An Exercise In Nonsense

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

A church built on the site of a medieval massacre is being restored. The Teutonic Knights had killed all the villagers for mere suggestions of demonic spirits. New librarian Evan and Lisa uncover a piece of parchment. As Evan digs, he gets possessed by something buried underneath. Lotte is a young girl interested in their work with the catacombs. Her father Hermann also gets possessed. An ancient alarm is activated and the doors to the church are locked trapping a tour group of children and a wedding photo shoot.There are lots of interesting visual concepts. The plot is a mess. It meanders without tension. There is nothing scary about this horror but it is compelling visually. Someone should work out simple expositions to explain the story. I am willing to excuse some of it as translation problems.

"The Church" is a film that could have been much better. However, too often it took the cheap gore route instead of genuine terror. Additionally, some of the dialog is pretty stupid. When the film begins, the Knights Templar are beating up poor folks in the name of God when they discover one of their victims is a Devil worshiper. So, they do what anyone would do...kill everyone in the town and bury them all...including a few who might just still be alive. Then, they built a church over it. Centuries pass and now the demons are apparently ready to party. So, they come out and begin destroying and taking possession of folks in the church. Some of the deaths are interesting and fitting (such as the lady who is vain and needs to see herself in the mirror) but most are just cheap gore or nudity meant to titillate. And unlike earlier Dario Argento-produced films, the mood seems far less important than cheap thrills. Some of these problems might stem from the film having 8 writers...a sure sign that a production is in trouble. Regardless, it wasn't my cup of tea and lacked the subtlety of better horror films, such as "Suspiria".

I found out about THE CHURCH after hearing that Dario Argento also produced films for other directors so since I was new to Argento's work I started fishing around and came across THE CHURCH and found out about DEMONS 1 and 2 since it appears this film was an unofficial third installment to that series but to be honest I wasn't overly fond of THE CHURCH.Don't get me wrong Michele Soavi is an excellent director, the film as an undeniable atmosphere, the cinematography is just first class, the main thing I liked about it was the camera movements, I'm just a sucker for camera movements, my main problem with this film is the fact that it has such a lousy plot, I mean it has beautiful direction and camera work but the script really kills it, halfway through this film just becomes weird and suddenly there's no plot structure, you even lose track of whose supposed to be the lead character because the film becomes that confusing.The acting is okay but not really something to talk about although the film's dubbing can be a little distracting.Overall, the film excels in style and cinematography and the setting does have a real Gothic feel to it but it has a really lousy plot, I suppose I could call it a bad movie that's very stylishly made.

Church, The (1989) ** (out of 4) This Michele Soavi film was originally intended to be the third entry in the DEMONS series, which producer Dario Argento has started up with director Lamberto Bava. For whatever reason the title was changed but it's easy to see how this could be considered the third film. In this movie, we start off hundreds of years in the past when a group of Knights attack a village of Satan worshipers and bury them. Years later a church is built over them and it doesn't take long until their spirits come out of the ground and possess people who then go on a killing spree. THE CHURCH has been built up pretty highly in some crowds as I've read reviews calling it one of the best Italian horror films out there and I've even read a few reviews stating that this is far beyond anything Argento has ever done. I can't say I agree with any of those opinions and when the end credits started to role I couldn't help but feel disappointed because while there's some nice eye candy I can't get over the fact that this movie goes on way too long and not much ever really happens. I think the opening sequence showing the attack on the Satan worshipers was beautifully filmed and there was some nice atmosphere to go along with it. Sadly, everything that follows is pretty weak and a lot of the blame has to go towards the screenplay, which never comes together. I guess we can overlook the fact that the story makes absolutely no sense because to be fair very few of these type of Italian films ever made sense. The problem is that there's nothing to the screenplay and you just sit there for over an hour without anything happening. Director Soavi is able to build up some atmosphere and there's some nice cinematography but this doesn't cover up all the warts. The story goes absolutely nowhere and when it finally starts up you'll be too bored to care about anything going on. The final thirty-minutes has a group of people getting trapped inside the church as the demons begin to attack. Those expecting to see the gore of the DEMONS series are going to be really disappointed as there's not too much of the red stuff. The majority of the cast members are strictly by-the-numbers with the exception of Asia Argento who is quite impressive in her scenes. At over 100-minute it's fair to say that at least twenty-minutes should have been cut out. THE CHURCH might be respected in some circles but I found it to be an incredibly over hyped and boring affair.