The Unholy is a supernatural horror feature, released theatrically in 2021, helmed and scripted by Evan Spiliotopoulos from James Herbert’s 1983 novel, Shrine. The film is produced by Sam Raimi, a paramount figure in the genre, and situates itself within a critique of both communal and institutional devotions, examining the capacity of faith to both uplift and insulate injustice. Raimi’s signature style intersects with meditations on the mechanics of public belief, presenting Catholic symbolism through the derived lens of contemporary media frenzy.
At the narrative’s core is Gerry Fenn, a disgraced reporter interpreted by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, whose penchant for sensational fabrication has irrevocably tarnished his reputation. Once the crème of the newsroom, Gerry now roams the fringes of postindustrial America, transcribing transient curiosities in an effort to re-seize the ephemeral glory of the front page. When the journalist arrives in the sleepy Massachusetts hamlet of Banfield, he anticipates a formulaic study on charlatan devotion. His intention is promptly revised, however, upon discovering the village’s church is convulsed by rising devotion centered on a seeming prodigy: a deaf-mute adolescent, Alice Pagett, embodied by Cricket Brown, inexplicably acquires the faculties of hearing and speech following an enigmatic visitation of the Virgin Mary, allegedly realized on the periphery of a gnarled oak that the church has since consecrated a point of pilgrimage.
Alice begins to display an expanding repertoire of miraculous acts: the bedridden rise with restored strength, the malformed limbs straighten under her hands, and she weaves Mary’s name through her speech with steady conviction. The town, once unremarkable, erupts into a persistent devotional carnival, drawing camera crews, tab reporters, and hordes of seekers onto every once-humble street. National headlines, glowing and skeptical alike, materialize by the hour, feeding and challenging the zeal with equal voracity.
Gerry, a borderline-born publicity hack, positions himself as the provisional spokesman for the visions and for Alice, whom the crowds already consider a saint. Reluctantly, he stalks the sights, logs the narratives, dreads what he considers blather, and stubs the heel of credulity on little, concrete miracles. The neat anomaly of a healed spine under his palm cracks his detached gaze and, by degrees, invites him into the audience of the extraordinary. Sensing circulation gold, the local press, then a breakneck string of wire agencies, funnels him into Alice’s proximity, showing him the show displayed and the show unmanaged.
To counter the carnival, the Church dispatches a balanced investigation: Bishop Gyles, a hesitant and dignified allegator of the sacral system, and Father Hagan, equally shrewd but vat-cost clerical sharpness clutching at their respective testing samples, take the pew roles. Their rule of thumb: observe, hide, hypothetically disprove, and, to a slant proof that spares Rome temptation-proof, insist. Hidden under riffles of humble wool their recorders whirr. But, unknown to them, another predetermined cause is at work, and the visions are not the only fabric in the rising tent.
The narrative gradually thickens with foreboding undertones. Violent deviations from the ordinary rise like smoke. Those who once dismissed the so-called healing events now flee in terror from phenomena that resent human scrutiny. Livestock that once grazed peaceably erupt into reckless unrest. Glinting, translucent figures stroll through twilight. Responding to the growing pressure, Gerry digs deeper and uncovers a lingering pall that seeps from the town’s church. He discovers that, in the 1800s, a certain Mary Elnor was lured to the pyre as the local magistry’s scapegoat. Beneath the gnarled oak adjoining Alice’s trancelike meadow, the flame scattered her ash to the roots. Before the brand cracked her skin, she declared allegiance to the Prince of Darkness and, with her last expiring breath, condemned soil, sun, and river.
It becomes unmistakably evident that the matron figure Alice reveres as the visitation from the Holy Mary is, in truth, an inversion subsumed beneath a beatific mask. The malignant spirit, thick with anticipation and centuries of humiliation, collects doubt and luminous suggestion around her like banners flapping in the after-light. Alice, innocent in posture and gaze, has unknowingly consented to serve as the crucible through which Mary Elnor shall stride forth again; an infernal transfiguration spun and offering itself in the lambent guise of salvific favor.
Gerry races against a ticking clock to reveal the truth and free Alice, who is inches from full possession while the malignant spirit plots to unleash its strength on the thousands assembled in worship. The film’s climax detonates in a live telecast, where Alice is primed to mark her most monumental “miracle.” Gerry bursts onto the stage, unmasks the deception, and confronts the specter, aided by Father Hagan, who willingly offers his life as a shield for Alice’s soul.
In a climactic spiritual reversal, Alice renounces the malignant force, while the ancient oak—from which the demon draws its virulence—splinters to ruin. The town reels in disbelief, the congregation scatters, and Alice returns to her original silence. Gerry, indelibly altered, shoulders a recommitted sense of mission and renewed moral clarity.
Cast & Crew
Jeffrey Dean Morgan inhabits the role of Gerry Fenn, infusing it with a blend of sardonic charisma and weary gravitas. Widely acclaimed for his portrayals in The Walking Dead and Watchmen, Morgan crafts a character straddling the chasm between hardened disbelief and the flicker of diligent redemption.
Cricket Brown, making her first star turn, embodies Alice Pagett, the naïve adolescent whose astonishing recuperation propels the narrative. Brown’s performance is at once winning and off-putting, as she traverses the territory of possession with a level-eyed astonishment that piques disquiet as readily as compassion.
Cary Elwes lends gravitas to the role of Bishop Gyles, a clerical dignitary whose delight at the reported miracles concedes, with increasing speed, to wary skepticism.
William Sadler is cast as Father Hagan, the village priest and Alice’s uncle, whose moral and ecclesiastic ballast steadies the plot’s mounting turbulence.
Katie Aselton is Dr. Natalie Gates, a resident physician and tacit ally to investigative journalist Gerry, who assists in disentangling the enigmas of the fabricated wonders.
Evan Spiliotopoulos, celebrated for his screenplays for Beauty and the Beast (2017) and The Huntsman: Winter’s War, directs for the first time with The Unholy. The text he produced is deeply enmeshed in received horror iconography, invoking rites of possession, clerical misrepresentation, and the perennial strife between light and obscurity.
Sam Raimi’s name beside the producer’s credit attracted discerning audiences among genre devotees. Although the production is bereft of the exuberant camp or playful invention that haunts the director’s signature films, the director’s influence is traceable in the measured rhythm and spectral mood that permeate the final cut.
Craig Wrobleski’s cinematography immerses the viewer in palpable dread; his camera lingers in torchlit graveyards, where coils of mist part to reveal the sickly glow of the possessed figure known as “Mary.” Night after night, the camera hovers beneath funeral arches and distorted chapel spires, pressing the viewer as tightly against stone as the fog itself. Complementing this visual unease, Joseph Bishara contributes a score steeped in gnashing strings and muffled chimes, weaving a restless counterpoint to every carefully measured dread. Bishara, a veteran of the Conjuring series, understands that the music need not drown the image when the image is already alive with shadows.
The Unholy currently bears a score of 5.1 on IMDb, a scale that suggests fatigue rather than enthusiasm from a divided viewing public. Commercially, the picture performed respectably against the still shifting terrains of the COVID context; yet, as professional critics note, receipts do not render the artistry immune to scrutiny. Appraisers who responded favourably cited atmospheric potency, the sturdy work of the lead performers—particularly the restrained register of Jeffrey Dean Morgan and the measured terror of Cricket Brown—and the film’s willingness to rest comfortably in a recognisable supernatural framework. Furthermore, the church interior of the narrative, pressed between superstition and skepticism, resonated with audiences eager for a classical horror parlance.
On the other front, unfavorable reviews fault the tale for its obvious trajectory, its dependence on sudden shocks, and a supporting cast that hovers on the periphery. Some observers lamented that the script neglected the gravest of its own premises—aka, the misuse of the ecclesiastical—and settled, instead, for computer-generated climaxes and familiar tropes that pedal on faith and fear rather than on the quiet, corrosive rage that a false prophet breeds.
The film attracted criticism for its tonal inconsistency, oscillating erratically between muted detective thriller and bombastic demonic horror. Notably, several reviewers contended that the adaptation of A. J. Finn’s Shrine text was insufficiently leveraged, pointing out that the original material is more subtly layered and psychologically complex. Such reservations highlight an incomplete dialogue between cinema and its source.
Reserved, the picture retains an audience among devotees of ecclesiastical horror. It stands alongside titles such as The Rite, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and Stigmata, yet it does not achieve parallel critical or cultural resonance. Cult acclaim is invariably uneven, yet it transports the thematic concerns of ecclesiastical cinema to another cohort of viewers.
Conclusion
The Unholy (2021) is a work of supernatural horror that revisits familiar ecclesiastical and demonic possession motifs while attempting a moral exposition regarding the seductive power of counterfeit piety and mass-mediated miracles. It is carried to a considerable degree by Morgan’s watchable lead performance and a premise that draws on established cultural and spiritual lore, conferring upon the film the potential for a durable entry in its subgenre.
Modification of ecclesiastical cinema to accommodate accelerative style renders tonal unevenness. The picture vacillates between aspirations of theological allegory and recognised horror formula. Notwithstanding described incoherence, the work sustains sufficient intrigue, moody visual presentation, and discrete thematic density to credential it as a substantively rewarding viewing for specialists in the horror tradition.
For audiences inclined toward supernatural horror marked by religious undertones, The Unholy offers an atmospheric visit to well-trodden territory. The narrative, while not likely to alter the conventions of the genre, succeeds in unsettling the spectator by interrogating the murky territory that separates reverent belief from obsessive zeal, and between genuine miracles and astute deception.
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