The Unholy – Simple Ghostly Film
Director: Evan Spiliotopoulos
Writer: Evan Spiliotopoulos (Screenplay) James Herbert (Book)
Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Cricket Brown, William Sadler, Katie Aselton, Cary Elwes, Diogo Morgado
Plot: A hearing-impaired girl is visited by the Virgin Mary and can suddenly hear, speak, and heal the sick. As people flock to witness her miracles, terrifying events unfold. Are they the work of the Virgin Mary or something much more sinister?
Tagline – Be careful who you pray to.
Runtime: 1 Hour 39 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: The Unholy starts when disgraced journalist Gerry Fenn (Morgan) is searching for his latest story with hope of one which can’t sell, only to find himself caught up in another story, one involving a mute deaf woman Alice (Brown) who can suddenly start talking and hearing, as well as performing miracles in healing people.
As the miracles draw more people to the town, Gerry starts to look deeper into the changes in Alice, learning the horrific truth about why she has suddenly gained the powers she has.
Thoughts on The Unholy
Characters & Performances – Gerry Fenn is a disgraced journalist who has a reputation for bending the truth to make sure he gets the attention, never telling the complete truth, always looking for something to report on, now he has found himself in the middle of an unknown case about a woman who has suddenly gain healing powers, but even with that story in place, he looks to dive deeper into the truth. Jeffrey Dean Morgan does his try hard to make something from this leading role, even if not everything is easy to work with. Alice is the deaf mute that finds herself with the new ability to talk and hear, with another miraculous addition, the ability to heal injuries and sickness. She becomes one of the most worshipped people in the local area because of her changes. Cricket Brown does well to show the change in here character goes through, believing in what has happened to her. Father Hagan has raised Alice, he has always used God’s words to help her from what was different in her life and made her the strong young woman she had become. Natalie Gates had worked with Alice to help her in the world, she sees first hand the changes she goes through and wants to understand how they came about. The supporting cast do well without giving us any major factors in the film.
Story – The story here follows a young deaf mute woman that suddenly gains the ability to talk, hear and heal, leading to a journalist reporting on the miracles that she is performing until the truth slowly gets revealed about what is really going on. When it comes to any film about miracles, it is always interesting to see what the story might bring, be it with the horror directions or the natural one. We do end up going deeper into the supernatural side here, which is more about what happened in the past to cover up for the future, with the traditional investigation while spooky things are going on behind the scenes, it isn’t the most engaging story, but will get the basics of horror done well.
Themes – The Unholy is a horror movie that relies on people’s faith to drawn them in, only to unleash the truth to everyone else. It will have the basic scares we need without being anything overly fresh. The small town setting can easily play into the ideas of what might be used for a hoax to increase the money coming into the town too. Whereas most of the special effects don’t always work for the film, taking us well out of the haunting moments.
Final Thoughts – The Unholy is a nice basic ghost story that will have everything we need to be entertained for the runtime.