The Carpenter’s Son Isn’t Horror, Says Director — It Would Be Far More Salacious If It Were
After a limited November 14 screening of The Carpenter’s Son, writer-director Lotfy Nathan told The Time he’s unhappy with the label audiences are slapping on his new film—even as he opened up about its storyline and inspirations.
Lotfy Nathan would really prefer you not slap a horror label on his new movie. After a limited screening of 'The Carpenter's Son' on November 14, 2025, the writer-director told The Time the tag does not reflect what he made. The film is in US theaters now, and while it brushes up against horror, Nathan insists the core is something else entirely.
What the movie actually is
The story follows a 15-year-old Jesus as he figures out he can heal people and then has to contend with a mysterious visitor who jolts his world with doubt and fear. Nathan says the point is not jump scares; it is faith, family, and a kid shouldering impossible questions.
"I couldn't take on this story as a pure horror movie. I'd have felt that it was irresponsible."
- Director: Lotfy Nathan
- Cast: Nicolas Cage, Noah Jupe, Isla Johnston, Souheila Yacoub
- Runtime: 1h 34m
- IMDb rating: 3.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes score (so far): 36%
The deep-cut inspiration
This is where things get interesting. Nathan says his dad handed him an old copy of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, an apocryphal text that imagines episodes from Jesus's childhood. That clicked. The 'missing years' between the nativity and Jesus's public life are barely dramatized onscreen, and Nathan saw a lane for a very different kind of movie.
He also found out fast that the source material is gnarly. Plenty of the text is harsh and unsettling, and, as Nathan points out, that is true of more of the Bible than most movies bother to show. If he had stuck close to the Infancy Gospel, he says the film would have been a lot darker, more sensational, and would paint young Jesus as more temperamental and less redeemable than he wanted. So he took the premise and built his own story around it, keeping the emotional turbulence without going full provocation.
Why people are mad (and why Nathan is not bending)
'The Carpenter's Son' has walked straight into the same firestorm other biblical movies have faced over the years. Think 'The Last Temptation of Christ,' 'Dogma,' 'Noah,' and 'Life of Brian.' The pushback around Nathan's film is coming from two places:
First, that horror-adjacent tone. Even if Nathan says it is not a horror film, the marketing and mood have sparked a predictable online recoil at the idea of turning Jesus's youth into something eerie.
Second, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas itself. Some religious groups see that text as out-of-bounds and bristle at any movie pulling from it. Layer on Nathan's portrayal of Jesus as recognizably human — uncertain, emotional, occasionally angry — and you get more friction. In traditions like Catholicism, Jesus is treated as fully divine and sinless; any weakness is understood as physical, not moral. Nathan is making a different argument: that there is power in letting him struggle.
"I find that the sacrifice Jesus made would be even more compelling if he also suffered doubt."
Bottom line
Nathan knows the horror label is part of the controversy, but he maintains that is not the film's engine — and that going all-in on horror would have missed the point. What he delivered is a coming-of-age story about belief under pressure, wrapped in a biblical deep cut that was always going to rile people up.
'The Carpenter's Son' is now playing in US theaters.