Even before Edward Norton’s Oscar-nominated and career-defining performance in Primal Fear (1997), the character suffering (or pretending to suffer) from multiple personality disorder (now called dissociative identity disorder, or DID) has been a means for actors to showcase their versatility. One only has so much capacity for this type of character, and I’m close to being filled up on it. In Nefarious (2023), Sean Patrick Flanery gives it a go as convicted serial killer Edward Wayne Brady and another identity who claims to be a demon.
A few minutes into the film, directed by Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon, I was sceptical. Beyond the DID strategy, here was yet another horror movie whose singular adjective title is a synonym for “bad” or “evil”. Additionally, our protagonist – this time it’s hotshot psychiatrist Dr James Martin (Jordan Belfi) – is about to interview a supposedly brilliant convict. Haven’t we seen this before?
Martin must determine whether Brady is sane and therefore eligible for execution (at 11 p.m. that night). Otherwise, the serial killer goes back into the system. The warden warns Dr Martin that his interviewee is a master manipulator; could that be why the convict’s previous psychiatrist died?
I assumed that Martin would confront a smooth and eloquent Hannibal Lecter type – I was wrong. Instead, Flanery portrays a stuttering and twitching, albeit sharp inmate claiming to be a demon named Nefarious. Despite the oversaturation in the DID subgenre, Flanery plays the character well. He shifts from the wily provocateur toying with Martin and commenting on the world’s problems to the weepy, helpless victim unable to control the demon.
Thus, Nefarious offers a cocktail of uncertainty: not only do we question whether the self-injurious Brady is truly afflicted with DID, but we also wonder if he is possessed. How and why, for instance, does the demon know certain personal things about Martin? It’s a technique often used in possession stories.
To further draw the viewer into the film’s outcome, the demon tells Martin early on that by the time he leaves that day, the psychiatrist will have killed three people. Belfi is convincing as Martin, though one might question whether a top-tier psychiatrist would so easily lose his composure and allow the demon/convict to get into his head.
The film also has a classic religious undertone, with the demon frequently mentioning his master and “the enemy”. Moreover, the supposed demon has some discouraging things to say about mankind. In one scene, for example, Martin argues that humanity has evolved and keeps getting more morally advanced. To this the demon laughs and spews back dismaying statistics.
Although the film’s conclusion, which brings in right-wing political commentator Glenn Beck, feels a little preachy and silly, Nefarious is worth a watch. When the two main characters are in the interview room (the majority of the film) it’s hard not to be entranced by Flanery’s performance. Douglas J. Ogurek ****
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