THE BELIEVER -- You Can’t Believe How Bad It Is

Reviewed by Adam Donato

Shan Serafin directed The Forest in 2011. The director reteams with Aidan Bristow, for his new film, The Believer, which also stars Sophie Kargman and (for some reason) Billy Zane. This is a story about a man who is skeptical of the reality his wife is living in before questioning his own.

Remember watching Inception and seeing the characters try to figure out whether or not they were in a dream? Well, that was interesting because it had interesting characters that the audience cares about. The main character, Lucas, is obnoxiously unlikable and it hurts. He’s so pretentious and rude throughout the entire movie. The one good thing about him is he does act like a real human being, which is a lot more than one can say about Kargman’s character of Violet. Whatever they were trying to accomplish with her character, they failed. Her attempt at being creepy just comes across as annoying. Zane is unrecognizable and he might not even be real so who cares. 

The movie starts off flirting with political ideas but completely ditches that idea a third of the way through in favor of a more religious topic. Violet insists that there is a demon of sorts that is haunting Lucas, which is rich because she is the craziest person on the planet in this movie. It’s weird because Violet is sympathetic at the start due to Lucas’s douchey behavior but slowly descends into psycho ex territory. The most interesting thing about their relationship is the concept that it exists. It’s like sitting next to a couple in a restaurant who is fighting and not in the fun eavesdropping way, more like “if she throws her drink, I’m in the splash zone.” It’s not enjoyable in any way, shape, or form. 

Horror movies are supposed to be scary. The paragraph could honestly end there. So the characters are annoying and the plot makes no sense, but there have to be some spooky moments. No. The best emotion that can relate to horror is the feeling of uncomfortability. Imagine if Hereditary was bad and made no sense. That’s The Believer. 

The genre with the lowest lows is usually the horror genre and The Believer is proof of that. It’s not offensively bad, just annoyingly bad. It will leave zero marks on anyone who watches it, which would be surprising if anyone watches because this movie barely exists on IMDb. Don’t watch it. Bad movie. 

The Believer is now available on VOD.

Rating: 0.5/5