Holy Horror Tops the Charts

Sixth Sense may have been knocked off the top spot, but its successor at the American box office this weekend was another movie with a supernatural bent, Stigmata. Directed by Rupert Wainwright, the film stars Patricia Arquette as a hairdresser who becomes possessed by spirit or spirits unknown, and Gabriel Byrne as the Catholic priest whose role it is to pour cold, and preferably holy, water on such activities. Despite scathing reviews – amongst the best was the Salt Lake Times with ‘Stigmata is so bad it ultimately leaves you with the age-old question “If there is a God why would he permit a film like this to be made?”’ – the movie pulled in a respectable $19.3 million in its opening weekend. Byrne, in particular, is unlikely to be bothered by hostile reviews – he still has a role pending in the apocalyptic blockbuster ** End of Days ** alongside Schwarzenegger, which is due out at the end of the year.