A new movie titled “The Apocalypse of St. John” brings to life the Book of Revelation. Not only does the film tackle the challenging messages found in Revelation, but it also makes them accessible to a wider audience.
Written, created, and directed by Simón Delacre, the docudrama will air in theaters across the United States Feb. 15–17 after having tremendous success in South America and Latin America.
Delacre told EWTN News that he was inspired to make the film because he was a big fan of apocalyptic Hollywood movies growing up.
“But of course, being Catholic, I knew that would be somewhat far from the truth, somewhat far from the actual book of Revelation,” he said.
He began to dive deeper into the theology of the Book of Revelation because he was “very intrigued” by the symbolism and complex images and explained that what impacted him the most was “how current the topic of Revelation was for our times.”
“We are living in a crisis that is global in all aspects of men — like in the moral aspect, there’s a huge crisis, there’s a big crisis in the spiritual aspect, there’s a crisis in the economic aspect, political aspect, all aspects of life. We’re going through a great crisis that is at the same time global,” Delacre said.
He added: “Since we are living — well, this is my opinion — the greatest crisis of all time, I think it is very important to give the world the good prophecy that is the Book of Revelation and give it in a Catholic way.”
Delacre explained that he worked with many priests, biblical scholars, and theologians to properly depict Revelation and ensured to use language that would be understood by a general audience.
Amid his research into Revelation and creating the film, Delacre said his own faith was impacted in a way that allowed him to view crises in the world “not with desperation but with hope.”
“Every time I see a new crisis, I just see something that moves history forwards to the second coming,” he shared.
He recalled being in the middle of studying Revelation when his home country of Argentina legalized abortion in 2020. He spoke with a friend of his who is a priest on that day and despite being disappointed by the news, they “couldn’t feel sad because we saw in that another sign that proves that we are closer to the second coming and that Christ is coming soon.”
The filmmaker said he hopes audiences will have a similar experience after watching the film in that it will “bring comfort and solace to people who watch the movie in the midst of this crisis we are living [through].”
“Also, to teach them that the book of Revelation is not a book of terror, but a book of hope … Just rip off that fear to the book and encourage them to study more of Revelation.”
