Director: Evan Spiliotopoulos
Notable Cast: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Cricket Brown, William
Sadler, Cary Elwes
Dropping a Christianity-based religious horror film is a
relatively regular occurrence, but having the audacity to release it to
theaters on Easter weekend is priceless. That’s just what happened with The
Unholy, the latest venture into horror for Sam Raimi’s Ghost House, and the
directorial debut of Evan Spiliotopoulos. Although that release date angle is
certainly a tasty morsel on its own merits, The Unholy as a modern
horror venture is an act of mistitling. Technically, yes, the film is about an
unholy witch, but it’s a film that should have the more apt title, The
Unmemorable. It’s a shame. There are quite a few intriguing elements to the
film, but it’s overly reliant on hitting the formula beats and shoehorning in
jump scares to make up for a lack of cohesive narrative, plot, and
atmosphere.
Based on the novel, The Shrine, this adaption of the
source material benefits from its fascinating and layered core concept. A
disgraced journalist, Fenn - played with the usual gusto from Jeffrey Dean
Morgan, is sent to investigate a sham supernatural occurrence in a small town.
While in the town though, a deaf and mute girl begins seeing visions of “Mary”
and starts performing miracles. This immediately gathers the attention of the
world and the church, but Fenn starts to question his newfound chance and
wonders if something more malevolent is behind everything.
There’s something distinctively 70s feeling about The
Unholy. Perhaps it's the religious horror of it all, but even in tonality
there is a distinctive baseline that indicates the initial premise was far more
The Omen than the Darkness Falls jump-scare-a-thon that this film
ends up being on screen. The Unholy feels uneven thanks to that large
gap between its concept and its execution. On its baseline, the film works. It
uses its religious approach in some fun ways, particularly in the first half
which introduces cult genre actors William Sadler and Cary Elwes as religious
figures that seem far more perplexed with the events than ones immediately
sold. The performances all around are solid, although it’s the turn by Cricket
Brown as Alice that tends to stand out. Her vulnerability and swings of
emotion in the moment are impressive. However, as the film attempts to increase the stakes in
the third act, too many secondary plot lines feel rushed and slammed
into the narrative. In particular, a monsignor sent by the church to disprove
the miracles finds his plot ending in the most spectacularly silly way that
launches directly out of left field. This is not irregular for the final act.
As for the scare factor, The Unholy mashes together plenty of ideas. There is the religious part of the story, but the titular entity
feels more like the previously mentioned Tooth Fairy from Darkness Falls
with a bit of J Horror ghostly choices - at least visually speaking. The design
is decent, particularly when the face of the creature is revealed, but the
overarching use of mediocre CGI, too many predictable jump scares, and a wild
third act misfire that feels like a heavy studio rewrite makes Mary a
forgettable villainess destined as a footnote in the history of horror.
The Unholy features some intriguing ideas and moments
where its premise is executed in a way that indicates the strengths of a
different and superior film. The resulting film is a trite horror experience,
muddled in poorly handled plotting and character development that never finds
it's footing. Even the scares of the film, which could have saved it, tend to
end up formulaic and unearned from lacking atmosphere and an obvious request to
keep its audience interested by ‘showing more monster’ to grease its seizing
engine.
No comments:
Post a Comment