A fresh take on the demonic possession genre. This is an adaptation of the horror novel entitled “The Shrine” written by James Herbert in 1983, it’s about a tree with spiritual properties that cures people. The Unholy is directed by Evan Spiliotopoulos and this is his directing debut, and it would show when you’ve watched it.

Honestly, the premise had potential but the execution was below average. It felt like a B-movie horror, actually I’d enjoy B-movie horror than this. It had a couple of good parts but mostly was just lacking.

Characters

The performance of the cast was average at best.

• Gerry Fenn (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) doesn’t know how to act scared, even though he is widely known for his character in The Walking Dead series. The supposed jump scares that are directed at Morgan and how he reacted was funny and annoying. He leans a little backwards and lets out a small “ugh..”. He is charming, I’d give him that, but that’s it.
• Cricket Brown as Alice was good, she was able to express the emotion of actually being able to talk to Mary. However, she lacks the proper reaction to horror—when she saw that it was Mary Elnor and not Mary, the blessed virgin. Her face wasn’t as horrified as she should’ve been. Just a meh performance for a starring role.
• William Sadler as Father Hagan I think was the best from the lot, and the standard aren’t that high.

Music

The music was okay, it didn’t do much, scene-wise. The composer was Joseph Bishara. He also did the music for Tarot (2024), Insidious (2010) and The Conjuring (2013).
The CG graphics were the worst in the film. I’d rather they let the audience come up with their own version in their minds. Just give us something to work with, I’m sure our imagination would’ve topped their design. The moment they showed the physical appearance of Mary, all horror aspects of the film was gone. I’d rather have it disguising as Mary, The Blessed Virgin, all throughout the movie.

Everything was revealed in the intro

The start of The Unholy already gave everything away. They show us that someone was hanging by a tree and got burned to death while wearing a mask. That said tree is the only tree that was like that in the whole film, so instantly we know that that was the tree. Then Alice goes there; she says that Mary spoke to her and gave her healing powers. Even though we didn’t get the name of the witch in the beginning, it was obvious that it wasn’t the Mary we know that spoke to her. So the shocking reveal they had prepared for us was a failure.

Kern babies

The only thing that was interesting here was the history of Kern Babies, it is a real thing and dates back to 1901. Kern babies are made from the final harvested corn, it would be shaped into a human figure, adorned with elegant clothing, crowned with flowers, and named the ‘Kern Baby’ or ‘Harvest Queen.’ The occasion would be marked with feasting and music in celebration of the harvest. Oh and the poster was great, just the poster.

Predictable ending

The ending of The Unholy was predictable. There wasn’t a time throughout the whole movie where I got worried for a character. There was no emotional attachment with the characters because we never got to know them.

Conclusion

This was a waste of time. The casting made it worse aside from bad CG designs. If you really really have nothing else to watch, then this would be a good choice.