THE BELIEVERS is a middling '80s horror flick from director John Schlesinger, who really should have crafted something better than this (his excellent '70s thriller MARATHON MAN is a particular favourite of mine). Martin Sheen is fine as a grieving husband and father who unwittingly gets drawn up in a voodoo plot in New York of all places, and finds himself battling to save his son from becoming a sacrificial victim. There was a mini-wave of voodoo flicks in the 1980s (ANGEL HEART and THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW being other notable examples) but this film seems to go through the motions without ever connecting. The actors are well chosen and Helen Shaver is certainly put to the test here, but the ending comes across as lacklustre and although the direction is nice the writing is strictly average.
Review of The Believers
