The Unholy (2021)

Director: Evan Spiliotopoulos

Notable Cast: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Cricket Brown, William Sadler, Cary Elwes

 

Dropping a Christianity-based religious horror film is a relatively regular occurrence, but having the audacity to release it to theaters on Easter weekend is priceless. That’s just what happened with The Unholy, the latest venture into horror for Sam Raimi’s Ghost House, and the directorial debut of Evan Spiliotopoulos. Although that release date angle is certainly a tasty morsel on its own merits, The Unholy as a modern horror venture is an act of mistitling. Technically, yes, the film is about an unholy witch, but it’s a film that should have the more apt title, The Unmemorable. It’s a shame. There are quite a few intriguing elements to the film, but it’s overly reliant on hitting the formula beats and shoehorning in jump scares to make up for a lack of cohesive narrative, plot, and atmosphere. 

 

Black Christmas (2019)

Directed by: Sophia Takal

Notable cast: Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Lily Donahue, Cary Elwes

Remakes are always a tricky business. I say this as one who’s generally more favorable to them than most. In theory, you have to serve the twin masters of appeasing the original fans and thrilling new ones or focus on one or the other, often alienating the unserved audience. There are certainly decent examples of all three and terrible examples as well, but it is a conflict all remakes share. The new version of Black Christmas largely focuses on the “thrilling new take” angle, and I think that it may have unlocked the true potential of this story’s concept, while admittedly walking into a few pitfalls of the genre as well.

Maintaining the basic conceit of sorority girls staying on campus during the holiday season and then being taunted by phone, stalked, and killed, it’s the only real callback to either previous version of this story. The original Black Christmas was very much an exploration of the “killer is calling from within the house” campfire story archetype, while this new one is a pure slasher focused through a lens of modern feminism. I think there are a lot of good ideas in play, although I do think the narrative fails the concept here.