UNHOLY

When I heard about 'Unholy', the premise sounded interesting. A family tries to unravel the mystery of why their teenage daughter committed suicide. They discover she was a pawn being played by Occultists using World War 2 Nazi rituals.

'Unholy' is actually a boring, direct to DVD release, and it makes the worst 'Masters of Horror' look like 'Casablanca'. The premise is close what is written above, but instead of it being a dark Occultist mystery thriller, 'Unholy' is a claustrophobic, gore for the sake of gore, unexplainable dull nightmare.

At first it was easy to look past 'Unholy's' low budget constraints. Natural lighting, single camera set ups encompassing everyone, or close ups with never a medium shot for a car conversation. Five minutes later after Adrienne Barbeau and Nicholas Brendon venture into the basement to look for clues as to why Hope (their daughter/ sister) killed herself and find a tape recorder that the police over looked explaining that a Nazi Necromancer had some sort of control over Hope, I sat there and I rolled my eyes. Not the best story telling device, a tape recorder (revealing why and who), but I decided to give this "film" another chance. After Barbeau and Brendon find a slew of Nazi Necromancer paintings drawn by Hope, something that the Police missed entirely, well I was out (as in they lost me). Where was my believability factor? Yes, I can believe in Nazi Necromancers who have set up shop in a small town experimenting with: time travel, mind control, and invisibility. But after a suicide, wouldn't the Police find these things at the death scene? Maybe it was Barney Fife doing the investigation? Even later whole plots and subplots would be told to us and the characters in the most boring of settings, a snow covered residential road on a sunny day. Is that scary enough for you?

The blood, gore, and cheesy effects cheapened Barbeau's performance. A shame really because after seeing her in HBO's 'Carnivale'' I thought perhaps she had escaped her BIG BOOB Babe movies and meaningless Horror films. She's above this type of schlock; unfortunately she'll never escape it.

Brendon on the other hand, looks like a do nothing GenXer, fits his role perfectly. Is he out of shape for the role or has not working since 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' really taken its toll? However the actor seems to be making more out of his lines, ruining any real performance from Brendon. He is obviously over acting with the hopes this film will get his career back on track, it won't.

Forty minutes into the film, there are numerous questions and I simply didn't care. Not a well crafted story, not an interesting story, but a great premise though. At least some union actors got paid. The time travel twist wasn't enough to make it worth it and only reminded me that I lost an hour and half of my life though, something I will never get back.


Read the staff review by Mania: UNHOLY.