Crew
Directors/Screenplay – Chuck Konzelman & Cary Solomon, Inspired by the Novel A Nefarious Plot (2016) by Steven Deace, Producers – Sheila Hart, Chris Jones, Chuck Konzelman & Cary Solomon, Photography – Jason Head, Music – Bryan E. Miller, Visual Effects – Immersive Edge (Supervisor – Ashley Ledden & Ethan Ledden), Makeup Effects – Princie Patel, Production Design – Chad Quick & Chris Rose. Production Company – Believe Entertainment.
Cast
Sean Patrick Flanery (Nefarious/Edward Wayne Brady), Jordan Belfi (Dr James Martin), Tom Ohmer (Warden Tom Moss), Daniel Martin Berkey (Father Louis), Glenn Beck (Himself)
Plot
Psychologist James Martin is sent to the Oklahoma state penitentiary to conduct an assessment of serial killer Edward Wayne Brady and determine if he is mentally competent to be executed that evening. As Martin sits down with him, Brady makes the claim that he is possessed by the demon Nefarious. The atheist Martin is disbelieving even as Brady predicts that Martin will have killed three people before the end of their session. Brady even has knowledge that Martin’s girlfriend is going in for an abortion that day. Nefarious then challenges Martin that if he does not believe in demons to invite him into his body.
I enjoyed Nefarious. It turned out to be quite a strong and original variation on the Possession film. The surprise I did not learn until looking up who made it afterwards was to find is that it was from Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon, the duo who were responsible for producing God’s Not Dead (2014) and sequels. (See below for their other works). While I have major issues with their straw man anti-atheism arguments in God’s Not Dead, I still had to admit that Nefarious – some obvious soapbox preaching aside – is quite a decent little film.
The title reminds back to when Insidious (2010) was a hit. This was followed throughout the mid-2010s by a spate of other films using sinister sounding adjectives as their titles – Sinister (2012), Pernicious (2014), Demonic (2015), The Diabolical (2015), Ominous (2016) and Malicious (2018). The premise of someone going to talk to a demon-possessed serial killer in their cell has largely been lifted from The Exorcist III (1990).
The taunting games played by Sean Patrick Flanery and his ominous prediction to Jordan Belfi “Before you leave here today, you will commit three murders” get quite a grip on you. If it is possible to talk about plausibility when you are referring to demons, there is something far too believable to the scenes where the demon explains how it takes over slowly, often at a young age and by small things that nobody notices. The dialogue is tight and well written, filled with teasing traps – we gasp when we see the situation where the atheist Jordan Belfi is manoeuvred into where he is challenged to invite the demon into him and watch as he hesitates before shrugging off doing so as meaning nothing.
And okay, I do start to have some issues with Nefarious as it goes on. One of these is listing abortion as murder. This is presented with all the intendedly horrific effect of Right to Life protestors waving placards with pictures of bloody foetuses as Flanery comes out with the line “Can you imagine the agony The Creator feels when we rip the child apart in its’ mother’s womb?” [PLOT SPOILERS] And the three murders that Jordan Belfi does eventually conduct seem awfully theoretical ones – he fails to stop his girlfriend from getting an abortion; he confesses to euthanising his mother in the past (which seems to stretch the definition of the murders being committed that day); and signs Flanery’s death warrant.
In the role of the demon possessed killer is Sean Patrick Flanery. Initially, I started to find Flanery’s performance off-putting – he seems to talk far too fast and blink a lot – but there came a point where this started to work on you and became a very good performance. As the demon, his lines are persuasive, arguments that become traps. You realise what a good piece of acting it is when we suddenly see him switches personalities from Nefarious to become the pathetic and tortured Brady. The contrast becomes particularly effective towards the end where Brady gives details for his last meal and then the demon reappears and tells the guard that he doesn’t want a meal, before we later see Brady sobbing pathetically at being denied his last request.
Almost the entire film (70 minutes out of a 97-minute runtime) takes place as the conversation with Sean Patrick Flanery and Jordan Belfi seated opposite one another. There are brief interludes where Belfi leaves the room, but the bulk of the film takes place with the two seated at a table. It is only after the execution that the film falters in that the scene where the demon takes over Belfi and begins waving a gun seems dramatically forced, while the subsequent scenes with him appearing on the talkshow of real-life conservative commentator Glenn Beck and an encounter with a homeless lady seem a letdown on an otherwise fine dramatic build-up.
Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon had previously worked as a screenwriting team with sf/action works like T.N.T. (1997), Point Blank (1998), The Survivor (1998), Race Against Time (2000), Earth vs. the Spider (2001) and creating the tv series The Immortal (2000-1). They then switched to writing/producing Christian films with What If … (2010), The Book of Daniel (2013), Finding Normal (2013), God’s Not Dead (2014) and sequels, and Do You Believe? (2015). As directors, they had previously made the vampire comedy The Insatiable (2006), also starring Sean Patrick Flanery, and the anti-abortion film Unplanned (2019).
(Nominee for Best Actor (Sean Patrick Flanery) at this site’s Best of 2023 Awards).
Trailer here