1999 saw the sudden emergence of a fairly unique cinematic trend: glossy Biblical horror movies with Gabriel Byrne in them. One of these was End of Days, which cast the charismatic Irish actor as Satan and pit him against a grizzled Arnold Schwarzenegger, who’s charged with protecting the main girl from The Craft from getting deflowered by Old Scratch and thus being impregnated with the Anti-Christ. The other film was, of course, Stigmata, which cast Byrne (boasting quite possibly the exact same hair, make-up and costume, the collar notwithstanding) as a Catholic priest sent to investigate reports of a young woman who seems to be suffering the bizarre phenomenon of the title. All things considered, End of Days is the more enjoyable film (come on, Arnie versus Beelzebub!), but this is not to say that Stigmata isn’t of some entertainment value.
Make no mistake, though, most of the pleasure to be taken from Stigmata comes from the fact that it’s a kind of film we see very few of nowadays: a mid-budget, fairly high production value, R-rated mainstream genre film (reportedly made for $29 million) which isn’t based on a pre-existing property. With the rise of Platinum Dunes in the 2000s and Blumhouse in the 2010s, studio horror ( particularly at the R-rated end) has tended toward much lower budget productions since, allowing only for smaller-scale, more down-to-earth visions – and one thing Stigmata most definitely isn’t is down to earth. However, it isn’t only in representing a now largely dead model of horror movie that Stigmata embodies its era; it may have come at the tail end of the 1990s, but Rupert Wainwright’s film wears its decade on its sleeve more heavily the many other films I could name, and in a strange way this ages Stigmata worse than some films that are ten or twenty years older. Nor is that where Stigmata’s problems end.
Anyway, synopsis time: Byrne’s Andrew Kiernan, on top of being a priest, is also a scientist, and in this capacity he is sent around the globe by the shady Cardinal Houseman (an inevitably bearded and very English Jonathan Pryce) to investigate reported miracles around the globe. Invariably all of his investigations uncover some mundane rational explanation, which leaves Kiernan a bit bummed out; but then he happens upon a South American church in which a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe is shedding tears of blood, and when he’s unable to find a scientific cause he thinks he may have found a bona fide miracle. However, the moustache-twirling Cardinal has other ideas, and instead sends Kiernan to Pittsburgh, where Frankie (Patricia Arquette) – a twentysomething party girl hairdresser, and an atheist – has suddenly been afflicted with gaping puncture wounds in her wrists, and lashes across her back; two of the five wounds suffered by Christ at his crucifixion. As her condition worsens, Frankie shows violent signs of possession; but just what is possessing her, and why? Would you believe it’s one of those ‘the truth is out there’ deals that were so big in the 90s?
As for other stuff that was big in the 90s… let’s see. Trip-hop, day-glo raver gear and platform shoes, crop tops revealing pierced belly-buttons with small accompanying tribal-looking tattoo, Bjork-style pixie hair with little bunches (I don’t know what the hell the correct name is for that hair style, I just call it Bjork hair): name your 90s cliche, and Stigmata has it. If the film had a flavour, it’d be lemon Hooch. Let’s not forget the inflatable chairs; Frankie’s apartment, in which a large portion of the action takes place, has no fewer than four of them scattered around the place, and one has to ponder how safe that is given that Frankie also seems to constantly have several hundred candles burning about the place day and night. Additionally, one also has to ponder how a hairdresser makes enough money to pay for this massive open-plan industrial chic partygirl pad. But then, such narrative logic obviously comes secondary to the director’s wish to present his fetching leading lady in a stylish environment, which looks cool under atmospheric lighting and lends itself well to flashy editing.
Nor does the lack of narrative logic end there, as once the final reel kicks in and the post-X-Files/pre-Da Vinci Code conspiracy twist is revealed, the reasons behind Frankie’s possession prove more than a little hard to swallow; I won’t go into specifics to avoid spoilers, but if the overall message is supposedly one of hope, all the suffering seems a bit unnecessary. But then, maybe that’s just me not getting Christianity.
Considering the calibre of the cast, we can be forgiven for wishing for better material for them to play with; it’s quite clear that all of them were slumming it a bit, and in Byrne’s case this is a bit disheartening considering that he has largely retreated from mainstream film in the 17 years since (the guy started out the 90s with Miller’s Crossing, for crying out loud). As for Arquette, given her current outspoken feminism it’s doubtful she looks back on this as a particular career highlight, seeing as how she’s used primarily as eye candy; we can scarcely fail to note her first wound occurs during a voyeuristic bathtub scene. Pryce, meanwhile – coming to this not long after being one of the naffest Bond villains in Tomorrow Never Dies – seems to have comfortably resigned himself to the fate of all British actors, getting stuck in a two-dimensional bad guy role.
Stigmata also proved one of the last big screen outings to date from Rupert Wainwright, whose background was mainly in music videos (and boy does it show). He’s made only one more feature since, the remake of The Fog; I’ve never seen it, but have heard it often described as one of the worst films of its sort, which I have no problem believing. His work here is, in some respects, the worst kind of Michael Bay-ish style over substance filmmaking; drowning in excess visual flash, yet under some illusions of telling a story of actual importance. But hey – the very best paracinema is invariably the work of those who approach their work more seriously than they should. As a would-be thought-provoking theological treatise put to film, Stigmata is pretty laughable; but as a histrionic melodrama and a gaudy 1990s time capsule, it’s kind of hard to fault. Ultimately it’s just The Exorcist remade on the set of The Crow, and I doubt anyone involved expected anything more or less.
As for the disc: the film looks and sounds as good as you’d hope, and the extras include a commentary from Wainwright which I haven’t listened to, a trailer, and a corny 30-minute featurette which is half standard making-of, half History Channel examination of the stigmata phenomenon.
Stigmata is out on dual format Blu-ray and DVD in the UK on 17th October, from Eureka.