“Interview with the Antichrist” movie review

Interview with the Antichrist is about a young journalist who gets an opportunity of a lifetime if one would want to call it that. Six years into the Tribulation that the Bible prophesies, a young journalist gets the chance to do a one-on-one interview with the Antichrist. The movie is based on a book with the same title, which has already been released. You can currently rent or buy the film on Vimeo, where it has been released early. The theatrical release is scheduled for later this year.

I had high hopes for this moving coming into it. Part of that is because of my own interest in Bible prophecy. I became a Christian because of Bible prophecy, having no previous exposure to the Bible or Christianity. I got saved after watching the first Left Behind movie (not that awful Nicholas Cage remake, but the original Kirk Cameron film released on video in 2000 before going to theaters in 2001). The same night that I finished reading the first book in the series for the first time, I was channel surfing because I had a lot on my mind and could not sleep. Lo and behold, I came across Hal Lindsey’s program on Trinity Broadcasting Network. Back then, it was called the International Intelligence Briefing. Now it is just called The Hal Lindsey Report. So after I just got done reading a thriller about a topic I previously knew nothing about, here was a guy on a worldwide television network connecting real-life current events to some of the same Bible prophecies I had just gotten through reading about for the first time. There is no such thing as coincidence. God’s timing is perfect. I watched the half-hour program with the same close attention that I had given the book. As Hal does every week at the end of the show, he gave viewers a chance to receive Christ as Savior and Lord. He talked about how we were all sinners. I did not need anyone to convince me of that. I didn’t know hardly anything about God’s moral standards as far as knowledge is concerned. Still, God has given us all a conscience, and mine was speaking loud and clear to me. The only question was whether or not I was going to listen. Hal talked about how Jesus took our punishment on the cross to purchase a gift of pardon for a fine I could never pay on my own. Then he said that all I had to do was confess my sins before God and put my trust alone in what Christ had done on my behalf, and I would be saved. And that’s precisely what I did. So it’s not an exaggeration to say that I literally began my relationship with Christ because God used the subject of Bible prophecy to lead me to him. That is why the Bible prophecy issue is so important to me and why I had such high hopes for Interview with the Antichrist.

Unfortunately, my hopes for this film were utterly dashed in the first five minutes. I’m not trying to be mean, but I am going to be honest. I don’t know how long the creators worked on this movie or what kind of budget they had. Still, this movie left a lot to be desired for all of the plot description's potential and how good the preview looked. My favorite movie will probably always be the original 2000 Left Behind movie. Ironically, one of my least favorites, as I have already said, is the Nicholas Cage remake of Left Behind because many of the events were not believable, it didn’t follow the book at all, and there was very little of the Gospel message in a movie that had a golden opportunity to lead many to Christ. Interview with the Antichrist actually ranks lower on my list than that Nicholas Cage Left Behind remake. As I already stated, the acting is not compelling. The story and conversation between the reporter and the Antichrist are entirely predictable. Not including its eschatological underpinnings, which I happen to agree with, other theological aspects of the film are weak at best. The creators' apparent biases with the shots at word-of-faith teachers and lauding of certain other denominations are likely to alienate what will probably already be a small audience, making it even smaller. For example, the charge that none of the “prosperity preachers” talk about the end times because it doesn’t mesh with the rest of what they teach betrays the fact that whoever wrote this probably hasn’t watched enough of what they are criticizing to know that it’s not true. The Antichrist character is the epitome of, as one of my friends remarked, cheesy. The Bible prophesies that the end times world leader will be so full of charisma and cunning speech that most of the world will willingly follow him straight to Hell. Yet I wouldn’t follow the Antichrist character in this movie across a room, let alone to my eternal damnation. His often repeated phrase of “Satan loved it and so did I” sticks out the most as one of the many points that turn up the cringe factor on this movie to 400 on a scale of 1–10.

This movie is another waste of a golden opportunity to reach people with the message of Christ and/or a warning about the future events the Bible predicts. It’s no wonder that almost half of Americans, according to 2020 Barna research, don’t believe that Satan is a real spiritual being that influences people’s lives when we portray him in fictional accounts as something less worthy to be taken seriously than some of the bad guys in Walker, Texas Ranger episodes. I am not one for changing our message or becoming like the world to reach the world. Fighting fire with fire only makes more fire. But if we want to be taken seriously, then we have to be serious. If we want people to see the quality of our message, let’s produce high-quality content. Being ostracized because we boldly stand for the truth is part of living a godly life. But let it be for that reason, not because we’re putting a car that is falling apart next to a brand new Tesla and trying to convince passers-by that the broken down car is superior to the alternative. If you are looking for high-quality Christian content from the perspective of the kingdom of darkness, I recommend C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters and Steve Deace’s new book, A Nefarious Carol.