Horrid Horror Movie Review: Stigmata

Have you ever watched a movie so bad, that you couldn't figure out what was wrong with it until you realized that everything was wrong with it? Despite reviewing bad horror movies, this doesn't happen to me a lot. I mean I can site a few, but over all it's usually one to maybe a few things that make the movie bad, whether it be plot, the science behind it, or characters doing something that goes against themselves. Never have I seen this combination: plot, acting, schizophrenic direction, and music. The link isn't even the worst track, though the fact that only the first bar plays ad nauseam doesn't help. Most of the music is the repetitive screeching of a bad techno track. And, yes, you read that right, Billy Corgan did the music. Sigh... can this guy just ever do anything right? With that note, let's pray that Stigmata isn't going to be a cardinal sin.

We start the movie with Gabriel Byrne playing Father Andrew-- oh, I forgot to mention this. Gabriel Byrne played a priest and Satan in the same year. He plays a priest in this movie, and the Devil in End of Days. Ironically, it was his portrayal as Satan that redeems him. How odd. Anyway, he goes to a church in Brazil to investigate a statue of Mary that's crying blood. Without him noticing, despite watching as it happens, a kid runs up, takes the rosary from the dead priest the statue is crying for, and sells it to a woman, who sends it to her daughter, Frankie. Frankie is a club-going alcoholic, sexoholic, drug addicted atheist. Keep this stereotype in mind (of which group, I have no fucking clue), because it's going to bite us in the ass later on. After waking up alone, Frankie gets a call from her "boyfriend" (they hint that he both is and isn't) and her mom at the same time. Her mom prods her into opening the package, in which Frankie finds the rosary. She then hangs up on her mom, seemingly forgetting her boyfriend was on the other line. I'm surprised I remembered considering just how bland the character was.

Meanwhile, Andrew tells Cardinal Houseman, played by Jonathan Pryce... Reaalllllllly?! Was work that hard to find in the late '90's? Anyway, Houseman isn't convinced that the statue is crying, or that miracles exist (he's Catholic?), and tells Andrew to wait for his next mission. Guess who's going to Frankie's place?

The same night, Frankie is violently attacked by... pigeons? During the attack, her wrists start bleeding. Suddenly, she's in the ER as Billy Corgan skins a cat with a cheese grater. As suddenly as the scene shifts - seriously, who called the ambulance? - she's lucid, and trying to convince the doctor that she didn't do this despite worrying about being potentially pregnant. She's then at home as her best (female) friend waits for her in bed. No, she's not a lesbian, her friend just didn't see the foldout couch in the next room... and she likes to spoon. Frankie goes to work the next day, but suffers an attack on the subway after asking a priest if he's Andrew. She then gets 40 lashes. By 40, I mean six.

Andrew talks to his friend because he thinks he's losing faith. Father Delmonico mentions that he knew this because, "God's here and we know everything." When Andrew asks him what he's translating, he mentions that it's a newly found gospel for the Vatican Gospel Commission. When asked what it says, he says, "I don't know." So much for that "we know everything" bit he said two seconds ago.

Back at the hospital, her doctor tells her its epilepsy. Well, that makes sense... except for the stigmata. She asks if she was pregnant, and this happens:

Frankie: Am I pregnant?

Doctor: No.

Frankie: Was I before?

Doctor: I dunno.

Apparently, after only hours of losing a baby, all signs of it will spontaneously disappear. She returns to work, after having tests that have nothing to do with epilepsy done. She yells at her coworkers to stop whispering about her when Andrew walks in. She cuts his hair, and they talk about the wounds. She mentions she's an atheist, and he attempts to close the case because stigmatics are devout. She goes off to research it herself. After hours of looking at pictures, she goes to the club, where her head starts bleeding.

She runs out of the club, her friend chasing her, as her boyfriend casually glances and orders a beer. That's his character, peeps. Andrew follows her into an alley, where Frankie starts carving into a car with a piece of glass, and speaking another language. Beyond that, I have no clue, because the way it's directed, I feel that Billy Idol is going to pop out and announce that it's a nice time for a white wedding. She collapses, and Andrew takes her to a church where Delmonico is waiting. So... he drove from Pittsburgh to New York?

They nurse her back to health as Delmonico tells Andrew that she was speaking Aramaic, but he doesn't know what she was saying. This is important, not because of the "God lives here, we know everything" bit. The next day, Frankie goes home, and Andrew stops by to see that she's writing on the walls with a marker. After Andrew takes pictures, Frankie collapses, and then goes out for a day with Andrew until she falls due to her feet getting wounded.

Once again getting nursed by priests, Frankie believes she's dying. Andrew emails the pictures to Delmonico, who tells him it's Aramaic, and that it's the Gospel of St Thomas. This is also the same thing that Frankie was saying before, yet Delmonico couldn't translate it because he didn't know Aramaic. Much to Delmonico's chagrin, Father Elliot diMoro sees the pictures and sends them to Pryce. Delmonico calls Marion, the priest of the Church of Deus Ex Machima.

Andrew goes to Frankie's place again where she attacks him for not giving in to her sexual advances. After the attack, she levitates and cries tears of blood. Andrew picks her up from the air, and prays with her, holding the rosary from the beginning of the movie. As he's doing this, Pryce and company burst in and take Frankie, sending Andrew to a church in Pittsburgh. It's here that Marion tells him that Pryce didn't want the gospel out, so he closed the Gospel Commission three years ago... despite it being active in the beginning of the movie. By this logic, Andrew figures out that Frankie is possessed by the spirit of the third priest, the one who died in the beginning of the movie. You read that right, she's possessed by a priest that is causing her bodily harm and making her attempt to rape priests.

I couldn't make this shit up. Yes, I understand that the message is that the priest is supposed to have the "true word" of God, but he possessed her in much the same was a demon would, and is causing her harm as well as making her sin (more than usual). The kicker is that the message is that God is found in us all, yet he's pretty much killing this woman so that the message wouldn't get through. The method is counter productive as well as stupid due to the fact that the obvious does in fact happen: Pryce, thinking she's possessed by a demon, tries to exorcise her. Maybe, just maybe, the priest's spirit shouldn't have done with the theatrics?

After Pryce realizes that she's not possessed by a demon, but by a priest, he tries to strangle her. ... Why not? Andrew runs in and stops him, telling him that he will not be a priest much longer for keeping the gospel a secret. Fact: The Real Gospel of St Thomas is considered Heresy in the Catholic Church. One of the reasons is because the author's true identity has been brought to question. Some of the other gospel's that have been banned contained such lessons like, don't go to church and that after Jesus died, God no longer existed. Some of these books, called the Gnostic Texts are, in fact, being reconsidered in the church. Those that are are obviously not the ones that say God stopped existing.

Moving on, Andrew goes into Frankie's room to see it's on fire. Frankie tells him the secret of the text (surprise, it's "God is within you, not in church"), and he carries her outside where she imitates St Francis od Assisi. Andrew returns to Brazil and finds the original gospel.

This movie is offensively bad. It makes the church look evil for maintaining its belief that a book called into question shouldn't be taken as truth (and, please, let's not argue over religion on this, I'm bashing a bad movie here), much like we'd sue someone for slander for lying about us. The direction changes scenes so fast that you don't know where a scene ends and another begins. And the music... Billy Corgan, for the love of God, stop.

For now, this is the Window Keeper signing of to confess in a church that he watched this movie. God knows I feel like I need it.