“In December of 2021 they screened Jimmy Stewart’s personal print of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ That was one of the most amazing movie experiences of my life,” said Deven Hunsaker, a recent BYU graduate. Moviegoers include community residents and students of various majors, all of whom are encouraged to participate in the post-screening discussions. Silent films are accompanied by a live organist, as originally intended.
For anyone else, the plotting will be punishingly plodding.A brief lecture is given before each screening on the history that surrounded and inspired the night’s film. Only newbies to horror won’t know exactly where this story is going. But Spiliotopoulos gives away too much for us to feel the thrill. In a thriller, suspense is born from the audience knowing a little more than the protagonist. While Fenn and friends peruse ancient artifacts and stroll through the town’s grim history for clues, the film’s opening scene drops all the hints the audience needs to have a pretty solid idea of who “The Lady” really is. Spiliotopoulos’ adapted screenplay makes no time for creating fleshed-out supporting characters he needs that space to deliver tedious exposition for a twist that is anything but. Sadly, each is given little to play beyond what these simple descriptions suggest. The supporting cast is peppered with familiar faces, including Christine Adams (Black Lightning) as a slick magazine exec, Katie Aselton (The League) as a local doctor, Cary Elwes (Stranger Things) as a smirking bishop, and William Sadler (Bill &Ted Face The Music) as the local priest who raised Alice and is raising concerns about these curious events. But when she’s onscreen with Morgan, there’s an easy father-daughter vibe that grounds the emotional stakes at play here.
Her scenes of preaching and piety are one-note. Brown plays Alice as little more than wide-eyed and beguiled. His desire to exploit her story and protect her wage a quiet war within him, which makes for the film’s emotional core. While he is a liar, he believes she’s the real deal. Then, surprisingly, in comes warmth when Fenn interacts with Alice. There’s a wicked mischief in his crooked grin that makes moments where he riles frowning priests an illicit pleasure. He wears Fenn’s world-weariness like a comfortable leather jacket, coolly and with swagger. Morgan alone might be reason enough to give The Unholy a watch on a lazy weekend. That is until he started uncovering unnerving truths about The Lady, which pitches him into a quest to stop her, whatever the cost. When Alice began speaking and spurring talk of miracles soon after, Fenn believed his luck had finally turned.
Once it didn’t pan out, he decided to make some news by smashing a strange token he found buried in an eerie tree. Desperate for a paycheck, he drove from Boston to Banfield to chase down a story that seemed ridiculous from the pitch. Nowadays, he’s a disgrace, so says his mile-long stare and the flask he’s shaking into his morning coffee. Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen, The Walking Dead) stars as Gerry Fenn, a smirking, silver-haired wiseass, who was once a well-respected reporter. And one jaded journalist is giddy to be in the center of it. It’s a sensational story that quickly captures the attention of Catholics across the nation. And she uses her voice to speak for Mary. Now, she can hear the awed gasps of the parishioners as she manifests miracles of healing. This is extraordinary not only because it seems to be the Virgin Mary, but also because Alice is hearing impaired. There, a beatific girl named Alice (Cricket Brown) hears the voice of Mary calling to her. But does it deserve the notice? I’ll be damned if it does.Īdapted from James Herbert’s 1983 novel Shrine, The Unholy follows the story of a miracle in the humble town of Banfield, Massachusetts. Now, Raimi’s name alone might lift screenwriter Evan Spiliotopoulos’ directorial debut, The Unholy, above the pack of scary movies hitting in April. More recently, he’s produced a wide array of horror, from Fede Alvarez’s home-invasion thriller Don’t Breathe, to Alexandre Aja’s gator creature-feature Crawl, to Nicolas Pesce’s uninspired Grudge sequel. Sam Raimi is a living legend in horror, having helmed the truly iconic Evil Dead trilogy as well as the wickedly entertaining Drag Me To Hell.
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