The film involves a church built upon the site of slain peasants and their mass grave. The church is designed by an architect who was buired alive with his creation, who created a device to seal off all entranced if the spirits of the church ever tried to get revenge. In the modern day, the cathedral's new librarian Evan investigates the crypt of the church and removes a seal which allows the demonic forces to attack the church occupants.
The Church was originally conceived as the third installment in the Dèmoni series, following Demons (1985) and Demons 2 (1986). Soavi insisted the film to be distant from the series, wanting it to be more sophisticated in style, and re-wrote the screenplay to remove any connection to the series. Filming was primarily shot in the Matthias Church in Budapest, with additional footage filmed at studio sets in Rome.
Plot
In medieval Germany, a band of Teutonic Knights massacre a village of supposed devil-worshippers and bury their bodies underground, building a Gothic cathedral over the mass grave as a means to contain the demonic evil within.
In the present day, the cathedral's new librarian Evan arrives for his first day on the job. He meets Lisa, an artist supervising a restoration of the church's elaborate frescoes, who introduces him to the surly Bishop and the kindly Father Gus. The Bishop warns Evan not to enter the church's catacombs, nominally due to their instability.
Lisa soon discovers a mysterious parchment carrying what resemble architectural schematics. With the help of Evan, they sneak the parchment back to Lisa's home. As the two bond over their mutual interest in medieval art and architecture, they have sex. It is halted when Evan has a sudden realization and finds hidden Latin text on the parchment referring to a "stone with seven eyes".
Evan later explores the catacombs to find the stone. Evan uncovers the stone in a hidden crypt; on opening it, the crypt reveals a vast, seemingly endless black void. A blue light radiates from the hole and reveals a sack. On opening it, Evan is grabbed by hands from the inside before he blacks out. When he regains consciousness, the sack and hands are gone, and his wrists are bleeding. As Evan flees a sacristan who is investigating for intruders, Evan flees, loses control of his hands, and tears out his still-beating heart and bites into it. At home, Lisa experiences dreams of the unsealed hole and a vast, candle-filled atrium. When awake, she is attacked by a goat-headed demon and flees in terror. Returning home, the sacristan begins experiencing the same symptoms as Evan.
The next day, Lisa goes to Evan's office, where he is acting strangely. He tries to sexually assault her and she flees, shocked and horrified. Evan likewise menaces the sacristan's daughter Lotte, with whom he'd previously been amiable. Evan and the sacristan both become increasingly disheveled and violent. Lotte flees her apartment. Having a moment of clarity, the sacristan rushes to the confession booth, and tells Father Gus that he has become demonically possessed and fears losing control. To Gus' horror, he rushes to the cellar and kills himself with a jackhammer. His death triggers security mechanisms that cause the church to seal shut, trapping everyone inside. The occupants begin experiencing increasingly elaborate and deadly visions. As the occupants try to find a way out, Gus confronts the aloof Bishop, who reveals that he intends to let the evil inside kill the occupants before being unleashed on what he sees as a corrupt world, before accidentally falling to his death.
Those inside start dying in droves. At a nightclub in town, Lotte senses something wrong and rushes to the church, through a secret passage in the aqueduct. Meanwhile, Lisa enters into a trance and wanders into the cellar, finding herself in the same candlelit atrium of her dreams. She lies atop an altar and is raped by Evan, who is now fully transformed into a goat-headed demon.
Searching the Bishop's office, Gus finds the ancient records recounting the church's creation. Lotte enters, and upon sees someone who resembles her in a woodcut depicting the massacre. Suddenly flooded with memories from centuries prior, she reveals that the church's architect was left to die in the church, and that his body contains a self-destruct mechanism for the building. Gus tells Lotte to flee, and he makes his way to the chapel hall as the dead bodies of the massacre victims buried beneath the church slowly begin to rise. Before the evil force can be fully set free, Gus finds the architect's mummified body hidden beneath the floor, and activates the self-destruct mechanism. The building collapses, only Lotte escapes alive.
Lotte later returns the church ruins with flowers. A passing truck uncovers the stone seal and blows it open, which emits blue light emits from within, leaving her smiling enigmatically.
The Church was partially shot at Matthias Church in Budapest.
In an interview conducted on January 22, 1988, directors Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento were discussing a follow-up to Demons 2 stating that they were working on a follow-up film, with Argento stating it would not be called Demons 3, but potentially Ritorno alla casa dei demoni (transl.Return to the House of the Demons).[2] The third Demons film, whose story was developed by Franco Ferrini and Dardano Sacchetti, involves a group of passengers that find themselves on a volcanic island after their airplane is forced to make an emergency landing.[2] Sacchetti explained that the situation was for them to arrive in a "weird hell" and compared the film to Alien, but with the isolated place being an airplane opposed to a spaceship and the demons replacing the aliens.[2] After developing several drafts, the writers abandoned the story with Sacchetti stating that they had trouble creating a story set in an isolated area of the airplane.[2] The screenwriters eventually developed a new screenplay set in a church which acted as a passage into hell.[2] Argento would later state that The Church "was never Demons 3, nobody but Lamberto ever wanted to make Demons 3; I didn't want it, the studio didn't want it, nobody wanted it."[4]
The decision of re-starting the screenplay from the beginning led to Bava leaving the project as he began working on a set of television films in October 1988.[5] This led to director Michele Soavi to enter production as the director, right after he had completed his film Stage Fright.[5] Soavi was surprised at Bava leaving the project, stating "I couldn't be he had worked on it for so long and didn't want to complete the project."[4] Soavi made some changes to the script, including a new opening scene influenced by John Milius' film Conan the Barbarian.[5] Soavi declared that he "loved the first part, but in the middle it was a little silly, so I got together with Franco Ferrini and worked on it to make it stronger."[4] Shooting of the film took place from September to November 1988 with a budget of three and a half million dollars.[5]
On finding the appropriate church for the film, Argento stated they looked throughout Europe: Italy, France, Germany and Switzerland and found that nobody wanted them to shoot in their church due to the nature of the film.[4] Finding it easier to shoot in Eastern Europe, the crew explored Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria eventually settling on a Church in Hungary.[4][6] The film was shot at Matthias Church in Budapest and at both R.P.A. Elios Studios and De Paolis In.Ci.R. studios in Rome.[1][2][5] Soavi described his filming experience as exhausting, noting that he "was free, and I could do what I wanted... but I also suffered a lot because of the difficulties, the vicissitudes, the delays."[5]
While preparing for the film, Argento learned that Keith Emerson would be interested in writing the score, having worked with him previously on Inferno.[7] He received his twelve-track demo which Argento did not like: "They were terrible. Not even a child would have written music like that. A sort of bombastic march, it sound like the Carabinieri fanfare."[7] Only three tracks by Emerson were used in the film: an organ-driven main title theme, a track titled "Possession" and a rearranged version of Bach's Prelude 24.[7] For the rest of the score, Soavi inserted two tracks by Philip Glass and relied on Fabio Pignatelli who is credited as Goblin.[7]
Soavi has derisively referred to them as "PizzaSchlock", and expressed that he wanted The Church to be more sophisticated. In an interview with Cinefantastique, Soavi explained that he wished to move beyond with his creations following the film's release, and because of that he parted ways with Argento, ending their long-time creative partnership.[8]
Release
The Church was distributed theatrically in Italy by Cecchi Gori in Italy on 10 March 1989.[2] The film grossed a total of 1,926,277,000 Italian lire domestically.[2] The film was the 36th top grossing film in Italy that year with Italian film historian and critic stating its gross diminished as the film rating board gave the film a F.M.18 certificate for "the many, particularly violent and shocking scenes which are considered unsuitable for the sensitivity of the spectators in developmental age."[9] In comparison, the biggest film of the year in Italy was Roberto Benigni's Il piccolo diavolo which grossed 17 billion Italian lire.[9] One year later, the film commission overturned the previous ruling and considered the films "violent and shocking scenes" as "...not particularly and intensely underlined within the general context of the film" and changed the rating to V.M.14.[9]
The film was released in the United States on August 22, 1990 where it was distributed by TriStar Pictures.[2]
Critical response
In a contemporary review, Variety referred to the film as a "technically proficient but empty horror exercise", praising the score by Goblin.[10]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, it holds an approval rating of 64% based on 11 reviews.[11] Jason Buchanan of AllMovie gave the film a three star out of five rating, referring to it as a "gothic-drenched apocalyptic nightmare" that builds "a suffocating sense of quiet dread".[12]
Dario Argento is an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. His influential work in the horror and giallo genres during the 1970s and 1980s has led him to being referred to as the "Master of the Thrill" and the "Master of Horror".
Mario Bava was an Italian filmmaker who worked variously as a director, cinematographer, special effects artist and screenwriter. His low-budget genre films, known for their distinctive visual flair and stylish technical ingenuity, feature recurring themes and imagery concerning the conflict between illusion and reality, as well as the destructive capacity of human nature. Widely regarded as a pioneer of Italian genre cinema and one of the most influential auteurs of the horror film genre, he is popularly referred to as the "Master of Italian Horror" and the "Master of the Macabre".
Lamberto Bava is an Italian film director. Born in Rome, Bava began working as an assistant director for his director father Mario Bava. Lamberto co-directed the 1979 television film La Venere d'Ille with his father and in 1980 directed his first solo feature film Macabre.
Cemetery Man is a 1994 comedy horror film directed by Michele Soavi and starring Rupert Everett, François Hadji-Lazaro and Anna Falchi. It was produced by Tilde Corsi, Gianni Romoli and Soavi and based on the novel Dellamorte Dellamore by Tiziano Sclavi. Everett plays a beleaguered caretaker of a small Italian cemetery, who searches for love while defending himself from dead people who keep rising again. It is an international co-production between Italy, France, and Germany.
Demons is a 1985 Italian horror film directed by Lamberto Bava, produced and co-written by Dario Argento, and starring Urbano Barberini and Natasha Hovey. The plot follows two female university students who, along with a number of random people, are given complimentary tickets to a mysterious movie screening, where they soon find themselves trapped in the theater with a horde of ravenous demons.
Michele Soavi, sometimes known as Michael Soavi is an Italian filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter best known for his work in the horror film genre, working alongside directors like Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci.
Stage Fright is a 1987 Italian slasher film directed by Michael Soavi, and starring Barbara Cupisti, David Brandon, and Giovanni Lombardo Radice. The plot involves a group of stage actors and crew who lock themselves inside a theater for rehearsal of a musical production, unaware that an escaped mental patient is locked inside with them.
Dardano Sacchetti is an Italian screenwriter who often worked with Italian directors Lamberto Bava and Lucio Fulci.
The Cat o' Nine Tails is a 1971 English-language Italian film directed by Dario Argento, adapted from a story by Dardano Sacchetti, Luigi Cozzi, and an uncredited Bryan Edgar Wallace. It stars Karl Malden, James Franciscus, and Catherine Spaak.
Inferno is a 1980 Italian supernatural horror film written and directed by Dario Argento, and starring Irene Miracle, Leigh McCloskey, Eleonora Giorgi, Daria Nicolodi and Alida Valli. The plot follows a young man's investigation into the disappearance of his sister, who had been living in a New York City apartment building that also served as a home for a powerful, centuries-old witch. The cinematography was by Romano Albani, and Keith Emerson composed the film's musical score.
Demons 2 is a 1986 Italian horror film directed by Lamberto Bava and produced by Dario Argento. It is a sequel to Bava's 1985 film Demons and stars David Knight, Nancy Brilli, Coralina Cataldi Tassoni, as well as Argento's youngest daughter, Asia Argento, in her debut film performance at age 10. In the film, demons invade the real world through a television broadcast, turning the residents of an apartment building into bloodthirsty monsters.
Opera is a 1987 Italian giallo directed and co-written by Dario Argento and starring Cristina Marsillach, Urbano Barberini, Daria Nicolodi, and Ian Charleson. The film's plot focuses on a young soprano (Marsillach) who becomes involved in a series of murders being committed inside an opera house by a masked assailant. The film features music composed and performed by Brian Eno, Claudio Simonetti, and Bill Wyman.
Noite Maldita - Demoni 3 is a 1991 Italian horror film directed by Umberto Lenzi. It was written by Lenzi and his wife Olga Pehar, and the zombie makeup fx were handled by Franco Casagni. Lenzi said in later interviews that this was one of his favorite films, but he felt it was ruined by the low budget.
Spaghetti Nightmares is a reference book on Italian horror films by Luca M. Palmerini and Gaetano Mistretta. The book consists mainly of interviews with major genre icons. The book was published in 1996.
Until Death is a 1988 Italian made-for-TV horror film directed by Lamberto Bava.
Killing Birds is a 1988 Italian horror film starring Lara Wendel and Robert Vaughn. The film is set in Louisiana where Fred Brown returns from the Vietnam War to find his wife in bed with her lover and slaughters the whole family sparing the newborn son. After the massacre, he is attacked and blinded by a falcon. Twenty years later a group of students led by Steve and Anne meet Brown, and begin their search for a nearly extinct breed of woodpecker and come across grisly occurrences including boys being killed by vengeful zombies.
The Devil's Daughter a.k.a. The Sect is a 1991 Italian horror film co-written and produced by Dario Argento, directed by Michele Soavi, and starring Kelly Curtis and Herbert Lom. It follows an American schoolteacher living in Frankfurt who finds herself at the center of a plot devised by a Luciferian cult.
Dinner with a Vampire is a 1989 Italian television horror film directed by Lamberto Bava and written by Dardano Sacchetti. It was among four films made for the Italian television series Brivido Giallo.
The Ogre is a 1989 Italian television horror film directed by Lamberto Bava and written by Dardano Sacchetti. It was among four films made for the Italian television series Brivido Giallo. The film released outside of Italy as Demons III: The Ogre, where it was promoted as a sequel to Bava's films Demons and Demons 2.
Sergio Stivaletti is an Italian special effects artist, make-up artist, director and screenwriter.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
