The Church

Movie Information

In Brief: Michele Soavi's 1989 film was originally intended to be part of producer/co-writer Dario Argento's loosely connected Demons movies, and while it retains elements of those films — especially trapping the cast in a single location and contagious possessions — it is mostly its own beast. And a very curious beast it is. Like most Italian horror, it doesn't make a lot of sense, nor does it try to. It's mostly a collection of fairly grisly horror scenes hooked together by a slim plot concerning the awakening of demons imprisoned beneath the foundations of an old church. Visually, the film is very striking, and it manages to build a strong sense of dread, but viewers expecting a film on a par with Soavi's Cemetery Man (1994) may be disappointed.
Score:

Genre: Horror
Director: Michele Soavi (Cemetery Man)
Starring: Hugh Quarshie, Tomas Arana, Feodor Chaliapin Jr., Barbara Cupisiti, Asia Argento
Rated: NR

It would, I think, be impossible to make the case that Michele Soavi’s The Church (1989) is a good movie. An interesting one — occasionally even fascinating — yes. A sometimes creepy one, yes. A beautifully photographed one with some amazing traveling shots, oh my, yes. An unintentionally amusing one, yes. But actually good, probably not. In the first place, it’s not just that it’s on the incoherent side — name me anything that involves Soavi’s mentor, Dario Argento, that isn’t largely incoherent. (No, don’t try it, you might hurt yourself.) It’s more that The Church has a premise that makes no sense. The film opens with a pretty clunky period episode in which a bunch of quasi-Templar Knights kill off an entire village of supposed pagans at the behest of their religious-fanatic masters. These folks are then dumped into a mass grave. which becomes the foundation for the church of the title. OK, fine, but this prologue presents the pagans as the innocent victims, so why does the bulk of the film concern them being awakened and coming forth to engage in all kinds of Satanic demon stuff? Beats me. And it apparently beat the seven guys who had hands in writing the movie. Since it’s Italian horror, I guess it only matters that they do. That the film was originally supposed to be Demons 3 probably explains much — and it’s at least better than those Demons movies.

The bulk of the film details what happens when a money-hungry librarian (Tomas Arana) gets a bee in his bonnet that there’s some kind of treasure hidden in the church. Well, wouldn’t you know it? Instead of a treasure he finds the old mass grave — and in a really impressive sequence, he manages to get scratched by a demon. Well, seems even the tiniest scratch is the fast track to possession, so soon he’s having a fit in a phone booth while trying to call his sort-of girlfriend (Barbara Cupisti). The moans he comes up with disturb her no end — as well they might. Afterward, for apparently no reason, he pulls his heart out of his chest and looks at it. This seems to damage him not at all, since he quickly shows up — now sporting what looks like a demented version of the donkey head from a peculiar production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream — at the girlfriend’s house for a spot of mayhem that never comes off, since she jumps out (or rather through) the window and is rescued by the cops.

This is pretty much what the whole film is like, but the ante is upped once everyone gets trapped in the church for the big climax. The antics here include impalement with a jackhammer, impalement with a wrought-iron fence, inconclusive (but apparently murderous) boy-on-boy action, a bell being rung with a severed head, a bit of “comic relief” in which someone gets splattered by an oncoming subway (it runs under the church) and demonic conjugal hijinks. (A more obvious Rosemary’s Baby “borrowing” could scarcely be conceived — if you’ll pardon the term.) It turns out that nothing less than the Fate of the World is in the balance here. Yeah, it’s pretty silly … and yet the film induces a lingering unease that’s hard to shake. I lay this at the film’s fairly nasty tone and some of the more disturbing images — like the writhing mountain of muddy naked bodies that rises up through the floor. Put it this way — I wouldn’t want to see it too often. That may or may not be a recommendation.

The Thursday Horror Picture Show will screen The Church Thursday, July 11, at 8 p.m. in the Cinema Lounge of The Carolina Asheville and will be hosted by Xpress movie critics Ken Hanke and Justin Souther.

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About Ken Hanke
Head film critic for Mountain Xpress from December 2000 until his death in June 2016. Author of books "Ken Russell's Films," "Charlie Chan at the Movies," "A Critical Guide to Horror Film Series," "Tim Burton: An Unauthorized Biography of the Filmmaker."

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