Statues of Mary and other saints weep blood. (We don’t have a lot of space to unpack that statement here, but I talk about that more in-depth elsewhere.)Īnd that’s not the only disturbing element we see. These spiritual messages come freighted with some other bad theology, too, especially the idea that this infernal lie can be combatted with a lie of its own. One Catholic leader is all too willing to accept Alice’s miracles for the sake of re-energizing the Church, too-covering up more problematic aspects of the story and pushing forward a secretly unholy service that, if Mary has her way, will damn plenty of people. The story also talks about how faith and religion can be corrupted in this life, too: Alice heals a few people and quickly becomes a celebrity-complete with merchandise that includes the cringeworthy hashtag #AliceSaves. This, by the way, is pretty interesting: Not many secular films today concern themselves with the state of one’s soul in the next life. (She says as much while literally in a confessional booth.) She masquerades as the other, better Mary to lead people astray and claim their souls for hell. The evil we find here definitely draws its power from a diabolical source: The “Mary” we meet was not the Mother Mary, but an 18 th-century witch who was granted the power by the devil to grant apparent miracles. And in between, you’ll find more spiritual content than in many a Christian movie. The movie kicks off with an apparent miracle and ends with a Bible verse (Matthew 7:15, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves”). And you could make the case that he winds up making a sacrificial act to save many, many others. But he gets better as the movie goes along. In contrast, Fenn is not a particularly great person. And when Delgarde finds something that is neither fraud nor miraculous, he shows considerable courage in facing the evil he discovers. As one of the Catholic church’s modern-day inquisitors, he’s sent to Banfield to investigate these happenings and do his best to debunk them: He’s after the truth, not some fabricated miracle, and that’s a good thing. Monsignor Delgarde is equally suspicious. But he’s also wary of the events surrounding that seeming miracle. Father Hagen has served as Alice’s guardian for most of her life, and he’s naturally thrilled when she gets her hearing back. We meet a couple of do-gooding priests, too.
She’s very sincere about her desire to help people. In fact, she thinks that her own cure, and the miraculous healings she’s able to give others, are truly a gift from God. But did the doll release evil? Maybe Fenn’s imagined headline is half right.Īlice is sort of like a Typhoid Mary of evil: She may be a carrier, but she doesn’t intend to be. Is it truly Mary, the mother of Jesus, who’s using Alice as a conduit for divine miracles? Or might this unseen Mary derive her powers from more diabolical sources? The next morning, he’ll watch her walk to that same tree, turn around and speak to a throng of churchgoers-announcing that she’s been healed by the Blessed Virgin Mary.Īnd Fenn will eventually have much reason to wonder as to just who this Mary is.
He’ll meet young Alice along the road that very evening and watch her say a prayer by that dead oak tree- say a prayer, even though she’s been deaf pretty much her whole life. Fenn can see the headlines now: Doll Unleashes Evil Cattle Mutilations in Banfield! He’ll worry about concocting actual cattle mutilations later.īut over the next few days, Fenn will come across a real story. So he smashes the doll and tells the local rancher to pretend he found it. He’s got a story to sensationalize, after all. The reporter doesn’t contemplate this doll or its impossible date for long. Even creepier: The doll’s tied up with a little doll chain that also holds a doll-size plaque bearing a date: Feb. Not exactly front-page news.īut Fenn does spot a creepy little doll nestled in a dead tree nearby. His latest assignment: cattle mutilations in Banfield! Exciting, right? But when Fenn drives up to this quiet Massachusetts town, he discovers the “cattle” is one solitary cow and the “mutilation” is a Metallica symbol on the bovine’s rump, stuck there by the rancher’s 15-year-old son. Now he works for a website of questionable authority, writing stories of dubious importance. But the lies caught up with him, and he lost his spotlight anyway. For him, staying in the spotlight was more important than telling the truth. Fenn, a one-time big-city newsman, was drummed out of the business for fabricating stories. Gerry Fenn never met a story he didn’t lie.
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