Why Edward From Nefarious Looks So Familiar
Demonic possession is one of the most prominent and cherished genres in the horror film business. With films like "The Exorcist," "Paranormal Activity," "Insidious," and "Amityville Horror," just to name a few, they always seem to be a safe bet in theaters. 2023 decided that April would be a little bit of a Springtime Halloween was in the cards as three possession movies drop at virtually the same time. While "Evil Dead Rises" and "The Pope's Exorcist" will get most of the attention, there is another film that will send shivers down your spine.
"Nefarious" is a smaller film going up against the franchise chops of "Evil Dead Rises" and the star power of Russell Crowe in "The Pope's Exorcist." Following the story of a condemned man spending the last few hours of his life speaking with a psychiatrist to determine if he is mentally fit to stand for execution. While plenty of people would put on a show to try and save their own life, this condemned man claims something utterly unbelievable, that he is a demon named Nefarious.
While the film is not going to break any records at the box office or demand any awards (horror movies don't usually anyway), the performance of the film's lead is enough to carry it for the 97-minute runtime. If you are thinking the actor portraying the malevolent demon inside the inmate deserves more work, he has had a long career in many projects you know very well. Here is why Edward from "Nefarious" looks so familiar.
Sean Patrick Flannery made a splash in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
Fewer characters are more well-known than the man with the leather jacket, fedora, and whip. With his fifth film hitting screens this year, Indiana Jones is one of the most beloved heroes in all of cinema. Of course, after the success of the original trilogy, it was only a matter of time before someone decided we needed tv shows and spinoffs to cash in on the love for the heroic archeologist. The first came in the form of a 22-episode series that spanned from 1992-1993, "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles."
Of course, casting a young Dr. Jones to measure up to the legend of Harrison Ford is no small task, no matter how you slice it, but this series had to do it three times. Throughout the series, three separate versions of the character appeared. The youngest, Corey Carrier, portrayed Henry as a young boy; the oldest, George Hall, portrayed an old man version of Dr. Jones and acted as the narrator of the series by regaling audiences with the tales of his exploits. The young man version, and the one who embarked on most of the journeys, was portrayed by Sean Patrick Flannery. While he was a virtual unknown at the time, making a splash as a young Indiana Jones set him up for a long career ahead of him.
He went to great lengths to look bizarre in Powder
What happens when your mother is struck by lightning while pregnant with you? Well, of course, you would have a sort of constant electrical charge your entire life. That is the basic premise behind a 1995 film, "Powder," which sees a young albino boy with an off-the-charts intellect who teaches those around him the lengths of possibility that are present in the human mind. They also teach him the unfortunate capacity humanity has for cruelty.
Sean Patrick Flanery turned in a stellar performance as the person with albinism, Jeremy Reed, who discovers he has supernatural powers. His portrayal showed his profound ability to capture the essence of a character. He also revealed that he was willing to go to great lengths to not only bring "Powder" to life but also that he was ready to prepare in some of the most extreme ways. In an interview with Bobbie Wygant, he spoke about how people in his life reacted to his look with a shaved head...and no eyebrows.
"It's kind of bizarre. Even I didn't think it was that big of a deal when I shaved my head. I thought, 'I'm good lookin, not too big of a shock to the system.' But when I shaved my eyebrows, I mean, I really looked bizarre." He went on to talk about how people reacted to him as he prepared for the role when he says that his friends didn't recognize him after losing a lot of color because he stayed out of the sun for three months.
He became a vigilante in Boondock Saints
Perhaps one of the greatest cult classics to ever come out of the 1990s happened in the decade's final year. As the century was coming to an end in 1999, filmmaking newcomer Troy Duffy gave us the over-stylized and ideologically thought-provoking cult favorite, "The Boondock Saints." While many people rave that while the movie is a stellar journey into the psyche of a vigilante, the documentary and story of how the film came to be is equally as fascinating.
Flanery appeared as one-half of the MacManus brothers, who have an epiphany after killing two Russian mafia members in self-defense and become vigilantes. The film was immensely violent and posed the question of the ethics of normal people taking justice into their own hands as their city becomes infested with organized crime. Flanery is joined by Norman Reedus ("The Walking Dead," "Blade II"), Willem Dafoe ("Spider-Man: No Way Home," "The Lighthouse"), and Billy Connolly ("The Last Samurai," "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies").
The film got a sequel, and there have been rumbles of a possible third. But the reaction to the first film garnered enough love that it even picked up a comic book run, something Flanery spoke about with BigFanBoy at San Diego Comic-Con. "I'd be a liar if I said it wasn't neat to see a comic book with your face on it. I mean, I think everyone would embrace that; it's pretty cool. The stories are good, the action sequences, and at the end of the day, it is a comic book. I walk past it, and it's my face on it. It's really cool. Outside of the ego stroke, it's really neat."
He was an ambitious albeit doomed politician in The Dead Zone
Stephen King is one of the most legendary and beloved writers of all time, especially in the horror genre. His books and short stories have been adapted to film and TV many times, including "The Shining," "Pet Sematary," and even less horror-centric films like "Green Mile" and "The Shawshank Redemption." One of the few of his projects to land a movie and a TV series is the 1979 novel, "The Dead Zone." The first to arrive was the 1983 film starring Christopher Walken ("Catch Me if You Can," "The Deer Hunter"), Martin Sheen ("The West Wing," "Apocalypse Now"), and Tom Skerritt ("Top Gun").
The following series began in 2002 with Anthony Michael Hall in the lead and Sean Patrick Flanery taking over for Martin Sheen as an ambitious politician. The story follows a man who awakens from a coma after half a decade with the ability to see things about people when he comes into contact with them. Flanery explained who his character, Greg Stillson, was in an interview with Sci-Fi and TV Talk.
"He's definitely a bit of both," Flanery said. "A lot of the decisions he makes seem to be a bit self-serving. So far, we know that he's a manipulative guy who loves women. Stillson is also caught up in the attractiveness of power and how it makes people look at you in a different way. However, the only truly corrupt thing we've actually seen him do is to go outside the rules in order to become elected. And I think he's doing that because he believes that the state of Maine and the country as a whole would benefit from him being in office."
Dexter
Anti-heroes are the latest fad in storytelling. Gone are the flawless heroes of the past like Superman and Jack Ryan, giving way to those protagonists that have at least one reason why we shouldn't root for. One of the most popular is the book character that became a popular Showtime series, "Dexter." Following the Miami P.D. blood splatter analysis expert, Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) as he uses his connections with the department to find the worst of the worst to satiate his need to kill.
Flanery shows up in Season 8 as Jacob Elway, a former detective with the Miami Police who owns his own private investigations firm. Following a devastating death at the end of Season 7, Deborah Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter) leaves the department and takes a job with Elway. She continually has to avoid his advances, and he serves as one of the primary antagonists in the series' final season (until the revival season a few years later). Flanery sat down with Yahoo! Entertainment to explain what it was like joining the series.
"It's been a great experience. Those guys have been together for so many seasons, and a lot of times when people have been together that long, they kind of have a machine operating system, a Henry Ford assembly line, and throwing a new cog into the system sometimes doesn't work. But they've been open arms. They've been really great."