Stigmata (1999)

Stigmata (1999) – A young woman is suddenly overcome with the mental and physical injuries associated with Christ’s crucifixion.  A priest is sent to investigate what is happening and is drawn into deeper and more powerful conflicts

Directed by Rupert Wainwright                   Starring Patricia Arquette, Gabriel Byrne, Jonathan Pryce

This is a profoundly disappointing movie in so many ways.  It pretends to be a religious movie, but never bothers to explore any religious themes.  Presenting itself as a horror movie, it fails to ever be frightening.  “Stigmata” joins the ranks of movies that are triumphs of style over substance.  Visually it has some really impressive moments.  Sadly, they are not in support of any storytelling.

If you’re not familiar with the concept, stigmata are the appearances on the body of the wounds of crucifixion associated with Jesus’s death on the cross.  These are holes in the hands (or wrists) and feet.  The earliest known instance of this was St. Francis of Assisi in the 13th century.  There are similar kinds of experiences in other religious traditions, but it is most commonly associated with Christianity and especially the Roman Catholic traditions.  While there are known frauds that have been revealed, there are also many instances where the cause of these wounds is unclear, including into the 20th Century.

None of this is given more than a surface brush in the movie.  It tries to be a horror moving by screaming and flinging some blood around and keeps its religious storylines to evil church bureaucrats and the sex lives of priests.  It’s boring and cliche.  Arquette is strictly B-movie material here.  There’s no character development, which leaves her with a cardboard cut-out on the screen.  Byrne (the priest) and Pryce (the bureaucrat) are in the same boat.  There is not a single thing in this movie that will surprise you or ask you to engage your brain for even a moment.  As a movie, “Stigmata” lacks any depth of storytelling.

It’s yet another movie about how evil the church is (trust me, I am well aware of the shortcomings of the institutional church), a wonderful (?) secret that will free us all from this tyranny, and the ongoing fetish about priests and sex.  God is the monster in chief in this movie.  Here stigmata aren’t the sign of the holiness of the person but are inflicted on a person as part of a possession (by a person that we are assured was quite holy).   The spirit gives her superhuman physical strength, except at the moment when someone tries to kill her.  From a religious/theological point of view, the movie is a dumpster fire.

Adding insult to injury, the story of the young woman supposedly takes place in Pittsburgh.  Yet, the skyline shown is clearly never that of my hometown, and it apparently rains constantly there.  Not a single shot of any other kind of weather.

Add in plot holes, logic glitches, and characters that pop in at the end to explain everything (seriously, who wrote this script?  Answer: Tom Lazarus, whose professional writing credits explain a lot.  Mostly Grade B television), and you end up with a movie that is sometimes visually interesting but always intellectually empty. 

Why You Will Like It: I suppose you could watch the movie with the sound off.  You wouldn’t miss much and you’d be spared the worst parts while watching the good bits.

Rating – ** Not Impressed
.