Screen Gems who sit only second to Blumhouse studios with dependable middle of the road horror movies, unleash their latest effort The Unholy.
A girl inexplicably gains the power to heal the sick after a supposed visitation from the Virgin Mary. As word spreads and people flock to witness her miracles, a disgraced journalist visits the small New England town to investigate. However, when strange events start to occur, he soon wonders if these phenomena are the result of something more sinister.
With a superb cast that includes Jeffrey Dean Morgan, William Sadler, Jordana Brewster and Cary Elwes, you can’t help but feel like you expected more from The Unholy.
With plenty of religious chillers to choose from, it was going to take something special for The Unholy to stand out from the crowd and this doesn’t ever do it. For the most part the film is relatively pedestrian and the jumps and scares never really amount to anything.
With Morgan cruising through proceedings as the disgraced reporter who seeks out ‘happenings’ and for the most part debunks them, when he realises he’s walked into something that might just possibly be real, he then turns up and starts chewing scenery. Cricket Brown as Alice, the young girl who sees Mary and proceeds to be the beacon for the spirit that is evil within, is also a really engaging lead.
However everyone else none more so than Cary Elwes just meander through proceedings like he’s forgotten he’s not on the set of Saw and just carries on regardless. William Sadler makes good with what he has despite bing wasted and nowhere near enough screen time.
The Unholy is simply just Underwhelming. It’s more like a Sunday afternoon drama with a few more scares in it. Considering the likes of it being from James Herbert source material (The novel The Shrine), a brilliant cast and produced by Sam Raimi, Drag Me To Hell this isn’t. And for what they were going for with certification, that’s the benchmark.
