Spooky Movie Week #3: Stigmata
okay I’m just putting it out there, despite my rigid No Clergy rule which is carved upon my tablet of personal commandments right next to “No More Gold Lamé Toreador Outfits” there is nothing I can say about Gabriel Byrne in a cassock that wouldn’t get me fired from this blog and possibly kicked out of the Anglican Communion, and while Byrne is super hot I’m not trying to live the rest of life eating cream-of-something casserole (seriously does EVERYTHING need a Ritz cracker topping?) and pretending not to recognize people at the liquor store.

Stigmata, 1999
Stigmata is not a cinematic masterpiece like The Wicker Man or Nosferatu but it IS a great supernatural thriller, and it’s aged well as opposed to The Exorcist –fun fact: I used to have to run up and down the Exorcist stairs for crew practice– which is just a pea soup schlockfest to audiences seeing it for the first time. When I first saw The Exorcist in college I laughed and laughed and laughed. The crabwalk? Really? I’ve done scarier things than that just trying to get into a pair of jeans.
Note: do NOT watch this movie with a bunch of seminary professors unless you want your Sweaty and Angsty Gabriel Byrne Hotness to be interrupted with angry academics shouting “WRONG!” and flinging chocolate covered pretzels (ON MY WHITE COUCH!!!) as the argue over the validity of the Gnostic heresy.


You are on a roll this week! Gabriel Byrne is delicious, and moreso in person! I met him in a pub in Hell’s Kitchen once (near the Irish theater he sponsors), and played wing man while a friend chatted him up. I ended up doing most of the talking, though, as she was quite drunk and mostly just stroked his arm and giggled. AWKWARD.
Gabriel Byrne = Yummy! I watched the clunker End of Days just to see him.
Now THIS is a man I’d go to hell for
omg… this movie has secretly been on my top five list since it came out. I HATE scary movies, but this on has the perfect blend of thriller, occult (c’mon, in this movie Christianity is kinda culty), and HOTNESS. A girlfriend and I had a long and involved debate on whether GB was hoter in this movie or Little Women. It remains undecided to this day.
Outed yourself as a hoya, plumcake! I knew there was something (besides a love of fashion, snark, and hot men with non-us accents) I liked about you!
Yum. Gabriel Byrne. Yum things with Ritz Cracker toppings. Yum.
One of my favourite Gabriel Byrne films of all time. I love your phrase “Sweaty and Angsty Gabriel Byrne Hotness.” I think that more or less sums it all up perfectly.
Urban legend has it that Mad Handsome himself has never really seen this film all the way through because in real life he is a sensitive soul who doesn’t do the whole horror film thing too well.
The idea of which simply makes him all the more attractive in my mind ..!
I’m with Danielle. I also sat through End of Days for Gabriel Byrne.
Thank you for recognizing The Wicker Man as a cinematic masterpiece. And of course we are referring to the 1973 original with the delightful Chistopher Lee.
Re: End of Days. As I told my coworker, if Satan looked like Gabriel Byrne I would bear his spawn.
He lives near me. I don’t stalk him, but only because I has dignity.