The Unholy review

The Unholy

Year – 1988

Directed by – Camilo Vila

Starring – Ben Cross, Hal Holbrook, and Ruben Rabasa

PLOT – In New Orleans, a series of brutal murders of priests plague a small city church. It seems a very powerful demon takes form of a beautiful woman and seduces the men before killing them in the act of their own sin. It's up to one new young priest to put a stop to this evil once and for all.

LOWDOWN – If you owned The Monster Squad on VHS, than you'll remember the very creepy trailer for this film. I have many memories growing up watching this trailer and always feeling very curious about it. It wasn't until picking up this lovely Horror Movie 8 Pack that I noticed this title was one of the many out of print gems that were included in the package. Just after finishing the cheese fest Class of 1999, I decided to knock down another title I haven't seen before. In the last ninety or so minutes I sat down and decided to give this movie a try. First off the movie kicks off very strongly. I loved the visuals of the beautiful woman, the gory neck wound, and then the very awesome opening theme. That's one thing I always find very important in movies, the soundtrack/theme, this movie had a great one. The film had a good storyline, and had was filmed beautifully, the visuals were all very haunting, but sadly this was a movie that began to slowly build to something promising and the ending ended up being a very big disappointment. I read that this film was written in the 1970's around the time two very heavy religious themed films were made. The Exorcist, and The Omen. I think this film had it been written maybe a little bit better, and released in either the late 1970's or early 1980's this film could have been made into something a little more special. I feel the whole showdown was a bit of a disappointment. I'm a huge fan of practical effects, but as soon as the woman turned into the demon and there were tiny little naked devils running around the movie sorta lost me. Yeah they were gross, but it just didn't seem to fit. I think if they had taken the ending a little more serious it would have been wonderful. There were some truly beautiful scenes, such as when the young woman begs the young priest to save her soul and make love to her in the courtyard. I think with the strong cast they had, maybe if they hadn't paid so much attention to making the effects so bloody, and put a little more focus in the script they could have had a really good movie. Still, well written but not exactly art.

Two Stars