the gospel and therefore the demons not scared of him.
Nate Williams:Yeah, you can, you can, you can do work around a lot of that stuff if, if, you're on the demon side. Because, ultimately, oh, one thing I do want to talk about was what did y'all think of the actor who portrayed Edward?
Chloe Adams:Phenomenal dude like he needs, like. That's awesome. That was an Oscar worthy performance and he was good.
Justin Weygand:Unfortunately, because the, because the material probably will never be near nominated for something like that.
Chloe Adams:No, it's, it's, it's, it was to right wing.
Spencer Smith:Yeah. I already said my comments.
Nate Williams:Yes.
Nate Williams:He was, he was great, anyway. So I think this is Talking, taking a step back and looking at the Christian movie industry itself. It's a good idea that these little set piece type movies doesn't take a lot of money, it doesn't. You don't have to have tons and tons of lands and land or travel around the world or any of that stuff, it's just if you have a good idea and there's a good script. Because if someone told me hey, you're gonna watch an hour and a half movie of two people talking to each other, most of the time I'm gonna be like, no, thank you, that's not not movie, for maybe Interview or something like that, but not as a movie. But they managed to keep it interesting as Eek.
Zeke Adams:I was gonna say that's we need a lot more than, like all the industries, I think, what the church is finally starting to realize that For the longest time we've been kind of shying away from society and running away from the world. But I mean, we read in scripture like we're supposed to be in the world but not up the world. So that implies that we're not just gonna run away and hide in our little hut. So Jesus comes back. And we've kind of done that all throughout church history where we've just tried to Exclude ourselves from society and thinking, oh, jesus, come back soon, so it'll be okay, then he's not back. And then he's not back. And then we're two thousand years later like he's coming back on man which he, he'll be back any day, any time. I don't know when, but I'm saying like until then we're gonna set a date, make a prediction Not today.
Chloe Adams:I'll make a prediction right now Tomorrow, so that's gonna go over well.
Spencer Smith:Yes, but.
Nate Williams:Continuing what you're saying, zeke. We don't need to be ashamed of believing in angels and demons.
Nate Williams:That's not For a while now. It's not polite society. You're not welcome to talk about those things. And you take about our issue with abortion, traditional marriage and all of those things that we kind of whisper with those things, some of the other stuff like helping the poor. Well, we'll talk about a lot and we should, because it's great, but then some some of the other things we kind of don't want to bring up. But you have nothing to be ashamed of if you're a Christian listening out there. You have nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to marriage, when it comes to being pro-life, when it comes to believing in angels and demons. That these are Very real issues and topics that we can talk about. And you might get ridiculed depending on the circles you run in, but that's okay. These are things we need to talk about. It's a very real aspect of our world.
Spencer Smith:So, spencer, I think a big thing that's happening is the dramatization of demons and that sort of like. You see it in movies where people get exercised and it's like this huge show. And you see it in these churches where the pastors just yelling at this Dude in the crowd demon come out, demon come out. And I think that's put a bad light on what the spiritual world actually looks like and making it into some sort of thing that it may not be.
Nate Williams:Yeah, I agree. I agree, and Hollywood, sometimes it can be good to bring issues to light. We talked, you know, we were watching sound to freedom, some of us, and we'll have a video on that soon but then also it can make things worse depending on what it's portraying. But before we change topics to Talk more about the spiritual world in general, Do y'all have? Any other concluding thoughts on the movie itself.
Chloe Adams:Well, this was, this was. I've got actually Two things. One's a question, and I guess they're kind of both questions. What it? How did y'all like? The first question is like how did did y'all catch the carpenter aspect?
Spencer Smith:like.
Chloe Adams:Jesus, because Jesus's name has power. So it's like that's why they kept calling them the carpenter. It's better.
Spencer Smith:And that ties into the beginning of the movie where he's talking about his name and how it means something. So to call Edward Edward and to call nefarious nefarious, it means something because it has a title to what it is and shows. There's some respect to the yeah, I thought that was.
Chloe Adams:I thought that was Brilliant seat, brilliant writing right there.
Justin Weygand:I thought I thought I didn't really notice that when I noticed it, I thought that it was trying to find a way of belittling Christ when they did, I think it can be both.
Chloe Adams:I Mean it, it, it, it can be, but I think it more. It's more along the lines of you know if, because Jesus, like you said, jesus name has power and there's authority in his name, and once you once, and once they say this, say his name, the demons are like they're acknowledging his authority, and so it's like it. They shut, like. They shutter at the idea of like God, jesus. But my other question is a Did y'all feel sorry for Edward?
Nate Williams:That's a good question.
Zeke Adams:Zeke. Yeah, I mean I Did. I felt pity and empathy for him cause, like you see, this man who realizes, whenever we do get to talk to him, we realize, like the bond he's in and that it's like he won't sound of it, but he's going so far down this path he can't get out. He's given so much control to the demon and to our tendiparius, I guess, and Now he there's nothing he can do. So I think that's just a good warning for us of like hey, you don't, we're Christians, we don't have to worry about this. Like we said before, we don't have to worry about being possessed, like that or anything. But we need to be careful that we don't give Control to them or give them to control, to like start influencing, influencing us, and that we stay grounded in God's word and in prayer.
Nate Williams:Yeah, that's a good thought. Anyone else any thoughts on the character of Edward? Do we feel bad for him? I kind of feel like if you're a Lord of the Rings fan, the the issue of golem like how did you golem? This kind of reminds me of that question. Do you feel bad for him or not? So, edward, any other thoughts there? Chloe?
Blake Tetro:Um, I definitely do also feel bad for him because he's no longer technically like in control of his actions and his words. He has someone else completely taken over him. And you also see that time and time again in the Bible when there's like many cases of demon possession. And I don't know if y'all have watched the chosen, but there's this one episode, I think, where I think it was one of the Mary's or some of the she had a demon.
Chloe Adams:Was Mary Magdalene.
Blake Tetro:Yeah.
Justin Weygand:I think it was.
Blake Tetro:Yeah, mary Magdalene, yeah. And so, like it just shows her like she's harming herself. She's in this room all by herself and all these priests are coming to help her and pray over her. Nothing is working, and so, like I always personally feel sad for those who are demon possessed Cause they just like Zeke said, there's nothing they can do anymore.
Chloe Adams:I kind of lean and this is just me being a true crime nut, I lean. I feel bad for Edward, for the position that he's gotten him, that he's gotten himself in. But I do think the electric chair and they chose the electric chair but the fact that he that you know he had faced the death penalty, I feel like that was also just because we have to remember, like, even if nefarious took over his body and they never, they never stressed that we don't know if Edward killed him, but he had nefarious in his ear saying you do it, do it, do it. But it was Edward choosing to because he didn't want to have to deal with nefarious or something like like we don't know, they didn't give us any of that backstory. So the way I looked at it is Edward did commit crimes, he got himself in this situation. We don't know what Edward did, but we know that he's in this situation for a reason. So he is guilty in a law abiding sense. He is guilty and I think his punishment was just he killed six people and, like I said, we can argue well that could have been nefarious. Either way, edward was guilty in a law sense, he was guilty of that.
Chloe Adams:So I feel I do feel sorry for the predicament he's gotten himself in, but at the same time I feel like it's just. I'm glad that they didn't deem him insane and he didn't have to face the death penalty. I feel like it was. It was kind of just for Edward. Even though it says that he was going to go in, the fairies said he was going to go to hell. You know, we can. There's a lot of nuance there. We can. That could be like another topic for another day, but regardless, it's like if he pleads and say anything, he still has to deal with nefarious and nefarious will find a way to kill him, or he gets what he deserves and goes to the chair and just kind of puts an end to it there. So feel bad for him, for the situation, but I think the punishment fits the crime.
Nate Williams:I think that's fair. I think that's fair, spencer. What do you think? Do we feel bad for Edward or so it was heartbreaking to see him.
Spencer Smith:You know crying about it and you know not getting his last meal. That was just awful. That was terrible, but it also, as we were talking about earlier, he took that, he, he fell asleep by the wheel, he, he drifted off and he went down the route that he went down. So it was just, but also, at the same time, his, his mind was broken by nefarious, because we could easily see that by stuttering how he acted. His mind was broken, so he was insane too, but was he insane when he did the crimes?
Chloe Adams:It just raises a lot of questions. Yeah, there was no backstory that filled us in on that, so you just kind of have to make like guesses or theories. Yeah.
Zeke Adams:One last thing I'd add to all that is I think this came up recently I think it was a few months ago where the documentary came out on who was that big time murderer like a couple of decades ago, and then apparently he became a Christian while in jail, Jeffrey.
Spencer Smith:Dahmer.
Zeke Adams:Yes, jeffrey Dahmer, I know the question came up where people were saying so, christians believe that he's in heaven right now, like, and then, like you had a lot of Christians that were like fumbling over the question how many wouldn't like? Well, that's just a question of fumble over. We believe that all sin can be forgiven. I don't know if he's in heaven, I don't know if his repentance was true or not, that's a different question, but people were just like baffled that we believe that murders could possibly be forgiven, and so I don't know the case with Edward in this fictional character. But like, just in any case, like this, I mean, god's grace covers all, as long as we're willing to accept it.
Chloe Adams:I think the problem with that and why people fumble over it is because and I watched this in Frank Turrick debates Frank will say something and they'll be like oh so you think God? So you agree that God is evil. They'll say stuff like that. So if we're like, yeah, we think Jeffrey Dahmer's in heaven, like if they were to say that they're like, oh so you're okay with a guy cannibalizing people and you know he gets to go to heaven, like we didn't. We never said that. We said sin can be forgiven If Jeffrey gave, if Jeffrey truly repented for his sins and gave his life to Christ yeah there's no doubt in my mind that he'd be in heaven.
Chloe Adams:I mean, that's what the Bible says. That's true salvation.
Blake Tetro:Yeah, and that even goes. I mean all the way back to the crucifixion, I mean the thief on the cross. You know, he gave his life to Jesus right there and his moment of death. And Jesus said today, you'll be with me in paradise. And like if we are talking still about Jeffrey Dahmer, like if he truly repented, that means that he didn't just say like I'm sorry, forgive me, like he turned his life around and so if he's in heaven, then that's amazing and he's truly has turned his life around, so we don't have to fear him being there.
Nate Williams:You don't have to fear, and so that's where I'll I'll guess I'll close out this topic in a couple ways. Number one, if you're a Christian out there, we do want to be careful the foothold that we allow Satan in our lives, that we all have flaws, we all make mistakes, but I think the way they put it was very accurate. With demonic activity that's incremental, it's saying yes slowly, more and more and more to sinful, self-destructive or it doesn't have to be self, it could be other destructive as well that we just want to monitor in our lives things like that, things we could work on and things we need to say no to, not say yes to if they're sinful. So that's one thing we want to be careful of. And then, secondly, we do want to stress that all sin can be forgiven, that no matter what you've done.
Nate Williams:I hear that again. So I've worked with young adults and teens and high school, middle school, and I'll hear that fairly often it's like, well, I've done some bad things, or yeah, I've done some bad things is one way of putting it. That I don't know if Jesus can love me or forgive me, but we believe in a God of love and forgiveness. Jesus has paid the price for sin and we all can have new life in Christ. So there's hope and there's joy there for absolutely everyone. Y'all, I guess, to close out the movie, any other final thoughts or that take us home.
Chloe Adams:It was great.
Nate Williams:It was a great movie. I hope this was a great movie review Chloe.
Blake Tetro:And just because we haven't said it yet, if you're out there and you haven't seen this movie, sorry for the spoilers. And if you want to watch it, $3.99 on Amazon Prime $3.99?
Nate Williams:Yeah, it's cheap, Hold on. I guess when I watched it it was $5.99.
Blake Tetro:That's right, you watched it on.
Justin Weygand:YouTube. When you watched it, it was $20. I watched it on Apple TV and it was $5.99.
Chloe Adams:I watched it on YouTube and it was $5.99.
Nate Williams:Anyways, it's of various prices depending on your streaming platform, but all right friends, very nefarious prices, all right, can we edit that out?
Chloe Adams:Edit that out.
Nate Williams:We're not editing that out, we are not All right With our next conversation we're going to talk about spiritual warfare in general. Stay tuned, We'll be back for another conversation.