Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Dennis Hopper | ... | Rev. Tom Hartley | |
Michael Moriarty | ... | Mark | |
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Antonella Murgia | ... | Maria |
Francisco Rabal | ... | Giacomo | |
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Kit Massengill | ... | Reed |
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Jo Perkins | ... | Make-Up Woman |
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Charles Bacarisse | ... | Charles |
Xabier Elorriaga | ... | Announcer (as Javier Elorriaga) | |
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Leslie Cox | ... | Secretary |
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Consol Tura | ... | Lucille |
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James Carrington | ... | Lemare |
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Robert Dunn | ... | Shilo |
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Lola Forcada | ... | Lola |
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Àngel Jové | ... | Priest (as Angel Jove) |
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Gil Rodriguez Jr. | ... | Skin Head |
A man discovers that his girlfriend is a "stigmata" (someone whose hands and feet mysteriously bleed in the same places where Jesus Christ was crucified) and tries to keep her out of the hands of a greedy TV preacher who plans to exploit her to make money for himself. Written by Anonymous
This was a complete obscurity for me when I chanced upon it on the weekly TV guide but, with that cast (Dennis Hopper, Michael Moriarty, Francisco Rabal) and director (Bigas Luna), I decided to check it out. As it turned out, it's a bizarre and wildly uneven religious satire (with some mild horror/thriller elements added towards the end) but a handful of powerful moments make it worth watching nevertheless. In short, it deals with an introverted Italian woman who suffers from stigmata attacks and is invited by a flamboyant American televangelist (Hopper) to appear on his show; the ensuing repercussions include an unheralded miracle cure during a mass rally and her falling in love with her "captor" (Moriarty, giving his typically offbeat characterization) after a traumatic first sexual encounter in a hotel room - in itself, a very disturbing and blackly comic sequence. The rushed ending, featuring sympathetic aide-turned-villain Rabal chasing Moriarty and the woman as Hopper flips out at his headquarters is clumsy and incoherent but the disjointed whole is held together somewhat by the constant and effectively unnerving (this being the 1980s, would it be otherwise?) synthesizer-based music score.