BLESS THE CHILD

Mostly ludicrous, but occasionally effective religious thriller about a child with saint-like powers pursued by East Village-esque satanists.Running time: 105 mins. Rated R. At the Empire, the Lincoln Square, the Loews 19th Street, others.

A movie at times so bad it feels like a Leslie Nielsen joke, “Bless the Child” is trying to be an update of supernatural thrillers like “The Exorcist” and “The Omen.”

After a slow start, it becomes enjoyably creepy, only to decline sharply into a morass of ever more inane ridiculousness. Soon the unintentionally funny lines are coming thick and fast. During the last 40 minutes, you wonder if the screenplay (credited to Tom Rickman, Clifford Green and Ellen Green) wasn’t finished off by distracted studio execs.

One Christmas night, divorced New York nurse Maggie (Kim Basinger) finds Jenna, her heroin-addicted sister (Angela Bettis), on her doorstep. Jenna leaves her week-old daughter Cody with Maggie and disappears. Maggie treats Cody as the child she has always wanted, despite her apparent autism – a real turnoff to Maggie’s suitors.

When Cody (Holliston Coleman) is 6, she begins to manifest special powers, including the ability to bring dead birds back to life. Maggie doesn’t really notice.

But a self-help cult, secretly run by satanists led by Eric Stark (British theater actor Rufus Sewell, “Dark City,” “Dangerous Beauty”) is looking for a child with just such potential. You can spot Stark’s young cohorts a mile off because of their East Village wardrobe: They wear black clothes, combat boots and sport facial piercings as well as the cult’s tattoo.

Maggie begins to realize that Cody is in danger, thanks to visions of her house being invaded by nasty, rubbery rats with glowing red eyes, and a warning from Christina Ricci in a brief cameo. But the forces of evil get hold of the little girl and Maggie must find some way of getting Cody back before she can be seduced to Satan’s side by Stark.

Maggie is all alone in her quest to rescue Cody, except for a seminary student-turned FBI agent (Jimmy Smits). Of course, you know that at some point Maggie will have to seek the advice of a renegade cleric who has been disavowed by the Vatican for his warnings about the satanic plan, and here comes Ian Holm, doing a bad Irish accent.

Smits is simply awful, and even though Basinger, beautiful as ever, has a talent for portraying bruised innocence, there are times you wonder if she should confine her future career to playing mutes.

There are plenty of things in the film to irritate sharp-eyed New Yorkers. Seconds after the little girl is taken from her house in what looks like a suburban section of Queens, Maggie is talking to cops at a precinct house in TriBeCa. And the movie treats as perfectly ordinary Maggie’s miraculous ability to snag taxicabs in the pouring rain.

Unlike many satanic thrillers – the execrable “End of Days” comes to mind – “Bless the Child” does at least believe in God and Goodness as well as Satan and Evil.

In fact, the only interesting and unusual thing about “Bless the Child” is the way it takes Christian theology completely seriously – something rare in today’s ultrasecular Hollywood.

In fact, if its theology weren’t so Catholic, this could be a big-budget version of one of those apocalyptic thrillers popular among Protestant fundamentalists. But in the end, orthodoxy deserves better.