the unholy review

The Unholy Review

The scares are better hidden than the evil in this sam raimi-produced horror film..

The Unholy was reviewed via digital screener. Read more on IGN's policy on movie reviews in light of COVID-19 here . IGN strongly encourages anyone considering going to a movie theater during the COVID-19 pandemic to check their local public health and safety guidelines before buying a ticket.

Sam Raimi is a living legend in horror, having helmed the truly iconic Evil Dead trilogy as well as the wickedly entertaining Drag Me To Hell. More recently, he’s produced a wide array of horror, from Fede Alvarez’s home-invasion thriller Don’t Breathe, to Alexandre Aja’s gator creature-feature Crawl, to Nicolas Pesce’s uninspired Grudge sequel. Now, Raimi’s name alone might lift screenwriter Evan Spiliotopoulos’ directorial debut, The Unholy, above the pack of scary movies hitting in April. But does it deserve the notice? I’ll be damned if it does.

Adapted from James Herbert’s 1983 novel Shrine, The Unholy follows the story of a miracle in the humble town of Banfield, Massachusetts. There, a beatific girl named Alice (Cricket Brown) hears the voice of Mary calling to her. This is extraordinary not only because it seems to be the Virgin Mary, but also because Alice is hearing impaired. That is until “The Lady” blesses her. Now, she can hear the awed gasps of the parishioners as she manifests miracles of healing. And she uses her voice to speak for Mary. It’s a sensational story that quickly captures the attention of Catholics across the nation. And one jaded journalist is giddy to be in the center of it.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen, The Walking Dead) stars as Gerry Fenn, a smirking, silver-haired wiseass, who was once a well-respected reporter. Nowadays, he’s a disgrace, so says his mile-long stare and the flask he’s shaking into his morning coffee. Desperate for a paycheck, he drove from Boston to Banfield to chase down a story that seemed ridiculous from the pitch. Once it didn’t pan out, he decided to make some news by smashing a strange token he found buried in an eerie tree. When Alice began speaking and spurring talk of miracles soon after, Fenn believed his luck had finally turned. That is until he started uncovering unnerving truths about The Lady, which pitches him into a quest to stop her, whatever the cost.

Morgan alone might be reason enough to give The Unholy a watch on a lazy weekend. He wears Fenn’s world-weariness like a comfortable leather jacket, coolly and with swagger. There’s a wicked mischief in his crooked grin that makes moments where he riles frowning priests an illicit pleasure. Then, surprisingly, in comes warmth when Fenn interacts with Alice. While he is a liar, he believes she’s the real deal. His desire to exploit her story and protect her wage a quiet war within him, which makes for the film’s emotional core. Brown plays Alice as little more than wide-eyed and beguiled. Her scenes of preaching and piety are one-note. But when she’s onscreen with Morgan, there’s an easy father-daughter vibe that grounds the emotional stakes at play here.

The supporting cast is peppered with familiar faces, including Christine Adams (Black Lightning) as a slick magazine exec, Katie Aselton (The League) as a local doctor, Cary Elwes (Stranger Things) as a smirking bishop, and William Sadler (Bill &Ted Face The Music) as the local priest who raised Alice and is raising concerns about these curious events. Sadly, each is given little to play beyond what these simple descriptions suggest. Spiliotopoulos’ adapted screenplay makes no time for creating fleshed-out supporting characters; he needs that space to deliver tedious exposition for a twist that is anything but.

The plot is painfully straightforward. While Fenn and friends peruse ancient artifacts and stroll through the town’s grim history for clues, the film’s opening scene drops all the hints the audience needs to have a pretty solid idea of who “The Lady” really is. In a thriller, suspense is born from the audience knowing a little more than the protagonist. But Spiliotopoulos gives away too much for us to feel the thrill. Only newbies to horror won’t know exactly where this story is going. For anyone else, the plotting will be punishingly plodding.

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A predictable plot might have saved by some spectacular scares. Regrettably, Spiliotopoulos wouldn’t know a good scare if it jumped up in his face. Actually, that’s the only scare he knows. A cloaked ghoul with a withered face stalks Fenn. It’s a menacing mockery of the standard Virgin Mary statue, posing with its long, raw, clawed fingers pointing up in prayer position, while its marred head tilts gently to one side. It’s a decently disturbing design. But Spiliotopoulos throws it at the screen again and again, in the same jump scare in diminishing returns until it’s more annoying than harrowing.

When it comes time for the kills, punches are pulled throughout with offscreen or obscured violence. You can see that PG-13 rating as clearly as the CG fire that instantly engulfs victims, and keeps us from actually seeing anything through the flames. God forbid we see any carnage that might actually spook us!

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There are moments in The Unholy that strive for shocking, even sacrilegious. But Spiliotopoulos lacks either the imagination or the guts to create something truly soul-rattling. Coming out on the high heels of Lil Nas X’s controversial “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” this devil’s tale feels laughably tame. Despite the stalwart efforts of Jeffrey Dean Morgan, The Unholy is deeply mediocre, unfurling an uninspired story that lacks in scares and spectacle. Honestly, if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the best bits. All of them. At best, The Unholy is a horror flick fit for tweens who aren’t ready for gore, terrifying scenes, or much in the ways of story or subtext. Simply put, it’s sinfully dull.

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‘The Unholy’ Review: ‘There’s Something About Mary’

Miraculous acts or evil deeds? This tame, trite horror movie has a familiar answer.

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By Jeannette Catsoulis

Satan is at it again in “The Unholy,” the first feature from Evan Spiliotopoulos and what feels like the millionth recurrence of a plot that turns an innocent young woman into the plaything of a soul-sucking demon.

After a brief spasm of 1845 witchery, the movie jumps to present-day New England where the roguish reporter Gerry Fenn (who better than Jeffrey Dean Morgan?) is sniffing out supernatural mischief. Once famous and now disgraced for fabricating stories, Fenn enjoys the odd tipple: It helps alleviate the professional embarrassment of covering livestock mutilations. But when he encounters Alice (Cricket Brown) — a hearing-impaired woman who’s mysteriously cured after conversing with a petrified tree trunk — Fenn smells the kind of story that could resurrect his career.

Unfortunately, that’s not what’s revived as Alice, believing she sees the Virgin Mary, begins to heal the sick and attract a horde of supplicants. Her uncle (William Sadler) is skeptical until she cures his emphysema, and the nearest bishop (an unrecognizable Cary Elwes) is flummoxed by Alice’s apparent miracles. Fenn, meantime, works on an exclusive (as a dissolute nonbeliever, he’s presumed objective) and gets friendly with a nice doctor (Katie Aselton). Even Fenn needs a break from the stress of the supernatural.

Adapted from a 1983 novel by James Herbert, “The Unholy” ( no relation to Camilo Vila’s 1988 dud ) gives us the usual weeping statues and a soundtrack heaving with crackles and whispers. Playing the evil entity with convulsive movements and a killer manicure, the contortionist Marina Mazepa turns in the movie’s most entertaining performance. That’s if you don’t count Morgan looking genuinely baffled as to what he’s doing here at all.

The Unholy Rated PG-13 for a hanged man and half-baked scares. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.

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