Reto al diablo

Some unutterable evil is happening on the dark streets of New Orleans and it is up to Catholic priest Ben Cross to stop the spirits that are killing people when they are in the act of committing sins. The film benefits from established actors like Ned Beatty and Hal Holbrook, but it is the unknown William Russ that gives the stunning performance in the film. But the film goes more for shock value than anything else and a truly interesting idea becomes somewhat trivial with typical cliches that dominated films like this in the 1980s. All in all "The Unholy" is good for a scare, but overall it is a film that misses the mark and could have been so much more. 2 stars out of 5.

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

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.

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.

This movie was very entertaining and had some really cool 80's special effects(my favorite). I also watched this on Fear.net for the first time(as a poster stated). I was really wrapped up in the story but when the demon midget exploded I almost wet myself. I don't know why but it caught me off guard. I still chuckle when I think of the scene but it didn't ruin the movie for me. I didn't watch this movie as a kid like most of my favorite horror movies from the 80's but I really enjoyed it. I guess I somehow missed this movie as kid, as I have no memory of it. I don't even remember it on the shelf at my local video store and Southtown Video had a ton of horror movies. Oh well, I guess it was a small town video store after all. I recommend it to any horror fan and especially to 80's horror fans.