Several years before he played a sexy vampire on the brief prime time TV reboot of the cult serial, Ben Cross faced other demons as a priest in this frustrating horror film about demonic efforts to destroy the Catholic clergy. It's difficult to know what the motivations are. Sometimes it seems to be a warning to believe that Evers At other times, it's offensively sacreligious and exploitative. The special effects go far over the top in showing evil, and at times they are gleefully smug in frightening the bejeebers out of people to make them fear that damnation awaits us all.

There's class with the presence of Hal Holbrook as a bishop as well as Ned Beatty, Trevor Howard and "The Young and the Restless's" Norma Donaldson. There's also an occult worshiping younger woman whom Cross takes in and her Satan worshiping punk boyfriend, and the less said about them the better when compared to the veteran actors. It's obviously a mixture of conspiracy and manipulation, often stunning visually yet a test spiritually, especially in constant dark days. Worth a one time look for some real frights, but not without a shower afterwards to clean off the filth surrounding the story.

This is a pretty poor EXORCIST rip-off with more dodgy special effects than you can shake a stick at. The film isn't helped by a confused plot, which bombards us with bizarre visuals and keeps repeating key points over and over again instead of taking the film in new directions. In the end, it all boils down to something so simplistic and vague that it was hardly worth making a film of it.

This is a typical example of late '80s horror; despite trying to be scary, it just falls apart when the abysmal and rubbery special effects come into view. As a film, it's just too '80s to take seriously, with billowy and weird hairstyles, appalling fashions, and lots of bizarre dream sequences which make little sense. The story of a priest fighting demons is an old one, and needs to be done with a better script than it has here. Admittedly the film starts off well, with some real scenes of tension concerning the fall, but quickly descends into meaninglessness with the introduction of a Satanic nightclub which seems to serve as a den for perverts and punks who are into leather and mock rituals.

This film has a cast better than it deserves, with loads of well known, earnest actors making fools of themselves by appearing in this. Ben Cross is pretty good as the lead, but fails to give his character life or even make him likable. Ned Beatty plays an extraneous cop who totally disappears from the film towards the end with no explanation. Goodness knows what Trevor Howard was doing appearing in this mess, but he obviously needed that paycheque very badly. There's also a silly '80s guy with bleached blond hair who looks like a right idiot.

Things fall apart very quickly towards the end of the film, after a lot of mumbo jumbo and nothing much of substance happening. Then, all of a sudden, the producers suddenly decided to throw in as much nudity, gore, and violence as humanly possible, so we get people being nailed to crosses, getting gutted, set on fire, vomiting blood and lots more. When the "demon of desire"'s true form is finally revealed, it turns out to be a huge dog-like rubber monster which looks absolutely fake. I can appreciate the scenes of the creature walking unaided which are in their own way impressive, but mostly the creature is seen in close-up and very obviously being held and moved from inside. I know the special effects were typically bad in '80s films, but come on, did they ever expect anybody to find this scary?

Things get even worse when Cross very nearly falls into Hell, portrayed too literally. All of a sudden a load of rubber masks appear on screen, flashing past in quick succession, the dry ice machine goes into overdrive and a hole comes out of nowhere. The eventual sight of the demon dog falling into the pit is hilariously awful. Then there's an ending which seems to rip off THE BEYOND for inspiration. Watch out for the bit where the priest says "Get thee behind me Satan!" too - it has to be seen to be believed. THE UNHOLY is a missed opportunity and a good example of all that was wrong with the '80s horror film - starting off with an interesting plot, but quickly descending into special effects madness.

I've recently been watching a lot of movies on the TV channel FearNet. While most of these are supposed to be cheap horror flicks, I've actually found some of them quite impressive. Usually not for what they are, but because of what they contain in certain scenes. For example, "Down" (aka "The Shaft") is about a haunted elevator, but contains the original version of the song "Come On", of which a later version was the first song ever released by the Rolling Stones. Also, "Blood Diner" in its culmination played the same music that appeared in Chuck Jones's "What's Opera, Doc?"; you read that right: a slasher movie stirring memories of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Alas, "The Unholy" has no such qualities. It's just the average Devil-themed movie, with an evil spirit leading priests to their doom. I only recommend it if you're into demonic possession movies...or for the shots of the woman in the see-through gown.

Starring Ben Cross ("Chariots of Fire"),Ned Beatty, Hal Holbrook and Trevor Howard.