Despite featuring a wonderful cast and talented director, the black magic tinged THE BELIEVERS never lives up to its potential. It contains an intriguing premise that is eventually squashed by the killer of many a film the cliché.
Based on the novel "The Religion" by Nicholas Conde, THE BELIEVERS presents the growing battle brewing in the back alleys and basements of NYC between Santeria (good magic) and Brujeria (witchcraft). While the good guys are only using their magic to protect, the bad guys are using it to ritually murder children. Okay, I'm with you. The mystery starts to unravel and it is engaging. But once we find out that the bad guys are affluent, predominately white yuppies, I call foul. Truly this cliché is as worn by this point in the late 80s as the other voodoo mumbo jumbo presented in the film.
That is too bad because THE BELIEVERS does feature several effective and disturbing scenes. Gruesome on screen images include snakes found post-mortem in Jimmy Smits' intestines and a boil on Shaver's face bursting forth tiny spiders. There are even some memorable sets such as the haunting empty theater turned ceremony chamber where Smits' psychotic cop character is introduced or the abandoned construction site in the film's climax (despite this candle lit structure being formula for the genre itself). As stand alone scenes and set pieces, they are quite effective. But placed in context with the rest of the plodding feature, they seem strangely out of place. This is doubly shameful given the Schlesinger's previous work. After all, he is responsible for one of cinema's best cringe inducing moments (the tooth drilling torture scene in MARATHON MAN).
In terms of acting, everyone is fine. Sheen, resembling an old Emilio Estevez, gets to scream a lot in the first hour or so. He is a bit more subdued in the end (after all, the cult drugs him) and he delivers the film's final k.o. with great subtlety. The film's best performances come from the Jimmy Smits and Robert Loggia as two cops snared by the occult shenanigans. Also good is Harley Cross as Sheen's preyed upon son. Cross stacked up the genre credits before he was even 15 with this, his role as the young Martin Brundle in THE FLY II (1989) and the lead in the still unreleased THE BOY WHO CRIED BITCH (1991).
Hollywood was flooded with occult flicks in the late 80s, second only to the underwater film craze. Titles such as THE BELIEVERS, ANGEL HEART, THE SEVENTH SIGN, THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK and THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW all hit cinemas with a year of each other. As it stands, THE BELIEVERS is one of the lesser entries in this list. Believe it or not.
Based on the novel "The Religion" by Nicholas Conde, THE BELIEVERS presents the growing battle brewing in the back alleys and basements of NYC between Santeria (good magic) and Brujeria (witchcraft). While the good guys are only using their magic to protect, the bad guys are using it to ritually murder children. Okay, I'm with you. The mystery starts to unravel and it is engaging. But once we find out that the bad guys are affluent, predominately white yuppies, I call foul. Truly this cliché is as worn by this point in the late 80s as the other voodoo mumbo jumbo presented in the film.
That is too bad because THE BELIEVERS does feature several effective and disturbing scenes. Gruesome on screen images include snakes found post-mortem in Jimmy Smits' intestines and a boil on Shaver's face bursting forth tiny spiders. There are even some memorable sets such as the haunting empty theater turned ceremony chamber where Smits' psychotic cop character is introduced or the abandoned construction site in the film's climax (despite this candle lit structure being formula for the genre itself). As stand alone scenes and set pieces, they are quite effective. But placed in context with the rest of the plodding feature, they seem strangely out of place. This is doubly shameful given the Schlesinger's previous work. After all, he is responsible for one of cinema's best cringe inducing moments (the tooth drilling torture scene in MARATHON MAN).
In terms of acting, everyone is fine. Sheen, resembling an old Emilio Estevez, gets to scream a lot in the first hour or so. He is a bit more subdued in the end (after all, the cult drugs him) and he delivers the film's final k.o. with great subtlety. The film's best performances come from the Jimmy Smits and Robert Loggia as two cops snared by the occult shenanigans. Also good is Harley Cross as Sheen's preyed upon son. Cross stacked up the genre credits before he was even 15 with this, his role as the young Martin Brundle in THE FLY II (1989) and the lead in the still unreleased THE BOY WHO CRIED BITCH (1991).
Hollywood was flooded with occult flicks in the late 80s, second only to the underwater film craze. Titles such as THE BELIEVERS, ANGEL HEART, THE SEVENTH SIGN, THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK and THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW all hit cinemas with a year of each other. As it stands, THE BELIEVERS is one of the lesser entries in this list. Believe it or not.