The Unhealer (Blu-ray Review)

The Unhealer is the ultimate revenge horror. The film opens and fools the audience with its low key tone and slight misdirection on whom the focus will be placed. We’re introduced to a faith healer named Pflueger (Lance Henriksen) who has ‘stolen’ ancient indigenous powers and now uses them to con his followers. The real focus of the film, however, is Kelly (Elijah Nelson), a high school teen who suffers from a disorder named pica, which compels him to eat all sorts of inedible junk like plastic, eraser heads, Styrofoam, shirt tags. No doctors have been able to cure him, so his mother Bernice (Natasha Henstridge) turns to paying Pflueger for a faith healing session. The session goes bad, Pflueger collapses, but not before the powers he has transfer to Kelly.

Kelly’s disorder has made him the target of bullying from the ‘cool kids’ in school, except for one person, the pretty Dominique (Kayla Carlson), whom Kelly has known since childhood and upon whom he has a crush. Now, Kelly discovers he has a ‘reverse pain’ power – that is, any pain someone tries to inflict on him he absorbs, and it happens to them instead. This power becomes fun for Kelly, it’s the ultimate tool for him to inflict upon his tormentors and it becomes addictive, but when his bullies kill someone he loves, he goes on a bloody rampage.

The Unhealer takes a little while to heat up and come into focus, but when it gets going, its story hooks you. So, I would stick around past the somewhat slow and unsure first act, despite the great performance from Henriksen, and wait for things to get on a roll. You’ll want to add this to one of your cult revenge horror favorites list.

The Unhealer (2020)

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The Video

The Unhealer was shot on the Red Weapon Dragon with Zeiss Ultra Prime Lenses in Redcode RAW 6K. It comes to Blu-ray in an AVC 1080p encodement. The high-resolution digital source shows as this is a detailed and clean Blu-ray, but not one of the most filmic or cinematic productions I have seen. The bitrate lingers around 32Mbps, so it doesn’t reach the highest potential, and there is even the slightest bit of banding in skies. Other than that, the colors look gorgeous and shadow detail in the dark scenes are wonderfully nuanced.

The Audio

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is a bit front heavy, barely stepping up the sound over the 2.0 mix other than being mastered at a much louder level and having fuller sounding dialogue. There are some very low-level atmospherics in the surround channels and underwhelming low frequencies.

The Supplements

Scream Factory provides some interesting interviews a gag reel and extended scenes that do bring more to the table, so check them out.

• Cast Interviews (1080p; 00:17:51)
• Gag Reel (1080p; 00:03:10)
• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 00:05:18)
• Alt and Extended Scenes (1080p; 00:07:29)
• Behind the Scenes (1080p; 00:02:38)
• Slideshow (1080p; 00:03:02)
• Theatrical Trailer (1080p)

The Final Assessment

A surprisingly good little revenge horror that takes a stand against high school bullies and strikes a bloody blow for the little guys. Genre fans will love it.

The Unhealer is Available Nationwide on AVOD and SVOD and Available Now on Blu-ray, Digital HD and Cable VOD from Scream Factory

• Rating Certificate: Not Rated, contains Profanity, Gore, Violence, Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking
• Studios & Distributors: Horror Business Films | Sunset Pictures | 7 Ideas | Gama Entertainment Partners | Scream Factory
• Director: Martin Guigui
• Written By: Kevin E. Moore | J. Shawn Harris
• Run Time: 93 Mins.
• Street Date: 8 June 2021
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Video Format: AVC 1080p
• Primary Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1
• Secondary Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo
• Subtitles: English SDH