One of the new releases has been the supernatural horror film The Unholy. The reviews for this recent Sam Raimi produced chiller have been pretty poor, to say the least…
It has a solid lead in Jeffrey Dean Morgan, famous for The Walking Dead and Watchmen, and the premise is not completely original but compelling. A has-been reporter is on the hunt for a story in a Massachusetts rural community, and comes across a tree that apparently cures those with untreatable diseases. One girl, who had her deafness cured by the vision of the Virgin Mary, begins encouraging others to come forward and be healed. Very soon it becomes national news, and many more followers are drawn to the town. As you can imagine, the source of these miracles is anything but divine.
I’ll start with the positives because there are a few, despite the almost universal dismissal it’s received. There are some well-shot sequences in the film that provide an adequately creepy atmosphere. The actors, particularly Jeffrey Dean Morgan and an oddly-cast Carey Elwes make the most of a very wobbly and at times cringeworthy script. The ghoulish nasty that plagues the protagonists is well-designed and genuinely frightening at times, with a Doctor Who monster style quality to it. I mean that in a Weeping Angels way, not a Kandyman way. The film gets on with it and doesn’t try to be anything other than what it says on the tin. No, it’s not original in any way, and you can point out parts you’ve seen in The Exorcist, Exorcist III, The Borderlands, The Wicker Man, The Blood on Satan’s Claw and countless others. It does, however, have a sense of well-done efficiency for the most part. That being said, there are three or four shots of ghastly CGI which do unfortunately bring the quality down. If all of these had been cut, I think this really would have elevated the film, which gives you an idea of just how poor these scenes are. I’ve already mentioned the iffy script, but it gets particularly daft during the ending, which is actually quite engaging for the most part, so it does sadly sour the last few minutes.
If anyone does decide to give this a watch, disengage your brain and enjoy it as a mindless scare with some interesting elements and a few rubbish ones too. As a seasoned horror fan, I’ve seen many poorer flicks than this. It’s totally unpretentious and unoriginal, but awful and unentertaining it is not. There is a genuinely good film somewhere in there, but it is heavily hampered by mediocrity and some very poor sequences.
Rating: 2.5/5
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