The Unholy (2021) Review

 

The Unholy (2021)

The Unholy follows disgraced journalist Gerry Fenn, who, while in a small town looking for a story, comes across a young woman who can suddenly perform miracles. After some strange occurrences however, Gerry begins to suspect something more sinister is at play. 

While I am not a religious man, I have always been fascinated with the tightly interwoven relationship between good, evil, and the church, which The Unholy unravels to full effect. It spins an eerie yarn of small town, religious miracles but it’s that anchor to religion, Catholicism in particular, that makes this such a particularly interesting flick. It’s absent of the usually obvious Satanic connotations and in it’s place, places God on a pedestal for fear, for as one man points out, the presence of God on Earth is never a good thing, very vengeful, Old Testament-like. And while God isn’t at fault here, (quite the contrary actually) it’s his supposed presence that breeds evil and corrupts faith, for where good goes, evil is never far behind. 

What The Unholy particularly gets right however is it’s twist, that when paired with it’s tone (think The Ninth Gate), is cause for quite the creepy set up, where said miracles are simply a veiled cover for crossroads deals, setting participants on a path of borrowed time. So for a man like Gerry, who’s already practically running on borrowed time and in need of moral and spiritual redemption, the film cleverly places him as an outsider, one of the few to see the frightening darkness behind the mask of hope, and thus of clear mind to unravel this mystery of soul-stealing faith.

Now we get a pretty solid cast as well, starring Marina Mazepa, Diogo Morgado, William Sadler, Jordana Brewster, Cary Elwes, Cricket Brown, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I found myself very enamored with Brown in particular, as there’s a daunting innocence to her that is plagued by a frightening level of darkness just below the surface. It was also nice seeing JDM back where he belongs, in a smaller, character-driven role that allows him to really take the lead and run with it (very John Winchester-esque). 

The Unholy, directed by Evan Spiliotopoulos, though relegated to direct to DVD (or VOD) Hell, expertly uses it’s religious source material to haunting excellence, never relying on cheap scares and just letting the story and actors do their thing, in one of the more underrated horror outings of this year.

 

8.4/10