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The Unholy 2021

The 2021 supernatural horror film The Unholy, written and directed by Evan Spiliotopoulos and based on the 1983 novel Shrine by James Herbert, centers on disgraced journalist Gerry Fenn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who finds a chance to resurrect his career while investigating a purported hoax in the small town of Banfield, Massachusetts. After inadvertently smashing a doll at the base of a tree—the site where a witch named Mary Elnor was burned alive and whose spirit was trapped in the doll in 1845—Gerry accidentally frees her spirit. This spirit, posing as the Virgin Mary, visits Alice Pagett (Cricket Brown), the local deaf-mute niece of the parish priest, Father Hagan (William Sadler). Alice is miraculously cured, gaining the ability to speak and hear, and begins performing other miraculous healings, quickly turning the town into a sensation and a place of pilgrimage. As Gerry gets the exclusive story he craves, the Catholic Church sends Monsignor Delgarde (Diogo Morgado) and Bishop Gyles (Cary Elwes) to investigate, but Gerry, Father Hagan, and local doctor Natalie Gates (Katie Aselton) soon suspect the "miracles" are sinister, discovering that Mary Elnor sold her soul to Satan and that her descendants (like Alice) are used to lure people into pledging their souls to her, and thus to the Devil. The entity kills Father Hagan and Monsignor Delgarde, and as Alice prepares to hold a televised service to prompt a mass pledge, Gerry and Natalie expose the truth, with Alice ultimately sacrificing herself to destroy the entity, who was reliant on her bloodline. Gerry's prayer resurrects Alice, but she is once again deaf and mute, and a final shot of a statue crying blood suggests the evil may not be entirely gone. The cast features Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Gerry Fenn, Cricket Brown as Alice Pagett, William Sadler as Father Hagan, Katie Aselton as Dr. Natalie Gates, Cary Elwes as Bishop Gyles, and Diogo Morgado as Monsignor Delgarde. Critics generally gave the film negative to mixed reviews, with many citing a generic, predictable plot that heavily relied on formulaic jump scares and mediocre CGI, feeling it failed to capitalize on its intriguing premise of turning a religious visitation story into a horror film. However, the film was noted by some for its strong cast, particularly Morgan's performance as the cynical journalist, and its solid supporting work, with some audience reviews being more favorable than professional critics. Produced on a budget of about $10 million, The Unholy performed moderately well at the box office, earning a worldwide total of over $30 million during the COVID-19 pandemic.The film is currently available for streaming on various platforms in the US, including Hulu and to rent/buy on services like Prime Video, Apple TV, and YouTube. Read More

• 2021
• 1 h : 39 min
• 12 views
• 5.069
• PG-13