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. 

 

The Grudge (2020)

Director: Nicolas Pesce

Notable Cast: Andrea Riseborough, Demian Bichir, John Cho, Betty Gilpin, Lin Shaye, Frankie Faison, Jacki Weaver, William Sadler, Tara Westwood, David Lawrence Brown, Zoe Fish

There’s a moment in The Grudge where a loving husband and father-to-be real estate agent, played by the vastly underrated John Cho, hesitates outside of the cursed house at the center of the film. Nothing in particular is there, no ghosts or sinister shadows. He looks around at the semi-desolate street in front of the characteristically part gothic home and begrudgingly moves to go in. It’s moments like these, caressed in the heavyweight of an existential dread knowing something is wrong with no clear indicator to what, which makes The Grudge franchise so timeless. It’s a franchise that is fairly well known around the world. It took Japan by storm with a variety of series from TV to reboots, but a 2004 remake starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, produced by Ghost House (Sam Raimi and his crew), and directed by the original writer/director Takashi Shimizu is what many people in America will remember. Yes, that remake had a couple of ill crafted sequels that hardly capitalized on the tone indicated in the scene above, but the series has lived on nonetheless.