The Unholy follows Alice, a young hearing-impaired girl who, after a supposed visitation from the Virgin Mary, is inexplicably able to hear, speak and heal the sick. As word spreads and people from near and far flock to witness her miracles, a disgraced journalist (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Supernatural) hoping to revive his career visits the small New England town to investigate.
However, when terrifying events begin to happen all around, he starts to question if these phenomena are the works of the Virgin Mary or something much more sinister. Produced by Sam Raimi, it was written for the screen and directed by Evan Spiliotopoulos.
During our conversation with the latter, we asked what the best advice he received from the legendary Evil Dead, Spider-Man, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness director. The Unholy marks Spiliotopoulos's directorial debut, and it sounds like Raimi was crucial when it came to preparing him for what lies ahead when taking the helm of a movie like this one.
"It's absolutely that pre-production is when you still have the ability to make mistakes. Now that I've done it, I cannot stress to any aspiring filmmakers out there how important pre-production is," Spiliotopoulos explained. "That's the time you get to, with any luck, rehearse your actors. Even if you don't have that option because, sometimes, their schedules are jammed and they show up the day of."
"Rehearse your camera moves. Make sure you've got all your scenes pre-blocked at the locations you're going to use. Experiment as much as possible with your visual effects and makeup effects because those are going to take time. Rehearse that team and get them going as fast as possible. We shot the film in two stages. The normal pre-production was two months and in that time, we were able to prepare ourselves so that when we showed up on the first day of production, and we started with the third act (the big tent scene), we had 500 extras and, 'Boom, off we go.'"
"What got us through it was we knew exactly what we were doing and there was no on the spot, 'Hmm, wouldn't it be interesting if the camera came down like this? Rearrange all the lighting for it," he continued. "That was his greatest advice."
Needless to say, when a director like Raimi offers advice, you listen. Clearly, Spiliotopoulos put what he was told to good use whole making this movie. You can watch our full interview with the director about The Unholy below, and make sure to check back here tomorrow to read the entire thing.