The Unholy

It started off good. The story is different and the idea of a false virgin Mary can be interesting. The acting is acceptable and CGI average.

However, it fails to nail everything down. The last half of the movie is just a bunch of walking clichés. It's like they fired the writers they got and hired the cheapest ones. Very disappointing ending. Nothing we haven't seen a thousand times before.

The Unholy is a new horror film directed and written by Evan Spiliotopoulos, this is his first work as a director.

In the film, after a visit from the Virgin Mary, young deaf and mute Alice (Cricket Brown) is able to hear, talk again and is given the gift of healing other sick people. Journalist Gerry Fenn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) investigates Alice and the miracle that happened to her in hopes of restarting his career. During his investigation, he begins to wonder if all the miracles are really the work of the Blessed Virgin Mary or if there is something dark behind all the miracles.

The director of this film wanted to make the film after reading the book Shrine by writer James Herbert on which he based the film. You can see from the film that this is the first film that the director has directed. The director chooses to show and let you know more as a viewer than the characters in the film. This way you as a viewer are ahead of the characters, so that the film quickly gets a predictable and slow playback speed The bad effects also show that this is only the director's first film. He has chosen to quickly reveal the entity behind the miracles in the film to viewers. So you can quickly see that this creature was placed in the film with cheap CGI. The incredibility of this creature makes you laugh almost more than it really scares you. The fire in the film is also clearly CGI rather than real fire. The director also tries to scare the viewer more by only using jump scares, most of which are too predictable to work.

The acting isn't done very well in the film by the film's cast either, as many characters don't seem very impressed with what's happening in the film. This is probably because the actors couldn't watch or really react to anything during the events of the film. Jeffrey Dean Morgan tries his best to carry the film as the lead, but due to the bad script, he doesn't really succeed. For a better horror movie starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, check out the 2012 movie The Possession.

I went in expecting your {now} standard possession/exorcism movie (you know, lapsed/skeptic priest investigates a case of demonic possession. But after witnessing the subject talk dirty, rearrange the furniture, air people's dirty laundry and show off their amazing contortionist skills, said lapsed/skeptic priest becomes a true believer) but I actually enjoyed this movie. One surprise was the injection of humor. The other is that none of the events took place in a dark dungeon or on a dark and stormy night. Third, even though the cast was full of unknowns (except the parish priest, who I've seen in other films), the acting was thoroughly natural and believable enough to keep me engaged. The main characters truly developed and evolved throughout the film. Finally the movie, while never claiming to be anything other than fiction, nevertheless contained a valuable message. I rarely go to theaters to watch movies anymore because streaming has been kinder to my pocketbook, but I don't feel cheated .

I loved the storyline and the actual acting. Cheesey CG. Do without that and you've got a good one.

I was recommended to watch the 2021 horror movie "The Unholy", so of course I sat down to watch it.

And I will say that the movie definitely was watchable. Yeah, hold on now, because there is a but here; but, the movie just wasn't outstanding. The movie from writer and director Evan Spiliotopoulos just was a bit too predictable and generic, relying on jump scares that you see coming a mile away.

When I sat down to watch "The Unholy" I must admit that I was stoked, because of the movie's title, its premise and because of a rather unique and interesting ensemble of cast.

But even with the likes of Jeffrey Dean Morgan, William Sadler and Cary Elwes on the cast list, then the movie just never really managed to get out of the mediocre lane given the somewhat lazy writing and the predictability of the movie. It felt like these performers weren't really allowed to unfold and give the performance a full 100%.

"The Unholy" is a fairly generic and mediocre horror movie actually. But if you are new to the horror genre, then of course you will be in for quite something here. But for an avid horror fan such as myself, then writer and director Evan Spiliotopoulos just played it way too safe by following the how-to-make-a-horror-film blueprint.

I will say, though, that the visuals in the movie were interesting and for the most part quite good. The CGI department did their jobs quite well here. So if for nothing else, then "The Unholy" is somewhat salvaged by the visuals.

"The Unholy" wasn't the movie I was hoping for, so I sit here with a somewhat flaccid sense of 'was that really it?' here as the movie ended. I felt somewhat bereft out of what could have been a great horror movie, and was instead served a lukewarm plate of predictability.

My rating of "The Unholy" lands on a very mediocre five out of ten stars.