Unholy Movie Review

I watched Unholy last night, a movie I've heard a lot about through reviews, and I finally got around to it. In my opinion, it wasn't that bad, though I can see why people don't like it. I found the characters poorly written, the story self-explanatory, and the mystery pretty thin. Still, I enjoyed it for things like the special effects; the dream sequences were well executed, and I'm always intrigued by anything with demons.

In the beginning, we see the witch get burned at the stake, which makes me sad. I don't think her actions of condemning all the townspeople to Hell deserved a slow death; maybe imprisonment or something faster. Her death leads us to her following form as an evil, vengeful spirit that she sold her soul to the devil to become. I mean, I think I would be pissed off, too, if I was the witch being burned at the stake. Also, I don't love that she only partially possessed her human vessel, which they don't even explain, because I would have taken over completely. The townspeople bind her spirit to a tree; the tree and the spirit keep her there, contained inside a corn baby.

Later on, the main character, Gerry, comes in. He's a reporter who came to town because of cases of cattle mutilations. I didn't like him, though, because he was a liar at his job, creating false headlines in search of fame, but he ended up costing others their jobs since they didn't know they were helping him with false stories. The movie adds some karma to the plot as he tries to find something new to report on after the cattle mutilations. He sees the corn baby on the farm and stupidly breaks it, freeing the witch's spirit.

In my opinion, Gerry has no redeeming qualities. A few good deeds do not make up for a life of poor choices. Granted, he learned his lesson, but still, I will never see that character as a hero in any way, shape, or form. To me, he is just a character cleaning up his mess. I did enjoy the secondary protagonist, Alice, because she was much more altruistic. And while she was possessed, she believed she was doing things on behalf of the Virgin Mary, so I have sympathy for that.

The only change I would make is to set it in Puritan times, when the idea of a witch is more believable than it is today, but other than that, this film is decent. The only people I think would enjoy this film are those who don't care about production quality or deep character development, mainly because it pretty much solves everything at the end. I also wish they would've just asked God to bring Alice's soul to heaven and leave the devil's bride in hell, but they didn't do that. So technically, the witch's spirit is still around in that universe, just severely weakened, but they might have done this in case they wanted to make part two. However, if they make a second one, I hope they make a more compelling story. Have you seen this movie? If so, what are your thoughts?