A disgraced journalist accidentally stumbles upon a girl who performs miracles that are of an unholy nature.
Too fast, too soon, too much! Screen Gems used to know how to build up horrors, but, as it’s Sony’s property, it produces standard, mainstream Hollywood, spoon-fed popcorn flicks. It’s like they summed up a bunch of clichés and put them together, making absolutely sure they didn’t miss any. What really makes you wanna keep watching is Jeffrey Dean Morgan. And if you have kept watching, it gets a tad better. Actually, you’ll get to find out what the Vatican considers a miracle and how they disprove it. Is that enough to keep watching, though?
My issue with the aforementioned standard Hollywood films is that they treat them as byproducts. Cheap meat comes out of the grinder for masses that studios consider unintellectual. Considering that, the studios seem to be taking no chances to explore different types of narrative. In The Unholy, the writing, after the inciting incident, gets solid, it’s just there is nothing to watch; nothing visually stunning stands out. Plus, all the information you want is there the moment you want it. That decimates the suspense and leaves you with cheap jump-scares and nothing more. There are nano-to-low-budget films that break the rules or even invent new ones. It’s a shame to have millions to spend, be a mid-tier player, and take no risks. Why is this happening? As said earlier, they think that their audience is dumb. And that’s not nice. Horror fans are eccentric as they are insightful. Horror fans are resilient and are always up for the challenge. Studios should respect that and should challenge us with everything they have.
Oh, did I mention that CGI ruins horrors? I’m telling you again: the story is solid, but the way the plot unfolds ruins it, and the CGI follows as a wrecking ball and smashes it down. My comments are quite bitter not because of writer/director Evan Spiliotopoulos, who does a decent job, but because of producer Sam Raimi, who used to dominate the genre and now has given in to Hollywood standards and, as I’m a huge fan of his, I expect so much more because I know he can do so much more. And I hope we get to see that sooner rather than later.
Oh well… At least, devout Catholics will get (even more) confused about faith and the Church. That’s something.
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Solidarity for all the innocent lives who suffer the atrocities of war!
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