Director – Nathan Frankowski, Screenplay/Producer – Ed Alan, Photography – Milan Chadima, Music – Anne-Katherin Dern, Visual Effects – FlyStudio (Supervisor – Terence Neoh), FXTC Digital (Supervisor – Adam “Mojo” Lebowitz), Magic Lab Studio (Supervisor – Jan Humpal) & Troll Visual Effects (Supervisor – Samuli Torssonen), Special Effects Supervisor – Martin Pryca, Makeup/Creature Effects – Millennium FX (Designers – Neill Gorton & Rob Mayor), Production Design – Ondrej Lipensky. Production Company – Third Day Films/MBM3 Films.
Cast
Alice Orr-Ewing (Laura Milton), Joe Doyle (Father Marconi/Michael), Eveline Hall (Liz), Brian Caspe (Dr. Laurent), James Faulkner (Cardinal Vincini), Peter Mensah (Archangel Michael), Joe Anderson (Lucifer), Spencer Wilding (Beast of the Ground), Andrea Scarduzio (Dr Andre Russo)
Plot
American Laura Milton is a university student in Turin, Italy. She is seeking permission to conduct a thesis on the Shroud of Turin, which many believe was the burial cloth of Jesus. Her friend Father Marconi takes her to part of the museum away from where the Shroud is held so that she can study the artwork. She is leaving late at night when an armed group break in and steal the Shroud. Father Marconi is killed but as he dies he willingly gives his body to the archangel Michael to use to stop the thieves. The group also abduct Laura who is made a prisoner with three other girls. The group behind this are Satanists but have a respectable front as a successful business based on recreating clone children taken from the DNA of famous composers and artists. The imprisoned girls are impregnated with the DNA taken from the Shroud with the intention of bearing a child that can provide a body for Lucifer. In Father Marconi’s body, Michael fights to prevent this from happening, which requires that he venture down to Hell itself.
The Devil Conspiracy was the seventh full-length film for Canadian director Nathan Frankowski who had previously made the pro-Intelligent Design documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008), the crime film No Saints for Sinners (2012), the Christian film Unlimited (2013) and the biopics To Write Love on Her Arms (2012), Te Ata (2016) and Montford: The Chickasaw Rancher (2021).
The Devil Conspiracy comes with a fairly Out There premise – Satanists steal the Shroud of Turin and impregnate women with DNA taken from it to provide a clone of Jesus’s body so that The Devil can incarnate in it and escape Hell. At the same time, the archangel Michael possesses the body of a priest killed during the theft and descends to Hell to fight the forces of evil there where he ends up chained to a rock. As a random aside, The Satanists also have a thriving business selling children cloned from the DNA of famous dead artists and composers to rich people.
Not to mention the film is also dependent on The Shroud of Turin – a cloth some fourteen feet long that bears the imprint of a bearded male figure. This was widely held to be a genuine relic – it is claimed that it is Jesus’s actual burial cloth and that the figure is the negative imprint of Jesus’s face and body. However, radiocarbon dating tests conducted from 1988 onwards show the shroud to have originated circa 1260-1390 and that the blood is created by dyes, revealing it to conclusively be a fake to all but a few faithful holdout believers. I couldn’t exactly follow the script’s logic that skips from DNA taken from the shroud, which should (if we assume for plot purposes that the shroud is an authentic relic) be that of Christ, somehow turning out to be suitable for The Devil to incarnate in. That the situation reverses itself at the end seems no particular surprise.
Joe Doyle heads into action as kick-ass priest Father Marconi possessed by the archangel MichaelPeter Mensah as the Archangel Michael
If nothing else, it makes for a wilder mix that is certainly something different than the usual run of Satanic impregnation films, or else the tediously formulaic possession and exorcism film – what we have here is a whole lot livelier than the recent likes of The Pope’s Exorcist (2023) and The Exorcist: Believer (2023) put together. It’s a plot that is pure B movie material, which is exactly what I was expecting when I sat down to watch.
The surprise is that The Devil Conspiracy is a reasonably well made production. The only name actor the film has is British actor James Faulkner in a minor role is a priest. However, the photography, the action and effects are all conducted on a reasonable budget. The film even goes so far as to shoot in the real Turin. A lot of it is what you might call pictorial Catholicism – ominously framed gargoyles and statues, cultists in red robes lined up, angels unfurling glowing wings. The soundtrack is pointedly outfitted with songs like INXS’s Devil Inside (1988) and Real Life’s Send Me an Angel (1983).
The Devil Conspiracy starts in promising directions. The disappointment is the second half where it essentially becomes a Heaven vs Hell action movie. Joe Doyle is the archangel Michael turned action hero going off to face the enemy in black leather duster and wielding shotgun and powered sword while tossing off action hero lines – he is asked “Is God with you?” and snaps back through gritted teeth “This is my responsibility. I’ll ask for permission later.” A lot of this becomes extended running around and shooting interspersed with assorted makeup manifestations or schlock images like a demon baby face jumping out on an ultrasound monitor. It is not unlike the absurd theological action movie posturings of a film like Legion (2010).
