Once again, the Hollywood studio system demonstrates that it has absolutely no idea how to go about making an effective horror film. Rupert Wainwright’s (Blank Check) Stigmata is a big-budget extravaganza full of quick cuts, interesting use of color, some intriguing visuals, and loads of bright red blood. However, like most big-budget thrillers, it’s full of sound and fury, yet ultimately signifies nothing. It’s another film in a long line of horror movies that seems to forget that its main goal is to scare an audience, and that scaring an audience requires more effort than recycling scenes from infinitely better films like The Exorcist.
Stigmata almost certainly looked good on paper. Here’s the story of a young woman named Frankie (Patricia Arquette: True Romance, Lost Highway, Ed Wood), a hairstylist in a tattoo/piercing joint who suddenly starts receiving the stigmata. The stigmata are wounds that manifest on the extremely devout—they mirror the wounds that Christ endured while on the cross. As word of this reaches the Vatican, church bureaucrat Cardinal Houseman (Jonathan Pryce: Brazil, Ronin, Tomorrow Never Dies) dispatches Father Andrew (Gabriel Byrne: End of Days, The Usual Suspects) to investigate.
Soon after arriving in Pittsburgh, Andrew concludes that these wounds can’t be stigmata because Frankie’s an atheist. This opinion changes after he watches her receive lashes on her forehead that mimic Christ’s crown of thorns and hears her speak in a language that no one has used since Jesus’ time (yet, everyone in the film who has anything to do with the church can look at or listen to this dead language and decipher it in seconds…yeah, sure). From there, things get weirder (or more like The Exorcist if you’re the cynical type). Frankie begins writing a gospel in Aramaic on her wall in the apartment, levitating over her bed, speaking in a very masculine voice, and attacking Father Andrew. All of this leads up to what’s supposed to be a soul-shaking climax, but truthfully, it’s pretty underwhelming.
The film suffers from numerous flaws throughout, including the ludicrous assertion that the stigmata could be passed like a disease, through a personal belonging, plot holes you could drive a truck through, and two-dimensional performances from the cast. However, the film’s most glaring fault is that it never gives you a true antagonist to root against. Once you’ve seen the film’s denouement, everything that’s happened before seems completely ludicrous.
The acting is weak, with Arquette being the worst of the bunch. We never really feel much for her character during the film, and she doesn’t do much to allow us to sympathize or care about her plight. Byrne plays Father Andrew with a hangdog gloominess that doesn’t ring true. It’s a one-note performance in a role that requires a bit more range. It’s not as bad as his turn in End of Days, but it’s close. Jonathan Pryce suffers from a poorly written role that makes it obvious he’s a bad guy from the start, and gives him no room to add any depth to his character. When your three main characters are this flat, any film is doomed to fail—but it’s especially true in a horror film, where success hinges on the audience empathizing and caring about the characters who are in danger. We never care about these characters, and it distances us from the action, making the film completely ineffective.
Rupert Wainwright’s direction is solid, but it can’t save the film. Wainwright utilizes some nice stylistic techniques throughout the film, but it tends to come across as more flash than anything. Particularly noteworthy is his use of color. This is a dark, dreary film almost totally devoid of red—which makes the scenes where red blood shoots out from Frankie’s wounds more startling and effective. Wainwright also manages to keep the film moving at a fairly brisk pace, usually through the use of hyper, music video style edits. On the downside, Wainwright would be wise to learn some restraint—he bludgeons us to death with his symbolism throughout the film, all but stopping the shot and screaming "look at this, it means something!" Film symbolism should be something that an audience picks up on subconsciously, not something that they’re hit over the head with.
Ultimately, Stigmata is another Biblically-themed horror film that seems like a good idea on paper and in the pitch meetings. But, like most of the other offerings in this subgenre, it fails to deliver anything in the way of real scares or well-developed characters. Instead, it’s as if the filmmakers believe that filling the movie with esoteric mumbo jumbo will provide enough creepiness to make up for the film’s other shortcomings. Films like Stigmata and End of Days make it brutally apparent that this is a flawed notion. Stigmata is just one more bad genre film, one that will hopefully fade into the relative obscurity it so richly deserves.
Frankie Paige (Patricia Arquette) is a bold free-spirit with no cares, no worries and absolutely no faith in God. All of that changes when she suddenl...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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