The second teaser trailer for The Carpenter’s Son has arrived, and it’s nothing short of unsettling. Nicholas Cage stars as the Carpenter, while delivering haunting lines about resisting Satan. The teaser unfolds in fragments, with Cage’s character first standing alone, and then it cuts back and forth between imagery of a boy near a lake, another one at a cross, and the most terrifying of all: a snake slithering from the boy’s mouth, lunging at Cage.
Between these visuals, the Carpenter says, “Pray, find the strength to bear against satan,” and when the boy asks what Satan looks like, the Carpenter replies chillingly: “like people among us.” The young child who attacks the Carpenter by the lake is also the same one who twitched and twisted in the first teaser trailer, and perhaps he’s the one portraying the role of S atan, or maybe someone who is possessed by evil.
Nicolas Cage. THE CARPENTER'S SON.
Strong bloody/violent content.
Fall 2025. pic.twitter.com/H1ruycUdF7
Now, let’s look at how the biblical entity might be presented in The Carpenter’s Son, and how it is different from what we’ve seen in The Passion of the Christ, directed by Mel Gibson.
Understanding Satan’s Presence in The Carpenter’s Son Starring Nicholas Cage
The Carpenter’s Son is essentially a reimagined tale of Jesus’ youth and depicts a period that is rarely ever shown on screen. Lotfy Nathan has adapted the controversial Infancy Gospel of Thomas, an apocryphal text that portrays young Jesus, who tests the boundaries of his powers with devastating results (via Polygon).
In Nathan’s vision, he depicts the Boy (potentially Jesus, but not stated), who begins to rebel against his guardian, the Carpenter, played by Nicholas Cage. The official synopsis of the movie talks about a “mysterious child,” possibly a manifestation of Satan. Here’s what it says:
The Carpenter’s Son tells the dark story of a family hiding out in Roman Egypt. The son, known only as ‘the Boy’, is driven to doubt by another mysterious child and rebels against his guardian, the Carpenter, revealing inherent powers and a fate beyond his comprehension. As he exercises his own power, the Boy and his family become the target of horrors, natural and divine.
The most provocative element teased so far is the looming presence of Satan, and Cage even directly speaks about the entity, calling it something familiar that could even appear in human forms. The trailer doubles down on his words and ends with a disturbing vision of a boy unleashing a snake from his mouth!
Nicholas Cage’s Biblical Horror Portrays Satan Differently Than Mel Gibson’s Movie
Any movie that hints at the potential involvement of Jesus’ lore will inevitably be compared to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. In Gibson’s feature, Satan is played by Rosalinda Celentano, an odd and pale figure who tempts Jesus, manipulates Judas, and mocks Christ’s suffering.
Mel Gibson on the Devil in The Passion of the Christ:
“The Devil isn’t horns & smoke. Evil is seductive. Whats more beautiful than a mother & child? The Devil twists it. Instead of the natural, you get an androgynous figure cradling a 40-year-old ‘baby.’” pic.twitter.com/V85RoU7rN9
Gibson’s depiction leaned heavily into the idea that evil is subtle and deceptive, and it’s frightening not because of monstrous traits but its eerie resemblance to humans. However, in The Carpenter’s Son, Lofty Nathan takes a more literal approach, which can be seen in the confrontation between the Carpenter and the serpent figure.
The imagery of a snake coming out of a boy’s mouth is layered with direct biblical symbolism of temptation and corruption. The contrast highlights how two films approach the Devil’s role in biblical storytelling. But which one do you prefer? The figurative or the literal?
You can watch The Passion of the Christ on Netflix (USA).