The Carpenter's Son
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: November 14, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
40
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
9
Negative:
5

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaNov 11, 2025
Rife with great performances and disturbing imagery, The Carpenter’s Son transcends its trappings as a mere horror take on Christ and verges on challenging. Read full review
67
The PlaylistMarshall ShafferNov 15, 2025
There’s more to recommend than not here, thanks to Nathan’s keen visual eye and Jupe’s complex interpretation of a figure often flattened into a neat function. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerNov 13, 2025
As much as The Carpenter’s Son threatens to swallow you whole, and as much as it probes the oft-ignored darkness inherent in the Bible even outside of the Apocrypha, its thesis remains a little too academic to move the soul. Read full review
65
SlashfilmChris EvangelistaNov 11, 2025
The Carpenter's Son might just be creepy enough to work for you even if you've managed to go your whole life without religion or faith. But I imagine it works even better if you've spent some time in church. Read full review
60
ColliderAidan KelleyNov 11, 2025
The direction that The Carpenter's Son is charting is the right one, as there are some moments of genuine intrigue, and it's not always clear if the titular character is going to fall into the path of the dark side or take on a more noble path. However, Cage's supporting role and the rest of the movie's more meandering moments and subplots, including a rushed ending, prevent it from being heralded as the enduring cult classic that a lot of Cage's other recent hits have become. Read full review
50
Screen RantGregory NussenNov 14, 2025
Heretical or not, it's a captivating story, even when it seems predicated solely on vibes. It's a shame, then, that the film is not as accessible as Jupe is as an actor. The first two acts move like molasses, brimming with allegory that never quite translates off the page. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonNov 12, 2025
Describing this makes it sound like there’s more plot than there actually is, but “The Carpenter’s Son” isn’t a conventional story. It’s more of a mood piece, with a true run time of just barely 90 minutes. But it’s got Cage, and that’s the difference maker. Read full review
43
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiNov 11, 2025
The Carpenter’s Son' is a Biblical horror movie with interesting ideas. They just don’t seem interesting because the perspective is cockeyed, which nullifies the film’s ability to trouble our hearts. Read full review
42
IndieWireDavid EhrlichNov 13, 2025
The only people for whom this situation isn’t terrifying are us, the audience, who feel nothing but the purgatorial torpor of sitting through a movie that’s too afraid of its own concept to do anything truly provocative with it. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubJacob OllerNov 11, 2025
It takes dedication to make a dull movie where Nicolas Cage plays Joseph and Jesus gets into a fistfight with Satan, but The Carpenter’s Son sets to its task with devotion, if little else. Read full review
40
EmpireJohn NugentNov 25, 2025
This is not the messiah. Nor is it a very naughty boy. There was an opportunity for a truly original spin on the so-called Greatest Story Ever Told here, but The Carpenter’s Son pulls its punches to make a rather rote horror that amounts to little. Read full review
40
Little White LiesBillie WalkerNov 21, 2025
Though not beyond salvaging as The Carpenter’s Son offers some moments of biblical horror, including an Hieronymus Bosch-like depiction of hell, it doesn’t succeed in pushing past mild discomfort. There is still not enough to drag it down into truly blasphemous depths. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeNov 14, 2025
It’s all so hard to define not because it’s too brave and original to fit into the system, but because it’s never all that clear that anyone involved knows what the hell they’re making. Whatever their answers might be, I’m positive that Nathan and Cage didn’t aim to deliver something quite so dull. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comPeter SobczynskiNov 14, 2025
While the premise has some undeniable potential, it has been executed by writer-director Lotfy Nathan in a manner that is neither particularly frightening nor spiritually enlightening. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineMark HansonNov 11, 2025
The Carpenter’s Son fails to even offer decent frights, unless one finds the preponderance of CGI snakes particularly scary. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleNov 18, 2025
With its flat location visuals, B-movie gore (snakes pulled from mouths) and colorless score, The Carpenter’s Son is the uninspired origin story you never prayed for. Read full review
30
The New York TimesBrandon YuNov 13, 2025
To graft the story of Jesus onto the template of a genre film is, if blasphemous to the faithful, and mainly just silly to everyone else. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckNov 11, 2025
For all its visual stylishness, The Carpenter’s Son feels like such an essentially misconceived project that it seems destined for future cult status, with audiences at midnight screenings shouting out the more outrageous lines in unison with the actors. Which may not be what the filmmaker intended, but sounds like a lot of fun. Read full review
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