I feel bad for Xander. It is a well known fact (that I just made up) that at the end of every successful TV show run at least one cast member will get the shitty end of the stick. For “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” it happened to be handed to poor Nicholas Brendon. Sentenced to a life of cheap direct-to-DVD horror films, THE UNHOLY is just another film to add to the pile of crap that Brendon is forced to call his career.
You would think I would feel bad for Barbeau for having to slum it also, but she has had a good run and is getting up there in age. For her, we will just call this retirement or at least just an easy paycheck. Well not that easy, since according to the commentary she “broke her ass,” during production, but toughed it out to finish the film. I just don’t know if it was actually worth it. For Xander it might as well be Game Over unless there are a slew more stuttering PSAs he can do.
I have no idea how THE UNHOLY slipped passed After Dark, who has a knack for sniffing out and distributing crap, and fell into the lap of Anchor Bay (Now Starz Entertainment). The people at Anchor Bay must have fallen for After Dark’s ABANDONED marketing hype and decided they also wanted to waste everybody’s time. They just one upped them by adding star power and I must admit that even I got a little excited with the prospect of seeing Xander and Adrienne Barbeau side-by-side. But it wore off about 5 minutes into the film.
If I said it once I’ll say it again, suspenseful psychological horror done wrong is worst than watching paint dry. It is not like the slasher film where you can fuck up 80% of the film, but save it with a few great death scenes, and a few titties. People acting weird and stuff happening that did not really happen, but did happen is better left to David Lynch. Not everyone can make DONNIE DARKO and they should stop torturing us while they try. If the ABANDONED was the poor man’s JACOB’S LADDER then THE UNHOLY is the Ethiopian baby of the subgenre.
The cover promises “This is the movie they did not want you to see,” or something lame like that. It is more like “The movie you DON’T want to see,” if I may take the obvious route.
For those of you are still curious about the film, and you should be because what the fuck do I know? I cut and pasted the synopsis here for you:
“Adrienne Barbeau (of THE FOG, SWAMP THING and CREEPSHOW fane) and Nicholas Brendon (Xander of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER) star in this provocative shocker about a mother’s investigation into the grisly suicide of her daughter. But what begins as a family tragedy will soon lead to a conspiracy of bizarre crimes, occult carnage and a necromancer who may control a dark new trinity of warfare. How far would our government go to harness a Nazi legacy of paranormal power? Has the U.S. military secretly attempted to develop time travel, invisibility and mind-control as weapons? The answers wait in a mind-blowing journey that will take one woman from the trauma of the unimaginable to the ultimate horror of the UNHOLY…”
If you really like long, boring, bad attempts at a mindfuck this may be the film for you. My mind is fucked enough, so no more for me Thank You. I will pop in some senseless horror, get comfortable and wait for the next DONNIE DARKO to come along; If THE UNHOLY is any sign, I may be waiting quite some time.
