Studio: Screen Gems
Director: Evan Spiliotopoulos
Writer: Evan Spiliotopoulos
Producer: Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, Evan Spiliotopoulos
Stars: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Katie Aselton, William Sadler, Cricket Brown, Diogo Morgado, Cary Elwes, Marina Mazepa, Christine Adams
Review Score:
Summary:
When a girl mysteriously obtains miraculous healing powers, a small town assumes the Virgin Mary speaks through her, but a disgraced journalist suspects an evil force may be at work.
Review:
When Amazon purchased MGM for nearly nine billion dollars, the mega-merger prompted one screenwriter to tweet a recollection about a meeting he once had at the roaring lion’s studio. In it, MGM suits simply opened the company’s IMDb page, scrolled through title after title and repeatedly asked, “Do you want to remake this one? How about this one?”
That tweet attracted similar stories. Another writer also recalled being given a binder packed with pages listing MGM catalog titles. His assignment? Pick a couple of movies he might want to remake and then report back.
A funny addendum is, none of the projects those writers chose ever went forward. Commiserating responses continued reflecting on like-minded meetings where executives admitted they hadn’t even seen the original movies being mentioned. Unsurprisingly, they couldn’t have cared less about producing new takes on those titles and merely moved on to other pointless pitch sessions.
2021’s “The Unholy” is not a remake of 1988’s “The Unholy” (review here). It’s an adaptation of James Herbert’s novel “Shrine.” Nevertheless, the anecdotes above rattled around in my head as “The Unholy’s” vanilla flavor fell flat on my figurative tongue. It got me thinking, “Rebooted properties and original ideas have tough times getting through gatekeepers, yet those same Powers That Be who say no to everything will say yes to this?”
It’s not like “The Unholy” is bad in the sense that someone would be justified dismissing it as unwatchable. It’s just that the film is so redundantly generic, I can’t figure out what made anyone say, “Yes, absolutely! This is a movie we must make!”
Jeffrey Dean Morgan stars as disgraced journalist Gerry Something-or-Other. You can tell he’s a hard drinker on hard times because he sports unkempt hair, an unshaven face, and stays at a motel with a blinking neon sign. Obviously, that motel is located smack dab in the center of Cinema Cliché City.
In the vicinity is a tree where a witch once died. Gerry doesn’t know that, though he is drawn to the location and finds a curiously creepy doll wrapped in tiny chains with a tag bearing the nonexistent date of February 31, 1845.
Now, someone who has seen a horror film at least once in their life might immediately think, “This definitely doesn’t signify something good.” Barring that, you might think a man desperate for money would realize a 176-year-old doll could be worth a fat fortune. Neither thought occurs to Gerry. He only wants the $150 he’s been promised to write a tabloid story about a cow mutilation he already debunked. Gerry gets the bright idea to concoct a curse he can connect to the cow, so he smashes the doll to make it part of his made-up story.
Of course, Gerry unknowingly unleashes a real curse where a girl named Alice gains the power to perform miraculous healings. Alice tells everyone she got her gift from “Mary” and they in turn assume she must mean the mother of Jesus. It’s actually Mary Elnor, a witch who sold her soul to Satan and seeks to make everyone else do the same on a massive scale.
Cue some slight snickering as Cary Elwes joins Gerry in investigating the case as a bishop with a bizarre Boston accent. Elwes brings along an extraneous monsignor who I’d wager mattered much more in early drafts of the script than he does in this final cut. Katie Aselton doubles up as a doctor who also becomes a lukewarm love interest for Gerry. Since she goes from dismissing him as a drunk to quickly taking a quiet walk along a creek together, I’m assuming the bulk of their “where did this come from?” romance occurs offscreen.
I’m trying to picture what “The Unholy’s” greenlight meeting looked like. I imagine it went something like this:
“Okay, we shot down everything we’ve been pitched so now we’re running out of time to fill a hole in our release slate. What do you got in the world of factory-made fright films? Maybe religious horror? We haven’t seen something with priests and possessions and demonic curses in a while have we?”
“Well, we have. Quite a few, to be honest. But if you want another one, may I suggest this adaptation of a 40-year-old novel?”
“Is it by Stephen King?”
“No, James Herbert. He was a highly successful and hugely pop-“
“Alright, I don’t know who that is, so let’s not play up the provenance. What’s it got in the way of scares?”
“There’s a scene where a guy takes his eyes off the road for two seconds and, wouldn’t you know it, a ghostly girl appears in that exact instant, causing a crash that kicks the plot into gear.”
“What else?”
“Flickering lights, shadows suddenly crossing in front of the camera, slowly creeping toward ominous objects while the music volume increases. You know, the usual.”
“There sure seems to be a lot of backstory blather going on from what I’m skimming through here.”
“Yeah, it’s an extremely chatty movie.”
“How do you plan to deliver all of that exposition?”
“That’s the usual, too. Start with the basic drip feed. When the time comes to turn toward the third act, we’ll have our heroes find a book that conveniently explains all remaining information so the characters can finally catch up to where the audience has been since the beginning. That still won’t be everything though. We’re saving a scene for right near the end where Gerry goes to a library and learns one last revelation from an old archive on microfiche.”
“Microfiche? What’s that?”
“Not exactly sure. But I’ve seen it in so many older movies we’re mirroring, I guess it works.”
“Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Am I right?”
“Whatever you say, sir! You’re the boss!”
“Can you throw in one of those fakeouts where something spooky yet seemingly impossible happens and then right on the audio sting, we cut to a guy bolting upright in bed because it was all a dream? I like those!”
“Oh, you mean a nightmare sequence? Yeah, that’s already in there. It’s in all standard scary movie scripts, actually. Except we’ll do ours a little differently and have him only open his eyes instead of doing that upright bolt thing. We don’t want to do everything like everyone else does. (under his breath) Just most things.”
“Love it! Book it!”
Look, as indicated earlier, “The Unholy” is not a poorly made movie. It’s just routine from its head down to its toes. A film built purely for function by working professionals following grandma’s reliable recipe for run-of-the-mill chills.
Much of the movie takes place indoors. Much of it takes place in chairs too, because copious conversations move the movie more than anything. Even though there’s a lot of it, actors don’t have complicated dialogue to remember, much less emote through. “The Unholy” likely looked like a non-taxing gig that took it relatively easy on the cast and crew. Everyone could pop it out quickly, pocket their paychecks, and maybe move on to something more memorable with the next one.
Undemanding viewers will find “The Unholy” to be “fine” for a film people will only watch when it pops up on a streaming service and they have nothing better to do. Ironically, having nothing better to do is how people ended up making this mediocre movie in the first place.
Review Score: 50
If you want to see impossible amounts of blood explode crimson colors like the world’s worst version of a gender reveal, well, “Abigail” at least has that.