Dahlia Gillespie is the sister of Christabella and the mother of Alessa Gillespie. Her character is portrayed by Deborah Kara Unger.StorylineSometime during the mid-sixties, Dahlia gave birth to an illegitimate child, a girl named Alessa. Alessa is immediately deemed a child of sin by the people of the town who frown on out-of-wedlock births. A particularly vocal condemner of this is Dahlia's sister, Christabella.When Alessa is nine years old she is raped or molested by her school janitor. Dahlia is called to the school to take Alessa home, where Christabella convinces her that Alessa must be purified. Being a woman of weak spirit, Dahlia gives in and takes her child to the church that night. Once at the church Dahlia learns that Christabella is planning to do terrible things to Alessa and she is forced by the cult members to stay in the hallway as Alessa is dragged away by Christabella. Realizing her mistake, Dahlia runs to get the police. When she returns to the church, it's discovered that it caught fire at some point and everyone has fled. Dahlia and the police find Alessa shackled to a large seal, burned alive by the cultists.Dahlia ends up in Alessa's alternate realms being forced to face up to horrific monsters, but always being protected by her child. She is outcast by the other church members who also reside in the alternate dimension and lives alone over a tailor shop.When Sharon DaSilva and her mother, Rose DaSilva, arrive in the town Sharon is taken at some point to Dahlia's apartment for safe-keeping. Dahlia meets up with Rose a few times during the events of the movie, but never tells her that she has her child in her apartment. Whether Dahlia knew that it was Sharon lying in her bed at that point is unknown. Regardless, Dahlia physically attempts to defend Sharon from the cultists when they come looking for her, but she once again fails. She and Sharon are taken to the church.In the church Dahlia fights for Sharon to be kept alive but she is verbally rejected by Christabella and eventually knocked unconscious by a female cultist. Dahlia doesn't awaken again until Alessa's presence begins to invade the church, bringing the dark world in to meet the cultists. Once Alessa rises into the church Dahlia becomes frightened and attempts to hide, but she ends up confronting Alessa, asking, Alessa, what have you become? Even as Alessa mauls the other members of the church, Dahlia is kept alive by the child she failed to protect.After the slaughter has ended and the foggy world is reinstated, Dahlia sits on the church steps and cries. She doesn't understand why Alessa didn't kill her along with all the others but Rose explains to her, Because you're her mother. Mother is god in the eyes of a child. Dahlia then recognizes that Alessa has been reborn and watches as her child leaves with a new mother. Show less «