The Devil Conspiracy
Since churches in Red Bank, New Jersey didn’t work, the Devil might as well try the Shroud of Turin.
Cast of Characters:
Laura – Alice Orr-Ewing
Father Marconi – Joe Doyle
Liz – Eveline Hall
Archangel Michael – Peter Mensah
Lucifer – Joe Anderson
Dr. Laurent – Brian Caspe
Cardinal Vincini – James Faulkner
Director – Nathan Frankowski
Writer – Ed Alan
Producer – Ed Alan
Distributor – Samuel Goldwyn Films
Running Time – 111 minutes
Rated R for strong violent content, some gore and language.
The Rundown: A powerful biotech company, led by Dr. Laurent (Brian Caspe), has made a huge breakthrough for science and technology that allows them to clone some of the most influential figures throughout history. Want to raise Antonio Vivaldi or Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni as your own child? Well, for the right price, now you can!
Next up, Jesus Chri – whoa! Wait a minute.
If you listen real close, during the breaks between baby Vivaldi’s violin shredding, you can probably hear Dr. Ian Malcolm’s head exploding.
How exactly is this company gonna get the means to bring forth a Jesus clone? Well, by way of the Shroud of Turin. And just how are these four-eyed, virginal science geeks gonna get the Shroud of Turin, you might ask? That responsibility goes to Liz (Eveline Hall) and her band of devout Satanists, who break into St. Michael’s Cathedral, murder the overseeing Father Marconi (Joe Doyle) and steal the Shroud for some of that sweet holy DNA they’ll serve up as an offering to their beloved Lucifer (Joe Anderson). What would Lucifer want with Jesus’s DNA? Well, what wouldn’t he want with Jesus’s DNA? See, the Morning Star is looking to dethrone God again – you know, ’cause it worked out so well for him the first time. And since no mere mortal fetus can withstand the power of our dear Adversary, Liz and her faithful minions will need a Jesus fetus (hey, it rhymes) to survive such a monstrously evil conception.
With the Shroud in Dr. Laurent’s hands and the very unwilling host Laura (Alice Orr-Ewing) under Liz’s “care”, the stage is set to bring forth baby… Jesifer. But hold up, ’cause the Heavenly Hosts will be damned if they’re gonna let their disgruntled former employee get the best of them, and it’ll be up to Archangel Michael (Peter Mensah), or more like the rotting corpse of Father Marconi he possesses, to save all existence from becoming subject to Satan’s command.
…
Am I high? What the fuck did I just type?
Initial Thoughts: Despite having what is very clearly a bat-shit nutty premise, The Devil Conspiracy actually covers familiar territory. Be it comedies like Kevin Smith’s Dogma or the Schwarzenegger-led horror film End of Days, the onscreen war between good and evil has periodically found Satan throwing a wrench into it by way of some obscure loophole. Encouraging two fallen angels to entering a rededicated New Jersey church or boinking some very on-the-nose named chick in New York City to sire the Antichrist? Mean ole Luci is on it.
Yeah, Christine York. Christ in New York… get it, everyone?
Depending on the effort put into it, these sort of ambitious, high-concept films can either be thoroughly engaging like Dogma (and, in that film’s case, also hysterically funny), or derivative dreck like End of Days, which, coincidentally, is also hysterically funny… but unintentionally so. God bless The Devil Conspiracy’s little heart, ’cause it certainly shows up boasting quite a kooky premise with supernatural warfare as its centerpiece. But, while the ingredients for an intriguing thrill ride are certainly there within this hodgepodge of what the fuck, it falls way short of reaching its full potential.
The Good: Admittedly, the film had me a little during the first act, even with its obnoxiously obvious way of introducing characters and who they are, such as when Father Marconi greets Laura with, “Hey, how’s my art historian?”
We get it, Father. She’s in Rome. Clearly, she has a passion for both art and history.
Still, the first 20-30 minutes here are actually kinda interesting, opening with a fun and slightly comical battle between Archangel Michael and Lucifer that, for a low budget film, is surprisingly well-made, competently put together and features an unrecognizable Joe Anderson (The Crazies, The Grey) chewing the scenery as the Devil. The film then transitions over to its main, and most intriguing, conflict involving the baddies from the biotech company cloning the biggest names throughout history and then auctioning their reborn selves to the highest bidders. It’s there that The Devil Conspiracy shows off most of its ultimately wasted potential, introducing all the right kinds of ethical questions that we expect to be posed in a film that, once again, explores the ramifications that occur when us peons dare to play God.
I’m sure at this point, Dr. Ian Malcolm has given up on giving a single shit.
But, of course…
The Bad: The Devil Conspiracy has no interest whatsoever in exploring the moral questions presented in its introductory act; in fact, come the second act, the movie completely abandons the only interesting elements it had going for it to the point it barely even registers as an afterthought. Why? Well, that’s so the film can devolve into a Rosemary’s Baby ripoff. Yes, The Devil Conspiracy teases us with battles between all-powerful, supernatural beings and complex morality tales, but then quickly throws aside all those grand-in-scope ideas to instead become just another recycled take on the Roman Polanski horror classic. And why not? It’s not like the demon spawn plot hasn’t had its proverbial dead horse beaten so mercilessly it circles around to being resurrected back to life all so it can then be beaten back to death another hundred times.
What kills any of this film’s potential is that director Nathan Frankowski and writer Ed Alan can’t decide what kind of film they want here. All the right ingredients are there for a nutty, high-concept, sci-fi horror B-movie, yet Frankowski and Alan bizarrely play it straight like a serious horror film, which could’ve worked if not for the film’s egregious lack of tension and atmosphere. What few moments of intentional absurdity that do occur feel forced in like a half-assed, last-second correction to convince viewers the film isn’t to be taken seriously. I guess all that’s needed there is in the midst of an intense fight scene, you just have the Devil quip to Archangel Michael, “Ah – shit… Hey, c’mon, man. Is any of this necessary?”
If anything, it’s a terrible waste of the all-in, gonzo performances from Anderson and Eveline Hall as the extremely devoted head of the Satanist cult. While everyone else is playing their roles for drama, those two seem to be the only ones who get what type of film they should be in.
It’s not like I was expecting the next landmark for the horror genre here, but there’s no reason this couldn’t have provided viewers with a fun demon-themed thrill ride. What they are provided with is a shoddy attempt at horror that is strangely both highly competent yet utterly incompetent at the same time. I can’t figure that one out, nor can I figure out which target audience this is supposed to be aimed at. It’s nowhere near intelligent enough to carry itself as a serious sci-fi horror film; it doesn’t lean enough into the utter bugfuckery of its premise to please the B-movie genre fans; and the faith-based aspects are so throwaway you’re definitely not gonna gain any interest from that demographic.
So, who the hell exactly is this film for?
The Ugly: Well, other than Laura having scalding hot acid shoot out her hoo-hah when her water breaks, The Devil Conspiracy makes a drastic shift and turns excessively gory in the third-act. And by excessively gory, I mean heads being sliced in half like a hot stick of butter. Now, far be it from me to complain about gore in a film when I love movies like John Carpenter’s The Thing and George A. Romero’s Dead franchise. That said, have some tonal consistency, otherwise the shift is gonna feel gratuitous and out of place.
It’s not that this film was void of any violence, but for most of the film, the violence was, at worst, PG-13. Then, come the climax, it immediately turns bloody from out of nowhere, as if Frankowski got bored and said, “Fuck it. We left this concept behind two acts ago, so let’s just finish by tearing a bunch of bodies apart.”
Lastly, if there was an award for most laughable jump scare, this film would walk away with it thanks to a hilariously ludicrous sonogram scene. Typically, scenes meant to shock and scare you shouldn’t be drawing out laughs, or maybe that was the point? Maybe it wasn’t? Again, it goes back to what I said about not being able to tell whether this film is trying to take its concept seriously or if it’s being self-aware. Judging from the overall film, I’m pretty confident that Frankowski and Alan don’t know either.
Consensus: The Devil Conspiracy certainly isn’t short on supply of ambition, but a generic, derivative second half and not enough self-awareness of its own absurdity finds this half-baked faith-based sci-fi horror flick cast down into eternal damnation.
Silver Screen Fanatic’s Verdict: I give The Devil Conspiracy a D+ (★½).
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