Stigmata was marketed as horror, when it's not. It's a religious thriller. There is a difference. Whereas (good) horror startles and disturbs you, the religious thriller unseats you, unsettles you. Doesn't make you leave the light on. Think Omen, Exorcist, not Prophecy. All the same though, Stigmata is a bit more upbeat than Omen or Exorcist, which translates into less unsettling (more reassuring). But the dramatics are all there. It opens with Father Andrew Kiernan (Gabriel Byrne), the Vatican's miracle-debunker, doing his job in Brazil. And of course he stumbles onto the real thing. And of course no one believes him. Cut to Philadelphia, where a certain Brazilian artifact has found Frankie Paige (Patricia Arquette), who, as the trailer's already told us, starts manifesting stigmata. Kiernan comes to investigate, which involves the mandatory initial doubting session followed soon enough by eventual conversion. All of this is typical, right down to Kiernan, the scientist who's a preacher who's a scientist who's Damian Karras, Doubting Thomas etc. What isn't typical, though, is legion. First, there's the Romeo + Juliet-ish camera/editing work, which lends an MTV quality to everything-fast-paced, high-decibel, undeniable. Second, there's something like a social indictment/imperative buried in all the techno-distraction: that the church has become more important than religion. Third, there's no choir-singing whatsoever, which is odd in a movie so consciously derivative that it hides secrets in photographs (qua Omen), pancakes make-up on its Linda Blair character, has doves exploding into the sky left and right, all that. It does work, though, for about three-quarters of its runtime (before Rome comes to Philadelphia, with no brotherly love). Especially effective are the lengths writer Tom Lazarus goes to to establish that Frankie is definitely not worthy of the stigmata, so something else must be going on. Something is, as Kiernan--the ex-communicated detective of Stigmata--slowly finds out. And it's more or less the same story as The Name of the Rose, or, more recently, pi: there exists somewhere out there a lost book (in pi, number) which can change the world. Meaning the people who are happy with the world as it is don't want that book being discovered. Effective also is the structuring of Stigmata. Like Se7en, which is structured around the seven deadly sins, Stigmata is structured around the five wounds of Jesus Christ during crucifixion, only here each wound ups the ante via pushing Frankie that much closer to death, meaning she's a victim in need of saving. Not quite as effective is Kiernan's occasional ignorance, when he asks obvious questions for us about the gospels and such, which is supposed to function as narrative exposition but instead makes his character a little less believable each time. Too--and even though a token explanation is offered--there seems to be no reason for Frankie to talk in demon-voices, tell you lies, fake flames, etc. Or, the only viable explanation isn't within the story but in what we expect: the creepy dissonance of Patricia Arquette talking with a male voice. It is unsettling, it just doesn't quite fit in a movie that tries to be so loyal to the academic side of things. Twice as unsettling as the demon-voices, though, is an early shot of a woman and baby and a lot of traffic, which is where Stigmata is strongest: in director Rupert Wainwright's meticulously composed audio-visual moment, when he's got all the religious iconography standing small yet important against a modern backdrop. It doesn't quite make us want to go to church as Omen did, or leave us feeling dirty as Exorcist did, but all the same, Stigmata does leave us with questions, which at least feel a lot like doubts, which is what the religious thriller uses to unsettle us. Even the religious thrillers with MTV appeal. (c) 1999 Stephen Graham Jones
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