STIGMATA (1999)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
(Originally written in 1999)
It is a pleasure to see the horror genre back again with a keen interest in the supernatural, eschewing any of the tired slasher routines since "Scream's" wake. It is less pleasurable to see that filmmakers can become so misguided as to make complete drivel like "Stigmata," a poorly conceived, beautifully shot yet pointless rip-off of "The Exorcist."
Patricia Arquette stars as Frankie Paige, a Pittsburgh hairdresser who frequents clubs with her pals (she also has an unseen boyfriend who no doubt finds her as irritating as I did). One day, she receives a rosary from her mother in the mail, and suddenly finds thick nail wounds on her wrists while taking a bath. Frankie goes to the emergency room but feels no pain, and the doctors unbelievably feel the wounds were self-inflicted. Oh, please. I don't think anyone would have the strength to drive thick nails through their wrists. Nevertheless, Frankie seems undaunted by all this and still goes club-hopping. Unfortunately, her customers want someone else to cut their hair (understandable, I mean, would you want someone with bandages around their wrists to cut your hair?) Frankie starts to see visions, such as a woman dropping a baby on a street corner. She also suffers more wounds, like being relentlessly whipped in a out-of-control subway car.
The truth is that she is afflicted with stigmata, the supposed wounds that Christ suffered during the crucifixion. So, yes, there are the whippings, thorns penetrating her skull, nails driven through her wrists and feet, and so on. But nothing seems to faze Frankie, she just becomes annoyed that such an affliction would get in the way of her nightlife and sex life. Another truth glossed over is that stigmatics are usually Catholic but in Frankie's case, she is atheist. But this rosary apparently came from a Brazilian priest who passed the stigmata to the next available customer (Question: how come Frankie's mother did not get it first?)
The Vatican (almost all of its members photographed in deep shadows) discovers this particular stigmatic and decide to employ Father Andrew Kiernan (Gabriel Byrne), a scientist who determines the veracity of miracles around the world, to investigate this woman and see if she is indeed a spiritual manifestation of the Holy Ghost. Kiernan finds that she is, but he is also a man grappling with his own faith (read Jason Miller's Father Karras in "Exorcist"). I was curious about a scene where he almost decides not to pursue the case once Frankie admits to being atheist. Of course, why any of these spiritual happenings would affect an atheist is a question never posed by anyone in the entire movie. Instead, we get intimate scenes between the girl and the priest, some moments of brief possession, and a laughable fiery exorcism sequence that lifts whole sections of dialogue from "The Exorcist." What any of this has to with stigmata is beyond me.
"Stigmata" has ambitions to be either a spiritually cleansing exercise or a psychological portrait of a self-destructive young woman grappling with her spiritual beliefs. Instead, director Rupert Wainwright depicts Frankie's life-changing event as if it were an inconvenience. Also, we get alot of talk about how deeply painful it is to be stigmatic because there are so many repercussions from different spirits, both good and evil. But Frankie is an unchanged woman from beginning to end - a cipher with no inner life. She never seems affected or truly afflicted, despite the numerous special-effects and mili-second cuts of drops of water and horrid images of bleeding wounds. Those are all devices constructed as if we were watching an MTV film with music by Nine Inch Nails, and they detract from the character and the story.
"Stigmata" has caused a haelstorm of controversy because it is seemingly anti-Catholic. As written by Tom Lazarus and Rick Ramage, the film is not good enough to provoke any such argument. The only committed heresy is how much of it is borrowed from "The Exorcist."
