THE FILM 2/5

A priest (Ruben Rabasa) kneels at the altar of his New Orleans parish praying for forgiveness for an unknown sin.  Out of nowhere, a flame haired beauty (Nicole Fortier) with a penchant for sheer evening wear approaches him and passionately kisses him.  Surprise!  The beautiful young woman also happens to be a demon and rips the priests throat out while a ridiculously creepy statue looks on.

Another priest, Father Michael (Ben Cross) happens upon a crime scene where a similarly mutilated man in a stretcher is all but dead.  As he leans over to give Last rites, he grabs Father Michael and warns that "she" wants him. 

Three years pass and Father Michael is called by a detective (Ned Beatty) to the roof of the building with a man on the ledge (Peter Frechette) who personally requested him.  The seemingly suicidal man is not the one who falls seventeen stories to the ground, yet when Father Michael awakens he is miraculously unhurt but not unfazed.  It is then he is assigned to reopen the St. Agnes Parish by Archbishop Moseley (Hal Holbrook) and mysterious blind Father Silva (Trevor Howard in his last role) who refers to Michael as "the chosen one."

What follows is a fairly standard (and slow) succubus tale as the lady demon sets her sights on seducing Michael and damning his holy soul to the fiery pits of hell.  Having been unfamiliar with this film on its original Vestron VHS heyday, I can't say it comes across as a lost classic.  Plagued by reshoots and re-edits that saw both director Camilo Vila and original composer/set director Fernando Fonseca ejected before the release.  Originally intended as a more film noir/suspense/drama that was later re-edited to fit the horror standards of the day, the confused tone definitely shows.

Audio/Video (5/5)

  Lionsgate presents a spectacular 1:85:1 1080P AVC encoded transfer.  The transfer looks as close to perfect a film from this era can get, colors pop (lots of vibrant reds here, you know, cuz Satan) and black levels are solid with a impressive amount of rich detail.  Grain is very light and just the right amount I like to see.

Audio is the original 2.0 DTS Stereo track in English. Everything sounds perfectly fine, dialogue comes through as does Roger Bellon's score. I did not detect any issue or hiss at all.  Having been unfamiliar with Lionsgate's previous Vestron Video Collector's Series, the quality makes me want to seek out the other releases immediately.

Extras (5/5)

  The extras really shine on this disc and have anything (and more) I imagine a fan of The Unholy could want.  Three features including one with star Ben Cross (Father Michael), theatrical trailer, tv and radio spots, stills, an original storyboard gallery and three audio commentaries.  A director commentary (with Camilo Vila here) is standard, but what I found most interesting about this disc was the inclusion of two separate commentaries for the film's two composers.  Originally the film was scored by Fernando Fonseca with the Vancouver Symphony in four weeks; after rreshoots, it was rescored by Roger Bellon in ten days, musically going from a Bernard Herman inspired film noir to an era-appropriate synth horror score.  You get isolated scores for both including Fonseca's unreleased one, which is a great bonus.  Both composers are brutally honest on their grueling work schedules for the troubled production and gave great insight into music production in Hollywood.  Being a soundtrack nut, I felt spoiled here even though I wasn't even a fan of this film before. 

Overall

  The Unholy may not be a lost classic, but this bluray made up for the actual film's shortcomings.  A stunning transfer and solid, interesting extras make this hard to pass up and I genuinely look forward to checking out what's next in store for Vestron Video Collector's Series.