Nefarious Review
There are films you watch to pass the time, films you turn to for comfort after a hard day, and then—rarely—films that compel you to sit in your own discomfort and wrestle with questions bigger than yourself. Nefarious sits firmly in that latter category.
What struck me most was Sean Patrick Flannery’s performance. “Phenomenal” feels almost insufficient. He embodies both childlike vulnerability and chilling demonic menace with such ease that you forget you’re watching an actor. I’ll admit, I had (wrongly) disregarded him in the past as just another handsome face with limited depth. The only other film I’d seen him in was Saw 3D, and—let’s be frank—you’re only ever as good as the material you’re given. By then the franchise—once a favourite of mine—had long gone off the rails. But here? Flannery made me eat my words.
The attention to detail was extraordinary. From the subtle facial tics suggesting how unnatural it was for a demon to inhabit a human body, to the pastor scene where Flannery’s hair was styled into the faintest suggestion of horns—tiny touches, never cartoonish, just enough to disturb the subconscious. Pure brilliance. That restraint is what makes this film so effective.
Unlike so many modern horrors, Nefarious doesn’t rely on cheap tricks, bloated CGI, or endless jump scares. Instead, it leans on atmosphere, dialogue, and performance. There’s a moment where a light shatters and the demon smirks—not a grand spectacle, just enough to make you question coincidence, exactly as you would in reality. That grounded, low-budget approach makes the film all the more believable.
On a personal level, I connected deeply with much of what Nefarious said. As someone long fascinated by Gustave Doré’s engravings, Dante’s Inferno, and Milton’s Paradise Lost, I relished the literary and theological layers woven throughout. The film doesn’t trade in possession tropes; it grapples with ethics, humanity, freedom, and the unknown—questions that have always lived rent-free in my mind.
Honestly, aside from the possession element, I can’t think of anything I’d want more than to sit across from a demon like Nefarious and simply talk. To probe, to understand—despite knowing I’d be hopelessly manipulated. There’s something seductive about his otherworldly intellect, his calm confidence, the assurance of immortality even as his host faces death. I felt the same fascination I do when studying serial killers—it’s not their monstrosity that unnerves us, but the fragments of humanity that echo our own.
I don’t know if this was intentional, but I disliked the lawyer far more than the demon. Whilst clearly educated in his own right, his smug superiority, ignorance, and dismissal of everything around him felt like a mirror of modern humanity—thousands of years of evolution culminating in self-righteous entitlement. And when the demon launched into his monologue about free speech, it hit harder than anything I’ve heard in cinema. It was exactly what I’d expect from a fallen angel: razor-sharp insight into human hypocrisy, delivered with calm authority. I could have listened for hours, if not days.
The allure of Nefarious lies not in head-spinning theatrics or banshee shrieks, but in presence, intellect, and intimacy. Flannery’s rugged physicality is soft around the edges just enough to evoke that unnerving duality many women feel—terrified, overpowered, yet strangely compelled to nurture. There were moments where I almost wanted to comfort him, to rant alongside him, to believe his fall was undeserved.
The abortion discussion, in particular, was harrowing: the graphic description, the grotesque celebration of the destruction of innocence, the sense that this being can exist, simultaneously, in two worlds at once. It made me rethink a position I had always considered immovable. That’s the power of this film—it destabilises you.
Nefarious is the only possession film I’ve seen that feels truly believable, and its strength lies in subtlety. It begins with the lawyer’s scepticism—insanity, split personality disorder, the rational explanations we’d all jump to—and slowly dismantles certainty until you’re left painfully aware of your own misgivings, existence, morality, and your priorities. Crucially, it works because of Flannery. His relative anonymity makes him the perfect canvas for evil: gifted enough to ground the performance, and unknown enough to disappear fully into the role.
I walked away unsettled, moved, and hungry like a junkie for more of Nefarious. It’s not often horror dares to be this intimate, this intellectual, and this unflinching.
