The Unholy - Dämon der Finsternis

Despite having an interesting concept (co-scripted by Philip Yordan no less), THE UNHOLY is an uneven mess that tries too hard to emulate titles such as THE OMEN or THE EXORCIST. There is a usually high class cast for a low budget horror film. Ben Cross is very good as the put upon priest. He plays it all serious despite being given embarrassing moments like raising his fists and screaming "Dear Godddddd, what will you have me do?" The only weak performance is by Jill Carroll as the young virgin/temptation who shacks up with the priest after deciding she didn't like being a waitress at a satanic club (uh huh). William Russ is interesting as a club owner who may or may not be evil and there are also fine supporting turns by Holbrook and Beatty. And screen vet Trevor Howard made his final screen appearance as a blind priest.

But all these performances are betrayed by perhaps the flattest directing ever. Camilo Vila is a terrible director who films the scenes with barely a pulse. The dialogue scenes are all shot in close ups so at times it is hard to even tell the proximity of the characters. Vila has no desire to build up to bizarre dream sequences or set pieces, they just happen right out of the blue. And speaking of blue, Vila should never be allowed near blue gels ever again. Apparently he feels this creates mood and constitutes style as he uses them in every other scene to numbing effect. The film actually underwent an extensive re-shoot to up the monster factor for the film's final act. Regardless, these inserts offer little salvation as whoever shot them imitates Vila's dreary style and shoots the titular beast with no mystery at all. The effects work from Bob (HELLRAISER) Keen, no matter how poorly shot, is impressive though. Perhaps under a better director the film would have been more effective.

THE UNHOLY opened in April of 1988 and fared rather poorly. However, it did become Vestron Pictures second highest grosser ($6.3 million) of their short lived theatrical career. Of course a difference of $57 million separates this from their number one rental DIRTY DANCING (1987).

Here is a movie I used to like a lot when I was a kid back in the later part of the eighties. I finally just found a copy of this film (unfortuanitly on VHS) and figured I would give it a try. This is a decent film with a solid cast. The story is this, basically there is a creature called the Unholy and it is going around and slaughtering priests. Ben Cross plays one of these priests and is thrown out of a skyscraper like 7 stories up. He miraculously survives without even a mark on his body so the Archbishop believes him to be the chosen one to do battle with the Unholy. The main problems with this movie is that it moves way to slow and the dialog is not very good. There is a decent bit of gore in the film but its only at the beginning and at the end of the movie. So for the most part you have to struggle with good actors working with a terrible script. The special effects also could have been better but are not horrible like most people make them out to be. At the end they should have used stop motion animation to be more effective. But all together this is not a horrible movie it just could have been put together much better. 7 stars

A religiously themed late 80's horror outing about a priest who finds out that an ancient demon (disguised as a gorgeous & sensual woman) has been killing his predecessors. Now he's next on the list. Occasional flashes of mild bloody gore and some nudity couldn't save the otherwise slow and boring development of events. The most fun parts where the scene where a guy pukes gallons of blood and the final confrontation with a nifty-looking demon (guy-in-a-rubbersuit-style) with his two demonoid dwarfs in the church. That's why I gave the movie an extra point. And well, there's far worse 80's horror nonsense out there, anyway.

This movie was very entertaining and had some really cool 80's special effects(my favorite). I also watched this on Fear.net for the first time(as a poster stated). I was really wrapped up in the story but when the demon midget exploded I almost wet myself. I don't know why but it caught me off guard. I still chuckle when I think of the scene but it didn't ruin the movie for me. I didn't watch this movie as a kid like most of my favorite horror movies from the 80's but I really enjoyed it. I guess I somehow missed this movie as kid, as I have no memory of it. I don't even remember it on the shelf at my local video store and Southtown Video had a ton of horror movies. Oh well, I guess it was a small town video store after all. I recommend it to any horror fan and especially to 80's horror fans.

A demon preys on priests caught in the act of sinning. This horror film has one of the best cast ever put together in a horror film, scary special effects, a well plotted and interesting script, and solid direction. However, even though the film seems to have all the right ingredients for success, it simply never gels together. Nicole Fortier is absolutely flawless as the demon. Rated R; Nudity, Graphic Violence, and Profanity.

*This film has one of the best trailers ever in cinema history.