General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Believers

The Believers is a 1987 American horror thriller directed by John Schlesinger, in which a widowed police psychologist in New York City investigates a series of ritualistic child murders tied to a malevolent form of brujería (witchcraft). It stars Martin Sheen, Helen Shaver, Harley Cross, and Robert Loggia, was written by Mark Frost from Nicholas Conde's 1982 novel The Religion, and was released by Orion Pictures on June 10, 1987.¹

Key fact	Detail
Release	June 10, 1987 (New York and Los Angeles), expanding to 1,534 screens on June 12¹
Director / writer	John Schlesinger; screenplay by Mark Frost, his first theatrical film work¹
Source	The 1982 horror novel The Religion by "Nicholas Conde", a pseudonym of Robert Stuart Nathan and an unnamed co-author¹
Cast	Martin Sheen (Cal Jamison), Helen Shaver, Harley Cross, Robert Loggia, Elizabeth Wilson, Jimmy Smits²
Budget / box office	$13 million budget; $19 million worldwide³
Runtime / rating	114 minutes; rated R¹
Critical scores	35% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (20 reviews); Metascore 40 on Metacritic²^•⁴

Spoilers

Plot

After his wife is accidentally electrocuted by a faulty coffee maker, Minneapolis psychologist Cal Jamison (Martin Sheen) moves to New York City with his eight-year-old son Chris (Harley Cross) and takes a job as a police psychologist.⁵ Lieutenant Sean McTaggert (Robert Loggia) calls Cal in to study Tom Lopez (Jimmy Smits), an undercover policeman admitted to the psychiatric unit at Bellevue Hospital after a psychotic breakdown during an investigation into missing children in Spanish Harlem; a murdered child found at a ritual site had been butchered with precision and surrounded by religious paraphernalia.⁵ The killings lead to a cultish religion, and Cal gradually realizes that he and those close to him, including his son, may be targets of supernatural forces.²

Cal's housekeeper Carmen (Carla Pinza) practices a benevolent form of the faith and leaves protection charms around the apartment, while the murders are attributed to a malevolent form of brujería (witchcraft).³ The film's imagery contrasts the white of milk with the black of coffee, standing for white magic and black magic respectively.⁶

Interpretation and legacy

A 2022 study by Charlotte Gough of Manchester Metropolitan University, published in Horror Studies, reads The Believers alongside Angel Heart (1987) as texts in dialogue with the "Satanic Panic", the religious hysteria propagated by Reaganite conservatism and the New Christian Right, and argues that the films tie occult crime to post-Vietnam masculine identity anxieties.⁹ Scholars of Afro-Caribbean religion in cinema have criticized the film for demonizing Santería: a University of Florida honors thesis notes that the film racializes its antagonists and associates Santería with criminality, reinforcing stereotypes that shape how unfamiliar viewers see the religion and its practitioners.¹⁰ A survey of screen portrayals of Vodou lists The Believers among films that present the religion as evil personified.¹¹

Production

From novel to screenplay. Keith Barish Productions bought the film rights to The Religion shortly after its 1982 publication, but nothing came of the purchase. By 1984, producer Michael Childers and his partner Beverly Camhe held an option and were to produce for 20th Century Fox, with Schlesinger set to direct a $10-million film scheduled to begin September 1, 1985. Those plans fell through, Fox put the film into turnaround, and when the budget surged to $16 million Fox dropped the project altogether.¹

Orion and Toronto. Producers had planned to film entirely in New York City, but moving the production to Toronto, where favorable currency exchange rates trimmed the cost to $13 million, brought Orion Pictures in as producer.¹ Filming started on June 5, 1986; two weeks of exterior work took place in New York, after which the company relocated to Toronto to complete the shoot.¹ Robby Müller was the cinematographer and Peter Honess the editor.¹

Casting and cultural advising. Schlesinger's first choice for the lead was Ed Harris, who was committed to a play, so he cast Martin Sheen; Sheen said he took the film for the chance to work with Schlesinger.¹ Because Santería was closely guarded, the filmmakers hired Carla Pinza, an initiate priestess of the religion who plays Carmen Ruiz, as a technical advisor to ensure the religion and its practices were depicted correctly.³ The film went through the working titles The Religion and The Seven Powers before settling on The Believers.¹

Release and reception

The film opened in New York and Los Angeles on June 10, 1987, a Wednesday, then expanded to 1,534 screens nationwide on June 12, earning $4.3 million in its first five days; after a month in theaters it had grossed $15.8 million.¹ Rotten Tomatoes records a US gross of $17.4 million, and total worldwide gross is given as $19 million.²^•³ It served as the closing film, out of competition, at the 35th San Sebastián Festival in September 1987.⁷

Criticism. Reception was mixed to negative. The film holds a 35% Tomatometer from 20 reviews and a Metascore of 40, classified by Metacritic as mixed or average.²^•⁴ Roger Ebert, film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, gave it 1.5 of 4 stars, calling it "an awesomely silly, tasteless and half-witted movie" and objecting that it used the paraphernalia of expertise without the expertise.⁸ The Washington Post found the screenplay "a haphazard affair of implausibility and pseudo-Voodoo", while the Los Angeles Times called it one of the better-produced and more intelligent thrillers of the year.⁴ Several critics singled out Müller's cinematography and Loggia's performance for praise.⁴

Availability

As of late 2026, the film streams on Prime Video in ten countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Italy, and Mexico, and in the United States on fuboTV, MGM+ Amazon Channel, Philo, MGM Plus Roku Premium Channel, and MGM Plus, with free ad-supported streaming on The Roku Channel and Tubi; it is not on a subscription service in the United Kingdom.¹² It can also be rented or bought digitally and purchased on DVD and Blu-ray.³

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026