the audience applauded

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This is that rare thing, a genuinely scary contemporary American horror thriller film. Psychologist (Martin Sheen) loses his wife in a tragic accident, later he and his son move to a new location. The gruesome murders of young boys are discovered by authorities (Martin Sheen) is called in when at one of the murder scenes a young very distraught latino cop (Jimmy Smits) is found rambling and praying in Spanish it is learned that something he knows is scaring him and making him fear for his life after discovering that the murdered boys were sacrifices used by a murderous demonic voodoo cult.Although a thriller, and a disturbing one at that, this is also a meditation on how people who are searching or in need of something outside of their regular lives, can be easily sucked into dangerous ideology. It can be terrorism, racism, or anarchism; here, it is a religious cult. This film takes the viewer into the mysterious world of "Santeria", which is a rich and colorful religion that is a blend of Afro-Cuban Religion combined with traditional Catholic religious beliefs. Many of the Catholic European saints are matched with native animals or values. The religion is fascinating though the film is for the most part drama, it is without question a Primer on the subject. The ending is improbable, to say the least, but if you're interested in a movie with a lot of twists and turns, this one is fun to watch. Be warned, however, that its basic premise is flawed, and the film casts a serious and unwarranted slur on the religion of Santería.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

A good director John Schlesinger ("Midnight cowboy" , "Marathon man") plus good actor Martin Sheen ("Apocalypse now") plus interesting subject - voo doo. This is one promising combination , isn't it ? Unfortunately the ending result is rather bad.Martin Sheen gives a good performance. The movie does give you a some knowledge about voo doo. There are some nice thrilling scenes (the beginning , the ending , the scene with the snakes and the scene with the bees). Those are the good things in this movie.The movie isn't unfortunately scary . It isn't horrifying enough just to insert images of bloody headless chicken corpses and African tribes performing silly dance rituals. The movie can't decide if it wants to have supernatural elements in it or to be a thriller. "The believers" is also too long and have too many sub plots. There is also too much soap opera in a movie that should be scary and dark. There is no tension or atmosphere and aside from Sheen the acting isn't anything special. The dialogues are forgettable and the screenplay is rather bad convoluted.Alan Parker's "Harry Angel" is far superior to "The Believers". It's dark , scary , has good performances and interesting story. "The Believers" is not a complete waste of time , however it is overlong, slightly pretentious with a flat detective story. There are some good elements here , however it is a disappointment. I give it 4/10.

Voodoo is quite an interesting topic, and as such there are many movies on the topic, many of which are very good; which means that all the movies based on voodoo generally have a lot to live up to. The Believers benefits from a good cast, a reputable director and an obviously sizable budget - but unfortunately, it doesn't amount to a sum of it's parts, mostly due to the fact that a lot of it plays out rather slowly and is quite boring - which is fairly surprising considering that director John Schlesinger was the man behind classic thrillers such as Marathon Man. The film is based on a book by Nicholas Conde and focuses on a widowed father named Cal Jamison who takes his son to live in Manhattan. Cal gets a job with the New York Police Department as a psychiatrist for troubled police officers. It's on his first call out, to help save a suicidal police officer that he comes into contact with a strange cult that has skinned a child alive. From there, the film focuses on a series of strange and eerie events that all seem to focus on the people around the lead character...The main problem with this movie is undoubtedly the length of it - the director obviously assumed that there was enough material to fill the nearly two hour running time, but unfortunately that isn't the case and the result is a film with a lot of dull moments. The lead role is taken by Martin Sheen who does a good job of fleshing out his character and getting the audience behind him. This, however, is not matched by the plot - which doesn't ever do enough to get the audience fully behind it, which is a shame as there are plenty of good ideas going on in it. The film can easily be compared to the likes of Angel Heart and Rosemary's Baby - but clearly it is not even nearly on the same level as the aforementioned classics. To its credit, the film does not flinch too much when it comes to showing blood and gore - skinned kids and spiders crawling out of a woman's cheek are among the highlights. Overall, The Believers is not a complete dead loss by any means; but it's not a great film either and I wouldn't recommend anyone goes out of their way to see it.

Covering the subject of cults, religion, Santeria or other beliefs is always intriguing and educational. The acting especially by Martin Sheen as N.Y. psychiatrist Cal, is very good.Cal loses his wife in a tragic accident, and returns to New York City where he is a psychiatric consultant for N.Y.P.D. There are some excellent scenes with Jimmy Smits, as an affected officer who goes mad, and Robert Loggia, as a veteran cop who is also affected by the "Believers", and their group.Harris Yulin is menacing and fits the bill as leader of an 80's group, ostensibly just a charity group, until Sheen uncovers something much worse.The end is rather abrupt and predictable, but the acting is first-rate (especially for Sheen) and this is worth a viewing. The theme alone has many possibilities, the ignorance and unawareness of how many different religions actually exist, and are in practice all over the world. 9/10.