Release: New Christianity

 

New Christianity

Genre: Horror/Drama

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Writer: Alex Conn

Cast: Noah Jupe, Finn Wolfhard, Olivia Rodrigo, Brooklynn Prince, Madison Hu, David Cross, Cheryl Hines, JB Smoove, Jason Alexander

Budget: $20,000,000

Domestic Box Office: $19,339,005

Foreign Box Office: $13,794,112

Total Profit: -$6,132,006

Reaction: This one performed better than writer Alex Conn's earlier Season 35 film, The Writer and the Film Star - or at least it lost less money.

"There’s an eerie pulse to New Christianity—Coppola conjures some stark, moody imagery and Finn Wolfhard gives a committed performance as the teenage messiah figure—but the movie never quite sticks the landing. The cult mechanics are sketched in broad strokes at best. It’s messy, occasionally powerful, but just as often clunky, and the final act slips into melodrama when it needed something more unsettling. Coppola deserves credit for taking a big swing so late in his career, even if this one doesn’t fully connect - and at least writer Alex Conn seems to be trying to do something new." - Richard Park, Globe and Mail

"I was pretty harsh on my last review of an Alex Conn film, but I must say, I liked his attempt at a Heredity/Midsommer set in High School. It leans safely on cult-like tropes, but delivers an effectively creepy atmosphere, intriguing performances and Francis' underutilized horror touch. While not a masterpiece, I'd say this is a fine movie for Alex Conn to use as a stepping stone toward what kind of writer he'd like to be." - Dexter Quinn, Cinematic Observer Newsletter 

"New Christianity mistakes posturing for insight and sermonizing for horror. Working from a script by Alex Conn, Francis Ford Coppola, once a master of dread and grandeur, delivers a clumsy pastiche that reveals little understanding of how cults truly recruit or operate, and even less of how the horror genre sustains tension. The characters all feel like archetypes from a bad after-school special. What might have been a thoughtful dissection of faith and manipulation instead becomes a shrill, self-important bore that flatters neither Coppola’s legacy nor the intelligence of his audience." - Edwin Harkness, The Celluloid Gazette

Rated R violence, language, and some sexual references.