Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

The Believers Blu-ray Movie Review

Where's Abraham when you really need him?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 22, 2014

An ominous sense of foreboding suffuses The Believers from virtually its very first moments, despite the fact that there’s not much to be overtly frightened of. But with J. Peter Robinson’s slightly menacing score pulsing in an almost subliminal fashion, and the weirdly out of focus blob of a man jogging while a delivery truck trundles along behind him, director John Schlesinger somehow makes this bucolic scene of a quiet suburban dawn seem like the nascent opening of the portals to hell. Hell of a certain kind does in fact soon break loose when Schlesinger stages one of the more disturbing scenes in contemporary horror in an early sequence where psychologist Cal Jamison (Martin Sheen) and his young son Chris (Harley Cross) watch in horror as (slight spoiler) Mrs. Jamison is electrocuted to death by a malfunctioning coffee maker. (This scene had me approaching my own coffee maker with a certain amount of trepidation for days after I first saw The Believers in theaters years ago.) That sets up the film’s change of locale to New York City, where Cal works as a consultant to the New York City Police Department, helping traumatized cops come to grips with various emotional disturbances they experience. Cal has been set up in a rather tony brownstone replete with an attractive landlady named Jessica Halliday (Helen Shaver) by his buddy and attorney Marty Wertheimer (Richard Masur), who is also urging Cal to go ahead with a product liability case against the coffee maker corporation. Against these seemingly mundane if still weighty elements Schlesinger and screenwriter Mark Frost craft an initially creepy tale of atavistic magic as exemplified by voodoo, Santería or Brujería. The Believers functions in much the same milieu as the iconic Rosemary's Baby, where the sophisticated environs of New York only slightly masks an incipient evil which inexorably surrounds an initially unaware innocent.

There’s a somewhat telling scene early in The Believers that plays upon a perhaps politically incorrect fear. As Cal and Chris make their way through Central Park, a bunch of black guys are jamming in a drum circle, but there’s a decidedly “foreign” feeling to their percussive assault, one that seems to harken back to some primal religious rite. The Believers has already shown some kind of voodoo ceremony in a brief under credits prelude which seems to hint at the ritual sacrifice of either a child or a scapegoat (in the classic sense of that term), a scene which likewise had a furious drumming element. The incessant beating spills into the otherwise serene environment Cal and Chris walk through, and there is little doubt that Schlesinger is setting up a general unease with something that feels “alien”. When a moment later Chris stumbles on what looks like a Brugeria altar replete with dessicated animal corpses, the effect is complete: there is a savagely ancient element in Manhattan poking its primordial head up through the urban asphalt like a tenacious weed.

Frost, who would soon be dealing with a lot of that “alien” feeling in Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery, stuffs The Believers full of several simultaneously unfolding subplots, all of which converge in a somewhat calamitous final act. Cal’s work as a police psychologist brings him into contact with a variety of troubled people, none more so than Tom Lopez (Jimmy Smits), a seemingly unhinged former undercover cop who is convinced a nefarious cult is out to get him. A series of grisly child murders also hints at some sort of ritual sacrifice being practiced which may involve some of New York’s cultural elite. And this film’s seeming stand-ins for Rosemary’s Baby’s Minnie and Roman Castavet, Kate (Elizabeth Wilson) and Dennis Maslow (Lee Richardson), may in fact be more benign but Frost and Schlesinger play with the palpable paranoia that most audience members will be feeling, giving a sinister aspect to ostensibly everyday events (much like the opening scene with Sheen jogging in front of the milk truck). There's also a probably too on the nose aspect with regard to attorney Marty, a guy who likes to practice magic (as in parlor tricks) himself. The none too subtle subtext here is that suspension of disbelief, if not outright belief itself, forms the foundation of any supposed supernatural phenomena, including not so coincidentally certain religious elements. Cal's "arc" (as hackneyed as that term is) is obviously built around the dialectic between suspension of disbelief and outright belief.

Despite some silly artifices, the first two-thirds or so of The Believers manages to work up a decent amount of creepiness, especially once it becomes clear that Chris may (of course) be the next victim of the child sacrifice cult. But the film tends to go completely off the rails in its final act, with the scheming cultists going to patently absurd lengths not just to abduct Chris but to get Cal to do the dirty work himself. What is initially a relatively subtle examination of primitive beliefs versus high-falutin’ rationalism devolves into pure Grand Guignol, with silly fight scenes and a frenzied hyperbolism that may actually provoke laughter in the more cynically minded.

The Believers finally throws in the towel for a supposed The Twilight Zone-esque “twist” that again may provoke outright laughter due to the shocked look of disbelief on Martin Sheen’s face as the film draws to a close. By that time, however, pretty much whatever spell The Believers whipped up in its early going has dissipated anyway.

The Believers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Believers is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Twilight Time with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This is a great looking transfer with abundant detail, supported by healthy bitrates (often in the mid 30 Mbps range) that help to reveal good shadow detail in the many dark sequences. The elements betray some very occasional and negligible issues like speckling, but are in generally pristine condition. The Believers was lensed by the incredible Robby Müller (if you don't recognize his name, look him up on IMDb), an expert at lighting gritty urban environments. That grittiness is aided and abetted by a very natural looking grain field throughout this presentation, something that helps to add depth and texture to the image, again even in some highly shrouded scenes. About the only area of concern some may have here is with the overall color space. Flesh tones can appear slightly ruddy at times and some scenes have a slight tilt toward blue, but these are niggling concerns in a very nice and organic presentation.

The Believers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Believers offers a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix that provides ample support for the film's dialogue and its nicely done score by J. Peter Robinson, a set of cues that wisely understates the horror aspect and works on an almost subliminal level at times. The film's climactic showdown includes some great sound effects like escaping jets of steam, and those ring with authenticity. Fidelity is excellent throughout the presentation and there are no issues of any kind to report.

The Believers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Theatrical Trailer (480i; 1:51)


• MGM 90th Anniversary Trailer (1080p; 2:06)


• Isolated Score Track is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0.

The Believers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I personally find The Believers to be a generally riveting experience for its first two acts. It's not every film that can make you look askance at things like a milk truck or a coffee maker. The surreptitious magic aspect may remind some of similarly themed pieces like the aforementioned Rosemary's Baby or even Angel Heart, and like those films, The Believers has a palpably unsettling mood. But despite standout performances by Sheen and little Cross (contrast this kid's geniune work with the less fulfilling acting by Susan Swift in Twilight Time's simultaneously released Audrey Rose), The Believers ultimately descends into such silliness that it can't be taken seriously. Technical merits are very strong, and if you don't mind an increasingly goofy last half hour or so, The Believers comes Recommended.