just watch it!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

"The Pyx" may indeed lose a bit of its effectiveness if one already knows one of the ultimate twists going in, but it's still a reasonably absorbing, if awfully slow moving, detective thriller with a touch of horror and a strong emphasis on Catholic guilt. It's a somewhat overlooked Canadian movie, filmed on location in Montreal, that derives most of its impact from the performances of its two Academy Award nominated stars. Canada's own Christopher Plummer is solid as Detective Sergeant Jim Henderson, investigating the death of prostitute Elizabeth Lucy, played by Karen Black. Both leads deliver touching performances as each of them struggle with their own inner demons. And they receive great support from some of the other actors, particularly Jean-Louis Roux as Keerson, Yvette Brind'amour as Meg the madam, and Terry Haig as Jimmy. The movie's most prominent aspect is the way it moves back and forth in time, following both Henderson as he works to solve the crime, and Elizabeth on her doom-laden path. This leads to moments that are interesting but might be disconcerting for some viewers, as characters are killed off in one scene and alive and well in the next. Director Harvey Hart, working from a screenplay by Robert Schlitt, based on the novel by John Buell, emphasizes mood and feel at all times, and it's commendable that he and cinematographer Rene Verzier would shoot this in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio and give it that sense of scope. It's worth noting, also, the level of talent that Black displays here, as she composes the songs heard and sings them beautifully as well. Even if the climax is spoiled for the viewer ahead of time, it's still nicely creepy, and leads to a pretty devastating ending confrontation where one character is able to see into another's soul. The producer is Julian Roffman, who 12 years previous had been director on a 3-D movie titled "The Mask" considered to be Canada's first horror movie. "The Pyx" (the title refers to a small round container used to carry the consecrated host to sick or invalid individuals or those otherwise unable to receive Holy Communion in a church) is good entertainment, overall, and definitely worthy of a look. Seven out of 10.

Tough, cynical lapsed Catholic police detective Jim Henderson (a typically superb Christopher Plummer) investigates the mysterious death of forlorn heroin addict prostitute Elizabeth Lucy (a fine and heartbreaking performance by the divine Karen Black, who also sings a few hauntingly melancholy songs on the soundtrack). Henderson uncovers a nefarious Satanic cult and experiences a downward spiritual spiral similar to the one which led Lucy to her grim and untimely end. Strongly directed by Harvey Hart, crisply shot in sumptuous widescreen by Rene Verzier, elegantly scored to shivery perfection by Harry Freedman, and well acted by a stellar cast (Jean-Louis Roux is especially impressive as the evil sect's suavely sinister leader), with a chilly and depressing tone, an intriguing, if somewhat muddled script by Robert Schlitt, plenty of spooky, uneasy and unnerving atmosphere, an interesting and imaginative back-and-forth nonlinear narrative structure, gritty Montreal locations, and a truly shocking zinger of a bummer ending, this engrossingly gloomy horror mystery thriller delivers a quite potent and lingering punch while provocatively exploring with unflinching severity the dire consequences beget by falling markedly short of one's religious principles.

I picked this up in a cheap DVD bin. I immediately recognized as 1 of 2 movies that I saw when I was a starving (pretty much literally) student living away from home for the first time, in 1973, and couldn't resist picking it up and giving it a look, that many years later.As other reviewers have noted, the promotion for the movie is pretty, ahem, imaginative. There's not a lot of sex (hardly any, actually), very little nudity, any reference to homosexuality is passing and irrelevant, there is no horror other than the horror of murder and violent death by knife and gun (we need more???), and it is not oriented towards the supernatural beyond the fact that the villains dabble in black masses -- there are no otherworldly events, no actual contact with the devil a la Rosemary's Baby or Devil's Advocate.So it's really a detective story. The device of tracking parallel time-lines does add some suspense and tension (exactly what did happen to this girl, and will the detective crack the case); however, I found that the tension peaked somewhere around mid-movie, and the trip to the end more or less plodded to anti-climatic conclusions to both time-lines.Unrealistic (as I imagine them) scenes certainly contributed to that plodding effect. At one point, amidst wild gunfire, a uniformed policeman tells the arriving detective, "he's up there and he's got one of our men as hostage", and then resumes shooting in the general direction. Uh, yea.Now, there are unexpected pleasures to be wrought from watching obscure movies now and then, and while I generally am pretty resistant to the 'oh wow, I've been there' effect, I did find the 1972 vintage shots of 'Place Jacques Cartier' and 'Rue St. Paul Est', well before the resurrection of the area as "Old Montreal' to be such a surprise.

Actually a fairly decent movie, delving into the morality issue of Canadian prostitutes hooked on heroin. All kidding aside this is a fairly well acted movie, with a good plot for a movie with a cult reputation. However there are some fairly significant problems that may drive me away from watching it again. First it is SLOW. Benefit - it isn't hard to keep jumping between real time and flashbacks. Problem - you kept wanting something to happen to speed this thing up - you felt every second tick away.Second - my copy at least gave me a migraine trying to keep it in focus. Shots were swimming, blurry, and over all distracting from plot. I actually cleaned my glasses a couple of times really trying not to blame the movie.Finally this film is another gun in my arsenal with very few exceptions, singers should not act, actors should not sing. I am sure Karen is a mighty fine vocalist, and it did give a haunting feel to the movie singing bible verses, but my ears were bleeding halfway through the movie. I did enjoy the chipmunk version of the chanting monks towards the end of the movie though.The jury is still out whether the story is enough better than the technical qualities of the movie for me to watch this again. Probably will just buy the book.