by Robert Bouffard, Editor
I didn’t intend on going to see the movie The Devil Conspiracy when I first saw showtimes at my local theater. I’m not typically in the habit of seeing religious-based movies whose purpose is evangelism, instead of storytelling. But I was mistaken — that’s not what this movie is at all. At the same time, though… it still isn’t any good.
What drew me in to The Devil Conspiracy is that, similar to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, it’s got insanely rich people using biological warfare. Except, instead of cloning dinosaurs, this cabal is attempting to retrieve Jesus’ DNA from the Shroud of Turin so that they can save Lucifer from his imprisonment by the Archangel Michael. This sounds like the perfect kind of wild, out-there concept that has the opportunity to become a cult classic (pun intended).
But at each and every turn, when this has the chance to go off the walls and lean into its excellent premise, it zags and chooses the most dull outcome instead. Most of the film focuses on Laura (Alice Orr-Ewing), a woman that the cult has chosen to bear the child from Jesus’ DNA that will birth Satan… somehow; details aren’t important here.
So instead of a creative imagining of what might happen were Jesus to be reborn as Satan, we’re stuck with the most boring and uninteresting cult horror movie that we could get. In general, there are countless movies where people are being chased after in dimly lit buildings by scary people who want to do bad things to them. When there’s nothing motivating those chases — not even schlock — you know something has gone very wrong with your movie.
Ultimately, I’m just upset that The Devil Conspiracy barely even approaches the line of being ridiculous fun. It has its moments, like when the rebirthed, child version of Vivaldi plays the violin for the cult as a proof of concept, so that they can be convinced to bid on baby Galileo. That scene is early on in the movie, and I was totally on board at that point. But instead of following that thread, it’s Laura being chased and tortured.
Sometimes, you want a movie you know will be bad to be a good kind of bad. But when it’s still bad at being bad, that’s even worse.
Score: 2/10
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