You have to give writer-director Lofty Nathan points for originality.

His new film, The Carpenter’s Son, is not just any standard telling of the oft-told story of Joseph and Mary and their son, Jesus, but rather a speculation of his teenage years, his conflicts with his devoutly religious father, his growing pains and particularly his temptations as he runs with the wrong crowd, notably a determined Satan in the form of a teenage girl. The passions of this Christ have not been told quite this way before as this is low-budget horror posing as a not-quite-biblical epic. We’ve seen plenty of both before but not in a cinematic mixtape. The results might not fully please devotees of either genre, but at least it’s different.

Nathan leans heavily into his own Orthodox Coptic Christian

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