Absolutely Fantastic

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Although a thriller, and a disturbing one at that, this is also a meditation on how people who are searching or in need of something outside of their regular lives, can be easily sucked into dangerous ideology. It can be terrorism, racism, or anarchism; here, it is a religious cult. Robert Loggia and Martin Sheen are a Police Lieuetenant and a Psychotherapist, respectively, who investigate when an NYPD detective goes off the rails after finding the body of an eight year old boy on a sacrificial altar. The deeper they go, the more personal it gets, until Sheen's own eight year old son, played by Harley Cross, is caught up in the affair.

What happens when an acclaimed A-listed director like John Schlesinger ("Midnight Cowboy", "Marathon Man") and an acclaimed A-listed actor like Martin Sheen ("Apocalypse Now", "Badlands") decide together to cash in on the contemporary popular trend of making a religiously themed horror movie? Sadly – but predictably – this results in a pretentious, dreadfully overlong and ridiculous piece of melodramatic soap-opera schlock! Back in the era of pioneering cinema, there were a handful of titles – "I walked with a Zombie" and "White Zombie" to name just two – that put forward the theme of voodoo as something uniquely macabre and nightmarish, but ever since the 1980's, many directors mistakenly assume that it is horrifying enough just to insert images of bloody headless chicken corpses and African tribes performing silly dance rituals. Schlesinger makes the exact same mistake and, atop of that, also adds far too many family drama sub plots and redundant detective elements. The opening sequences are supposed to be tragic and heart-wrenching but (and maybe it's just me?) I found them quite imbecilic and banal. Police psychiatrist Cal Jamison loses his wife in a far-fetched kitchen accident – malfunctioning coffee machines and spilled milk do not go well together – and moves to the center of New York with his 7-year-old son. What follows is an irritating series of clichéd situations, since daddy falls in love with the new landlady but obviously doesn't want to neglect his traumatized little boy. Meanwhile, his job also drags him into a spider web of intrigues regarding the Santerío-religion. This strange religion worships African spirits in the shape of Christian Gods (or something like it, I don't know) and has quite a few of influential disciples in NY. The lives of innocent young boys are sacrificed in favor of obnoxious rich adults and, because he sticks his nose too much in the voodoo business, Jamison's own son is suddenly in danger as well. Unlike Alan Parker in the superior "Angel Heart", John Schlesinger didn't have the balls to show any controversial themes or shocking images. However, if you happen to fancy tedious and confusing dialogs, dull sentimental interludes, a complete lack of atmosphere or tension and weak performances from usually reliable actors (besides Sheen also Robert Loggia, Harris Yulin and Jimmy Smits), then you absolutely must see "The Believers". I'm required to admit there are two memorable highlights as well, though. There's one marvelous, but misfit, scene with eerie little spiders crawling out of a woman's jaw and also the casting of Malick Bowens as the sinister voodoo priest. His evil stare was the only thing preventing me to stop watching this garbage before it was actually finished.

I was expecting some horror to be sure, I just was not expecting a full blown horror movie with some supernatural stuff thrown in to boot. I was more expecting a serious thriller dealing with cults or something. The movie seems to have a plot device similar to a Dean Koontz book I have heard about in that a cult is out to get the child of a man whose wife dies in a rather unpleasant way right at the beginning of the movie. The cult is sort of on the voodoo side of things and the movie has them doing things in their power to not only to sacrifice the guy's son, but to get him to do it. Add a bit more to it and you have yourself a really good horror movie. There still is a bit to much thriller and drama in it to be a really good horror movie though and I have never been wild about Martin Sheen. I actually always enjoyed watching his son's movies more. So in the end you get a movie that seems to not quite know what it really wants to be, but it had enough horror elements in it for me to overall enjoy.

i guess this movie is a bit eerie at times.it's basically about people who practice an obscure religion,with bizarre beliefs.but i've seen at least one movie quite similar to it,possibly more.so not only is there not much originality,but nothing new is done with the material.plus i pretty much figured things out from the get go.the whole movie is basically one slow build.but to what,i'm not sure.i mean there is a bit of excitement in the last 25 minutes or so.but the ending is very predictable.generally i found this movie too boring to watch right through.i had to stop it several times,and then try to continue.actually i completely stopped it at one point,until this morning,when i finally finished it.some people will like this movie,and some will not.i fall into the category of not,for the most part.the acting was good though,so that's always a bonus.even so,i give The Believers a 4/10