Review of Stigmata

Introduction

“A first-rate thriller!” claims the back cover of Stigmata. This movie strikes a chord as being a modern cross between The Omen and The Exorcist.

The plot revolves around Frankie Paige (Patricia Arquette), while not being in any way religious herself, suddenly starts to exhibit the wounds that Christ suffered during the Crucifixion. The wounds appear on her body in series of violent sudden attacks that can occur at any time. She finds out from Father Kiernan (Gabriel Byrne) that she is suffering the Stigmata – her body is starting to suffer the living wounds of the crucified Christ. Father Kiernan, the Vatican’s top investigator, befriends Paige and the task of saving her from certain death has begun.

This is an exciting religious thriller that Omen fans will really enjoy. All the haunting mystery of the Church such as statues crying tears of blood, demonic possession, wind blowing candles out and crucifixes are there. In contrast however (as mentioned on the commentary track), the director has tried to mix the dark imagery of the crucifixion, with the loud, brash 20th Century imagery to depict the only world that Frankie Paige knows.

Video

The Region 1 disc is blessed with an anamorphic transfer presented in a 2.35:1 ratio split over 28 chapters. The video quality really is superb, with sharp detail and very little if no grain. The darker scenes in the church and at night are lit in a very atmospheric way, and the DVD is able to do justice to this, the picture never becoming overly dark in these parts.

Audio

Owners of Dolby Digital audio systems will be treated to a very atmospheric soundtrack which really comes alive in the church sequences. The chanting and wind whistling all around the soundstage makes effective use of all available channels. The rears can be deemed a touch too loud at times, but I personally like to be able to hear them!!

The louder scenes such as during the opening credits and during the attack scenes will give your subwoofer a good workout.

Features

Some wonderful animated menus are included in this package, and lead the way so some nice extras.

Firstly, on starting the movie, you get to choose whether you want to see the film with the standard ending, or the directors alternate ending. However this is a bit of a fudge, as if you select the alternate ending, this is actually not anamorphic (the film *is* however), and appears to play the alternate ending from the deleted scenes section. I could be wrong here, but it seems strange that this ending is not anamorphic if it actually is not the one from the deleted scenes.

The deletions are nicely presented, in that they are played automatically in sequence rather than the making the user select each one to view it. Each is nicely titled and the video is high quality.

The director Rupert Wainwright has his own commentary, always one of my favourite extras, and it is full of facts on the shooting of the movie – even down to the feet that nails were being banged into were not actually real feet – no, really?!!

A music video from Natalie Imbruglia is included, fans will note she has grown her hair since her ‘Torn’ days, but the song isn’t up to much.

Also you get the trailer, and an 8 page booklet.

Conclusion

Yup – this is a film to get on DVD. The movie is entertaining, and the DVD is well put together, with high audio and video quality, and a nice clutch of extras.

Not available in Region 2 at the moment, and a new release at the time of writing, it is certainly one to recommend.