This movie was a weird rollercoaster (but not in a good way). The first fifteen minutes were in a rush to get to the point and I found the editing off-putting, as though they had read about what horror movies were like but nobody had ever seen one. Then the movie settles into a groove and… wasn’t bad? So I started thinking maybe people were exaggerating how bad it was. But then the fifteenth generic jump scare, the tenth appearance by an overproduced demon spirit thingy, the twentieth line of dialog over-explaining the plot to dummies. The movie just falls apart due to its (ironic) lack of faith in the audience. Yes, I’ve seen far far worse movies, far less scary movies, and far more boring movies. But this is a decent movie that sabotages itself.
The Unholy is about a deaf and mute girl who is suddenly gifted with hearing and speech by “Mary”. Jeffrey Dean Morgan stars as a journalist with questionable ethics who befriends the girl and starts to believe… or at least believe enough to get the scoop. But something evil is blah blah blah. Look, the movie is called The Unholy and an evil overproduced CGI monster appears every few minutes to remind us that this is a supernatural con job.
From minute one, the flick telegraphs that “Mary” is a demonic spirit so there’s no surprises for the audience and god forbid there’s any reason for us to think. This film would have been better if it had left in a mystery. If we, the audience, were told what was going on was actually religious before BANG they reveal the truth. But, no, someone probably freaked out because that version of the movie would be dangerously close to a faith-based film and we can’t challenge the audience! We have to underline and italicize every example of this really being EVIL. EVIL! That’s cool right? Kids dig the evil spirits? What do the panel results say?
The script is full of exposition dumps interspersed between “let’s explain to the audience what’s going on because maybe they were on Etsy” dialog. It’s tin-eared obvious noise. As if the studio had no faith in the audience. Because they didn’t. And Cary Elwes plays a Boston priest who I’m pretty sure pahked his cah in Havahd Yahd.
I think a different editor stepped in at any remotely horror or action-tinged moment and messed everything up. There’s a distinct difference between the casual moody atmosphere of most scenes – not amazing but certainly competent – and the jump-cut mess when anything allegedly interesting happens. Hell, the creature appears enough times to produce the requisite number of jump scares required by law… almost none of which are actually scary or approaching scary.
On the positive side, while the evil spirit is usually boring and overwrought CGI, when we finally get a look at its mask-less face, it’s actually pretty creepy. So bonus there? I guess?
This is a decently competent movie compared to many, many horror movies, I’ll give it that much credit. And it might have actually been decent if they’d have trusted the audience and not gone for the cheap jump scares and exposition desperation. What a waste.
Score: 67