It’s time for a movie where the heroes have to deal with demonic forces. It’s tough enough dealing with immortal grudges and indestructible rings but what to you do when your opponent is powered by intangible prayers? This time the world’s only chances lie in the hands of a lying reporter which is not the best spot to be in. Things are about to get tricky.

The movie starts with a witch getting burned alive in brutal fashion and then we jump to the present. Gerry is a disgraced reporter as he was caught fabricating photos and making up lies to get ahead in life. It was definitely not a smart move on his part and he continues to lie to this day. One day he finds a doll and smashes it. Later on he nearly crashes his car when he passes by a girl who’s in a trance. She is deaf and mute but after he drives her home, this girl named Alice makes a full recovery. She is apparently being blessed by the virgin Mary and will start performing miracles for everyone. This is Gerry’s chance to get rich and he doesn’t want to lose it! Is there a downside to healing everyone though?

Being able to heal others would definitely be an amazing thing and so it’s clear why this is a huge deal. It’s just something that doesn’t really happen nowadays and Alice is healing people who have been sick their entire lives. She quickly starts to become a celebrity and while she remains rather quiet and does her own thing, she isn’t obviously sinister. The film has some restraint here so you can see why many would take this whole thing at face value. She doesn’t have an evil laugh, isn’t cackling at night, etc. At face value it all does seem rather nice.

It’s why the climax may be a bit hard to believe. Picture this, you’ve been missing an arm your whole life and a girl shows up, grabs your chest and suddenly your arm grows out. 2 weeks later you’re sitting at the park when she shows up and explains that it was all a prank. Would you believe her or would you look at your arm, give it a little flex and just assume someone is threatening her? I’d assume everyone would believe the latter. Yes the effects of the cure go away after there is enough doubt and all of the belief goes away but I find it very hard to believe that this would happen considering just how many miracles were performed and in such a small community.

The idea of the climax and trying to spread doubt is pretty interesting and in most situations would be very easy. It’s why they say it takes years to build trust but seconds to lose it. This is just a very unique scenario so I had my share of reservations on it. Still, the film will keep you guessing on what the heroes should do the whole time. You’ve got a good amount of conspiracy going and so there is a lot of plot here even outside of all the jump scares.

As a villain the evil Mary is relatively solid. At times she maybe takes a little too long to act so we can assume she underestimates the humans a great deal. Most of these demonic/cosmic villains tend to do that in these movies. One missed opportunity for the film is that Mary doesn’t have much of a physical form until the final minutes. For the most part she’s an intangible spirit that makes statues cry blood but doesn’t do much else. So it doesn’t make her the most imposing villain out there.

Meanwhile as the main heroine I can’t say that Alice was all that good as she lets Mary call the shots right from the jump. Yeah it’s pretty tough to have a voice in your head constantly talking to you but you have to recognize the signs of the voice being suspicious with all of its secrets and such. Alice ultimately makes the right calls even if it takes a while but it would have been nice if she could have kept her kind personality all the way through rather than getting meaner as the film went on. I think it would have been a better dynamic.

Meanwhile Delgarde actually looks fairly decent as a member of the church sent to see if the miracles were legit. I was expecting him to get defeated immediately when he appeared but he actually fights well at first and does some damage. Ultimately he is only able to delay the inevitable but hey we’ll take it. He has a more impressive showing than just about anyone else in the film because he actually has the means to fight instead of just getting trampled.

Gerry is an okay main character but the fact that he’s someone who will take any shortcut to success and hadn’t learned his lesson by the time the film starts is not a good look for him. Yes it’s part of his character arc by the end but I just never liked the guy. I don’t blame everyone for being upset with him all the time. Put it this way, he’s the kind of character who is entertaining to watch on screen but you’d never be able to get along with him in real life. You wouldn’t be able to trust him at all either which is a huge blow to his character.

The movie isn’t too violent for the most part. The intro scene of the mask being nailed on is probably the most intense although we have a few big deaths during the film. It’s enough to be mentioned but isn’t like Halloween or something like that. The film maintains a fairly grim tone throughout the movie but without the classic levels of suspense. The movie doesn’t really grab your attention. I would never call it outright boring but it’s a slow burn and without great characters to sustain it, that huts the film a lot by the end.

Overall, The Unholy is not one of the better supernatural titles. Its main issue is really that Mary doesn’t get to have much of an intimidating design and the character cast is very weak. While the movie has some really good visuals, they aren’t enough to carry the story. While I liked the conspiracy angle involving the Church, it does make them look really bad even outside of the corruption because they had no plan for what was going to happen. It’s like preparing for a giant fire to occur and know that it’s going to happen but still not bringing a bucket of water to help you out. You’re setting yourself up for failure. I’d say to skip this one, it’s far from being one of the lower horror titles that I’ve seen but there isn’t really a lot of appeal here.

Overall 3/10