Overall Rating
 Awesome: 9.27%
Worth A Look: 33.11%
Average: 13.25%
Pretty Bad: 25.17%
Total Crap: 19.21%
13 reviews, 73 user ratings
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| Stigmata |
by Scott Weinberg
"Finally, a comedy that delivers the goods!"
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Directed with the artistic subtlety of a drum set thrown from a moving train, this exercise in wackiness is a real hoot. Imagine the cute girl next door comes over to borrow a cup of sugar, then starts leaking blood from every pore. But remember, she IS pretty cute.....Poor Patricia Arquette. Not only is she a slob and a tramp with poor teeth, but all of a sudden she gets these bloody, violent attacks. I know, I know, with a plotline like that, it sounds like Menstruation: The Movie. (They'd probably show it on Lifetime.) But this movie has higher aspirations than just showing Ms. Arquette scream and writhe around her apartment. We also get to see her flip out and bleed in a subway car, a night club, and a hair salon. Since every attack she has is identical to the one before, it's a good thing they chose to switch locations a lot.
Gabriel Byrne shows up occassionally to try to calm our heroine down, by explaining that these excrutiating and disgusting episodes are indeed a GOOD thing. Indeed, it means that perhaps her body has been possessed by Jesus himself, who's pretty pissed because he left some scriptures carved on a wall thousands of years ago that nobody knew about. Or something like that. Seriously, if you're a movie fan who likes to watch a plot unfold and see how each scene sets up the one before, you'd be better off alphabetizing your pimples, because this movie is a big sloppy mess. I think my Mom once used the editor of this film to make a salad. Whenever you see a movie and it would make the same amount of sense if you watched it backwards, that's bad.
This supposedly sacreligious silliness is so firmly based on anything fifty miles from reality, I think all the hoopla is really undeserved. Saying this movie is anti-religious is like saying Bugs Bunny doesn't behave like real rabbits. Ms. Arquette handles a wacko role quite well, however, and Gabriel (A poor man's Liam Neeson) Byrne shows up to try and lend some sense to the familiar proceedings. And not to spoil anything, but if Jonathon Pryce was any LESS subtle in his role, you would constantly see a red arrow over his head, blinking "VILLAIN". Sorry, but if you've ever seen more than 12 movies, you can see what's coming three pews away. (and I do mean pew.) (sorry)
Anyway, the hairstylist starts getting these attacks, like in "The Entity", except Arquette won't show her bosoms, so instead of simulated ghost naughtiness, we get quick edits of someone's wrists and elbows being impaled with spikes. Pass the pretzel bites. Our heroine's reaction the morning after being gruesomely impaled the night before? I don't KNOW, because she never acts like anything's wrong!! Hoo boy. Honestly, there's more blood coming from this girl than a hemophiliac's convention at the Jersey Shore, yet she seems pretty cool about it.
One final complaint is that when filmmakers can't even choose their product placements, they're doomed. This character could have done for Band-Aids what E.T. did for Reese's Pieces.Paradoxically brutal and dull, this Exorcist clone hopes that enough time has passed that the idea of a young woman possessed and talking in a deep creepy Latin voice will seem original. It hasn't.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1610&reviewer=128
originally posted: 09/13/99 17:36:11
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USA
10-Sep-1999 (R)
UK
N/A
Australia
20-Jan-2000 (R)
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