Hey folks, Harry here. Our next contender, Terry Malloy, has written up his view on STIGMATA, a film he didn't enjoy much at all. Personally I've been looking forward to this one for quite some time now, those trailers look good, so I don't know quite what to think about this one just yet. We'll have to hold on and see what others have thought as well.
Got a letter from MGM to catch a screening of the upcoming horror movie "Stigmata" So I drove with my significant other far away to a big city to spend a couple of days vacationing and shopping. The first day in, we caught the Blair Witch Project and MAN, was that good. It was so good that I had good vibes going into Stigmata.
Boy were those vibes shot to hell!!!!!!!!!
The writer must not like Catholicism because he pretty much bashes it with a big ugly club. My wife being Catholic, it kinda got to her. Me being atheist, I didn't give a damn.
There a few spoilers here but trust me you won't give a damn after you've seen the movie.
The movie is about young Patricia Arquette who is 23 years old, works at a beauty salon, goes to clubs, has a black girlfriend with pink hair (who disappears half way through the movie), has one of those apartments that can only be dreamt up in a movie............Let me talk a little about this apartment.
It's one of these apartments with water leaks EVERYWHERE. I mean this building should be condemned, the ceiling should've caved in by now, but you see the drips are supposed to give this eerie effect I guess. Oh did I mention that she's also a candle freak. Yeah, she has candles in every room. And I don't mean a couple of candle, NO i'm talking about 100 candles surrounding her bathtub, lit 24 hours a day, by her bed, by her glow in the dark neon recliner?..........I can't go on.
Well her mother sends her this rosary that just happened to have been freshly stolen off of a freshly dead Catholic priest that she just happened to have freshly walked by as he sold it to some entrepreneur on the streets of Brazil I think. Suddenly someone invisible starts spiking invisible nails through her hands, putting an invisible crown of thorns on her head, invisibly lashing her back.........and then (this is the funny scene) spikes invisible nails through her feet to which they (meaning her and her new priest (boy)friend Gabriel Byrne who she tries to seduce a bit too much) go to her apartment and he applies a little bit of alcohol or peroxide or whatever while they talk???
If someone spikes a nail through both of my feet ( I'm sorry an invisible nail) and I'm bleeding everywhere, please do not bring me to my house to put some 32 cent peroxide on and expect me to have a coherent conversation with you. BRING ME TO THE HOSPITAL. Plus I don't think I'll be walking anytime for a few weeks. But don't worry our brave little Patricia will be fine and walking before you know it. Because she's a stigmata.
This movie just frustrates me. No logic. No horror unless the sight of nails being driven into flesh gets you off. No acting. No writing. Characters come and go. By the end when it all comes together....the writing on the wall in her apartment, her demonic behavior, the head Catholic priests running around trying to hide something....you think to yourself, why did she act that way at all? Why did she have to act like a Linda Blair wannabe if she wasn't possessed by something evil? OH........because it's trying to masquerade as a horror movie........oh yeah that's right.....and it's also saying that Catholicism is pure bologna....that'll make a lot of people happy.
I especially like the closing credits when it sums up the story by saying how in 1940something some people found written scripture that were the closest thing to what Jesus Christ wrote or something like that. Then it says that the Catholic church has claimed it to be heresy because it would ruin their religion. This is all interesting but I think I'd rather had seen it portrayed in a serious drama than as a blood and gore horror movie. The message is all wrong filmmakers. It's kinda like praising women for being in the military at the end credits right after a movie where one gets gangraped by fellow soldiers jealous of her achievement? And then of course she has to have sex with everyone above her so she can move up the military ladder to get closer to her father's position so she can exact a revenge on him for covering up her horrendous rape? And then murdering her off? HUH? Oh I'm sorry....that movie's about to make $100million. I better not say that.
Stick with Blair Witch for real horror.
Harry, if for some unknown reason you feel this review worthy of the public, please let me sign off as..
TERRY MALLOY
"I COULDA BEEN A CONTENDER"
