The Unholy

A religiously themed late 80's horror outing about a priest who finds out that an ancient demon (disguised as a gorgeous & sensual woman) has been killing his predecessors. Now he's next on the list. Occasional flashes of mild bloody gore and some nudity couldn't save the otherwise slow and boring development of events. The most fun parts where the scene where a guy pukes gallons of blood and the final confrontation with a nifty-looking demon (guy-in-a-rubbersuit-style) with his two demonoid dwarfs in the church. That's why I gave the movie an extra point. And well, there's far worse 80's horror nonsense out there, anyway.

Here is a movie I used to like a lot when I was a kid back in the later part of the eighties. I finally just found a copy of this film (unfortuanitly on VHS) and figured I would give it a try. This is a decent film with a solid cast. The story is this, basically there is a creature called the Unholy and it is going around and slaughtering priests. Ben Cross plays one of these priests and is thrown out of a skyscraper like 7 stories up. He miraculously survives without even a mark on his body so the Archbishop believes him to be the chosen one to do battle with the Unholy. The main problems with this movie is that it moves way to slow and the dialog is not very good. There is a decent bit of gore in the film but its only at the beginning and at the end of the movie. So for the most part you have to struggle with good actors working with a terrible script. The special effects also could have been better but are not horrible like most people make them out to be. At the end they should have used stop motion animation to be more effective. But all together this is not a horrible movie it just could have been put together much better. 7 stars

A demon preys on priests caught in the act of sinning. This horror film has one of the best cast ever put together in a horror film, scary special effects, a well plotted and interesting script, and solid direction. However, even though the film seems to have all the right ingredients for success, it simply never gels together. Nicole Fortier is absolutely flawless as the demon. Rated R; Nudity, Graphic Violence, and Profanity.

*This film has one of the best trailers ever in cinema history.

New Orleans church St Agnes has become the grounds of an evil entity, which has tempted the first two priests to their unholy deaths. Soon the head of the church gets Father Cross, who they believed is spiritually blessed to take over the church. The evil is in the form of a ravishing beauty, whom does its best to seduce Cross and make him commit the ultimate sin, which will see him, end up in hell.

Looking at the tag line "Seduction. Submission. Murder. Tonight… evil goes over the edge." Well this doesn't really happen until the last 10 minutes, because the lead up to the hysterically bold and bloody climax with ridiculous rubber demons is damaged by a flat script and woodenly uninterested performances. The main problem I found was that it seems to coast along, with very little happening and the talky script was less than engaging with its uneven context covering religion and sexual repression. Not helping was that the straight-faced premise is the same-old, same-old for those familiar with the sub-genre, and succumbs to trashy silliness. One or two decent set-pieces (like an ominous sounding phone call) slowly creep up onto the viewer, and Camilo Vila's smoothly sterile direction drips with moody brushes, sexual allurement and dreary lighting that creates a visually smoky atmosphere. The music score had that oddly uncanny vibe, which can come across quite bloated. The special effects were pretty much a misfire, though I didn't think that they were the complete pits. Now what really caught my eye was the curious support cast featuring Ned Betty, Hal Halbrook, Trevor Howard and William Russ. Jill Carroll turned out okay and Russ was great, but the former did little to nothing. Ben Cross' sombre performance in the lead role is ploddingly lacking. The irresistible Nicole Fortier as the demonic entity, "The Unholy" glows with seductive temptation and can keep you glued. At least she's turned on for the occasion.

Been down this both before, and what's served up here is cheap, and mostly uninspired. Not awful, though.

I love 80's horror movies but they usually don't scare me; i mostly watch them for gore/special effects/monsters/nudity, etc. you don't find in the watered down PG-13 crap that passes for horror today. I gotta admit this movie actually creeped me out pretty good. THE UNHOLY involves an evil demon that takes the form of a major babe in order to seduce priests so it can claim the innocent for Satan or something like that. It reminded me a lot of the Italian horror movie THE CHURCH which i also enjoyed. Both take place mostly in big Catholic churches and are filled with satanic hallucinations.

I won't give it away but the opening scene is simply awesome. The movie slows down in the middle but remains stylish with music that almost gives it a similar feeling to the THE LOST BOYS. It also has lots of cool blue and red lighting which makes it look very 80's. (I mean that in a good way, not that the film looks too dated or anything.) It picks back up towards the end and was actually starting to get scary until a couple of cool but funny looking demons show up. There is some sweet gore scenes, cool slimy monster effects, and even some nudity. The pace coulda been a lil faster but the awesome finale makes it well worth it. If you like this i would also recommend THE CHURCH and vise versa.