288.
The Unholy
5/10
Another horror movie to add to the list and not one that is attached to any sort of franchise. The trailer looked nothing short of interesting, as many horror trailers do. Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays our leading actor, fresh from the highly successful role in The Walking Dead. In this movie, he'll be playing a disgraced journalist and after faking news stories, needs to build his reputation again. The movie gives the directorial debut of Evan Spiliotopoulos. Evan is an interesting one as the only things he's worked on of note in his career so far are Disney sequels such as The Jungle Book 2 and also worked on the live-action Beauty and the Beast. Let's find out if he took his chance to make something great, or something truly unholy.
The film begins in the 1800s' as a young girl is killed for witchcraft. Hanging from a tree, she is set alight after a mask is nailed to her face and her spirit is bound to a doll. There's always a doll. Many years later, Morgan's character is sent to Boston to report on a strange happening, which turns out to be nothing but a prank but he finds the doll and crushes it, releasing the spirit.
As he is set to leave, he is in a car accident after narrowly avoiding hitting a girl. He then follows said girl to the tree from the beginning and also the location where he crushed the doll. The girl utters a few words before collapsing. After taking the girl to the local church, we learn she is a dead-mute so the fact that she apparently spoke, can't be true. Gerry, played by Morgan, decides to stick around and find out the truth.
The girl decides to wow the crowds as she claims she has been blessed by the Virgin Mary. The Catholic Church decides to send out their investigators for the case. There is now a media frenzy but the only person that the girl Alice will speak to is Gerry.
He finds out that she has been talking to a presence called Mary and automatically thinks that she is holy. Things start to take a sinister turn as people start dying and Gerry has horrifying visions of Mary and her true nature. During his time there, he befriends the local physician to who he comes clean to about fabricating stories. Hoping this one will now bring his career back to the top, they both find information that the local vicar has discovered. It had cost him his life as Mary had killed him and shows who Mary actually is. The witch who was killed. She had sold her soul to Satan for eternal life and power. It turns out that the higher-ups in the church knew this and kept it a secret as it brought interest back to the church and with Gerry's reputation, no one would believe him anyway.
Alice is seemingly unaware of Mary's true nature wishes to hold a service live on TV by the tree and the Catholic investigator warns that this will become a Satanic ritual. Anyone who pledges themselves to her will be condemned to hell. Our trio tries to stop the event with a ritual in the church which Mary isn't a fan of. She ends up killing the Catholic investigator with a burning cross and now we are on to our endgame.
Alice urges everyone to pledge themselves to Mary three times, reminding me of the famous Bloody Mary ritual in front of the mirror. Alice has been taken over by this presence so it takes the physician Natalie to communicate with her through sign language. Gerry has slowed the crowd down in the meantime. He's explaining that everything is just down to more hoaxes. Mary tries to sway Alice but now that Alice realises the true intent, she tells everyone that indeed the miracles weren't true. The tree suddenly bursts into flames as everyone tries to escape. Mary crawls out from behind as she heads for Gerry.
Alice sacrifices herself to save Gerry and this act seems to have gone against what Mary is about. She disappears and it turns out that due to Alice being Mary's link to the world, she no longer has her vessel. Gerry is left in shock, begging God to bring Alice back to life. The wish is granted as Alice comes back but without her hearing or speech. Everyone that Alice and Mary cured relapse and in the aftermath of the movie, we zoom in on the statue of Mary within the church as it cries a tear of blood.
This movie felt like a straight to DVD movie or maybe even a Friday night movie that you come across on TV. The movie had an interesting headway and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't great to be back in the cinema watching any kind of horror but this one won't be top of my list for a rewatch any time soon. The main possession-based storyline was not a shock to anyone because that was apparent from the beginning of the movie. It was all about watching how that played out. To see the side story of the church actually knowing the true events and their dark motives to profit from the event was the part that I didn't see coming. It added a little spice to an otherwise common horror movie.
The cast for me was a few recognisable faces with one name that I could pick out from the trailer alone. Jeffery Dean Morgan is hot property since The Walking Dead and is my pick to play Thomas Wayne as Batman in any Flash Point movie, but it'll never happen. Playing a washed-up journalist and downright grump seems to be effortless for this guy as he is one of the redeeming parts of the movie. William Sadler, one of the inmates in Shawshank Redemption and Cary Elwes, one of the chained up gents in Saw were the only other faces that were recognisable to me. The rest of the cast was new but I can't have any complaints about them. The acting all around was at a decent level thankfully. Too many times have I come across a new cast in horror movies that we never hear from again and the talent was at a minimum.
I had no idea that this was based on a classic novel, written by James Herbert, I really hope that the guy enjoyed seeing his work come on to the big screen. A lot of the time we know that things change too much and the author sometimes resents allow it to be done. A famous case of this would be Stephen King and his views on 'The Shining'. More redeeming features for me would be the CGI in the movie as some mediocre storytelling and following the horror blueprint was salvaged by clever scene work, special effects and even the overall look of the demon. Too many times do we only see some fingers rather than the whole horror of what the audience has been sitting in anticipation for. Through October, I have been watching horror movies, some new and some re-watches and if this movie pops up on a streaming app then maybe just maybe will I watch it again. Until that moment, it, unfortunately, won't be one that I go out of my way to purchase or view in the near future.
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