waldron32282 I watched this movie fully prepared for it to be much different from the book because that's expected. What I did not expect, however, was for the entire storyline and characters to be different. When you change everything about the story, you change the message as well. Here are some of the biggest changes from the book. 1. Brandon did not have some past grudge against Travis. He had never met Travis prior to coming to Antioch. He like Travis because he thought they were both bitter against God and could work together. 2. Brandon did not kill Travis' wife. She died of cancer. The whole needing a kill every 3 years never happened. 3. Morgan was not a vet. She was a minister that was cold in her faith. That was one reason Brandon wanted to kill her because she was a woman of God. 4. Dee, the sheriff, and the girl who's hand was healed were not related. 5. Kyle Sherman was not a solid, middle aged man like Randy Travis. He is described as a young, passionate pastor in his twenties that sometimes lacks wisdom but has a good heart. He reminds Travis of himself when he started out in the ministry as a young man. This angle takes up a lot of the book. 6. Brandon dresses like Jesus in a white robe and sandals. He has a woman dress like Mary and Micheal is John the Baptist in the book. There are tone of other differences, but they are to be expected. But, when you take away who the characters are and make a whole new storyline, it is no longer the same story you started with. Peretti's book was a work of art, I don't know why Hollywood think their angle is always better. It is also stressed in the book that Brandon's dad was influenced by Satan when he nailed Brandon to the fence. In the movie it is implied that it could have been God. Very dangerous for non Christian viewers. It saddens me.

dk-hipkins From the perspective of someone who has read numerous Peretti books, including The Visitation, I have to say that I'm quite pleased to see his books coming to film. However, there was much to this one that was left out that would have drastically enhanced the movie. It ran under 2 hours and could have easily gone a bit longer with a few blanks filled such that it flowed a little better.I think the ultimate message was maintained, but still it did leave a bit to be desired for me. I remember a similar feeling about seeing Congo after reading the book, although this movie (unlike Congo) didn't totally suck.

moviemaster This is a cut above a lot of the movies of this genre.... call them "Omanesque." They usually fall into one of two categories: Some defrocked priest is confronted by the devil and is reborn....or The whole thing is just a big hoax and the devil-likes are nothing but clever cons. I was afraid, for some time, that this movie was going to fall into the latter category. It didn't. But it didn't fall completely into the drivel that usually occurs when the "lost one" discovers a biblical god again. Close. The special effects were pretty good. The plot had some holes but not as big as a lot of these movies. No jumping cats out of closets with the attendant crash of cymbals. Drama level was high and the interest in the primary characters is also...unlike so many, when you feel like, "oh, who cares? Let 'em go to the devil." I had genuine empathy for our hero and heroine. My only problem with the whole category is that I think it re-enforces the idea that if some statuary starts weeping...it's a miracle! And god will save the sinner. Life is a little more complex than that.

dottyjyoung This was my favorite Peretti novel of all time, but the discrepancies between the book and the movie are not what bothered me. EVERY novel must undergo some re-structuring to work in a 2-hour movie. To Peretti's credit, the idea of Marion being murdered was a good way to start the adaptation.But that's where the good ideas end.The plot holes in this movie are large enough to drive a truck through them. The dialogue was so cheesy that I was tempted to mute, and the STORY was so disjointed that I simply covered my face and thought: "One more strike against Christian movies!" 1) If Justin Cantwell's goal was simply to get a victim for his sacrifice, WHY pull the false-Christ routine at all? Why not just snatch some other clueless Marion Jordan? His revenge against Travis for "alerting the authorities" would be a great story by itself, and you could throw in a few "Am I a bad minister?" self-discovery side plots for flavor. But with this script, the purpose in his false-Christ routine is never explained, or even hinted at, which makes the whole story fall flat on its face.Just so you know, in the book, Cantwell is JUST as deceived as the rest of the crowd. He doesn't believe he's Jesus, but he does believe that the three demonic companions are his "friends", when they're actually using him.2)The "flying Bible stops the falling knife" trick at the end was just too much cheese, but I shouldn't have been surprised. Christian writers really struggle with Deus Ex Machina in their fiction. There's a good reason for this: miracles DO happen in the life of a Christian, but it's hard to get them on paper in a believable form. The difference is this: a miracle is an **event**, while Deus Ex Machina is a technique used to resolve a plot (God comes in and miraculously saves the hero from certain death, end of story) and it tells you nothing about the journey of the character. If all Christians really meditated on the function of miracles in our own lives, and our own response to them, we would stop using this awful, pointless technique and start writing better stories. Peretti should know better.3) I'm pretty sure that Washington state has the highest rate of occultic and New Age practitioners in the country. Peretti is simultaneously too familiar with these practices and disdainful of them. A follower of ANY religion believes that he has found Truth, and to mock the practices with the camera (Nancy Barrons' sultry sway down the stairs, or Cantwell's screaming at the fake fence post--and what was THAT all about?) robs the audience of the chance to know these characters. The rest of the country is not as familiar with these practices as Peretti obviously is, so he needs to explain WHY they're false/harmful/ridiculous, or whatever, with his story craft----NOT resort to making them look stupid. It doesn't work.Peretti's book "Piercing the Darkness" actually led me to Christ, so I may have come to this movie with higher than normal expectations. However, I would like a Christian movie to be AT LEAST as well written as the latest Batman flick. It wasn't. We as Christians have been charged with sharing the greatest story of all time. Maybe if we learned how to tell stories more effectively, we'd do a better job of that.