Sanctuaire

In the Middle Ages, the Knights Templar invade a supposed coven of witches and they slaughter the community. The dig an unholy collective grave, bury the bodies and build a church on the top of the corpses.

On the present days, the ambitious librarian Evan (Tomas Arana) is hired to organize the books of the church. He meets the archaeologist Lisa (Barbara Cupisti) that is researching the catacombs of the church and he accidentally unleashes and is possessed by an ancient demon. Sooner several visitors are trapped inside the church and possessed by demons. Father Gus (Hugh Quarshie) and the teenager Lotte (Asia Argento) are the only persons that are not possessed, and Father Gus discovers a secret in the construction of the church that might be the last chance to save mankind.

"La Chiesa" is a great Gothic horror film with story of Dario Argento and his daughter Asia Argento in an important role. The plot is a prequel to Demons 1 and 2, and I saw this film for the first time on 17 February 2012 and today I have decided to watch it again. Unfortunately this film has not been released on DVD or Blu-Ray in Brazil and the image of the VHS awfully dubbed in English is poor and does not highlight the magnificent cinematography or the creepy special effects. The soundtrack has the music of Keith Emerson, Goblin and Philip Glass and completes this great film of demons. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Catedral" ("The Cathedral")

Note: On 22 Jn 2017, I saw this film again on DVD, unfortunately dubbed in English.

Trust a Dario Argento presentation to bring us a weird movie. I must admit I'm not a big Argento fan, but I did enjoy 'The Church', directed by Michele Soavi.

The film reminded me of 'Demons' and 'Demons 2', especially. On investigation - as it turns out - 'The Church' was meant to be 'Demons 3', but they decided to make it more "sophisticated" and remove the connection to the previous two films. Regardless, it still felt like a 'Demons' movie.

Centuries ago an entire village was massacred because a girl was accused of being a witch. (Well done to the Church; that's so Godly!). The villagers were buried in a large grave, over which a church was erected "to imprison the demon forever".

We then move to recent times and the magnificent church, which now attracts tourists. A Librarian, Evan, starts working at the church where he meets and falls in love with Lotte (Asia Argento). Their romance moves along quickly, and together they start to unravel the secret of the church.

Strange things start happening in true Argento style, and a group of people gets trapped inside the church. (In 'Demons' people were trapped in a movie theatre; in 'Demons 2' people were trapped in an apartment building). The make-up, props and creature designs are fantastic. There are some gory and disturbing scenes. I actually enjoyed the film more towards the end, as complete chaos ensued, with great practical effects. Parts of the movie also reminded me of 'The Beyond' from 1981.

Would I watch it again? Maybe.

I am such a huge fan of Michele Soavi. I absolutely adore Stagefright, the best slasher ever. Dellamorte Dellamore is quite simply a Gothic masterpiece, a near perfect zombie film with a philosophical overtone to it. I also thought The Sect was a quite effective nerve-jolter filled with incredible surreal images and solid scares. So I was disappointed after viewing The Church, I had such high hopes.

It starts of well enough. Medieval knights massacre a village they fear is possessed by demonic spirits and the priest orders that a church should be built on their buriel ground. Fastforward to the present, something weird is going on in that church; some evil seems to be lurking about and possessing people. A showdown between good and evil is unavoidable.

The film has style to burn. Michele Soavi is a master at creating surreal imagery and his camera knows no limits. This is the film's high point along with some terrific set pieces, one in particular involving a subway and a teenage girl. Another thing I must mention in the film's favour; the music score. It's always wonderful to hear Goblin and Keith Emerson also provides some good music. But good music is simply something you can always count on in these Italian productions.

The thing that doesn't work here, and it's a big thing, is the plot. It's practically nonexistent. The film doesn't make any sense, jumps from one setpiece to another (though some are brilliantly executed), with only so little to tie them together. It's got wooden characters, none you really care about (Tomas Arana in particular). The final showdown in the Church, although well done in terms of effects, is a real letdown, nothing much happens and in the end, well...I felt cheated in a big way.

As it was originally conceived of as the second sequel in the Demons saga, I expected this to be full of violence. It's not, apart from the rather gory opening. I guess Soavi wanted to do a more serious film, with some philosophical input or something. He should have had a better script to work with.

Although it's disappointing, it's certainly not without interest.

"La Chiesa"/"The Church" is a great Gothic horror film made by Michele Soavi with wild usage of camera,very hypnotic Goblin soundtrack and overall creepy atmosphere.The film was written and produced by Dario Argento,so fans of Italian horror won't be disappointed.It starts out with incredible scene of massacre,where a crusading army kills all inhabitants of a small village.There is plenty of violence and the photography is absolutely stunning.Soavi uses the camera tricks only hinted at in his wonderful "Deliria"(1987).There are several amazing camera shots and the lighting is excellent.The film is visually striking and the gore effects are quite good.The sequences involving secret machinery built into the structure of the cathedral are especially well executed.A must-see for fans of Italian horror!

Taking many aspects from other films the church builds a solid film with a decent plot and cinematography and it didn't disappoint overall. However, whilst the plot is good on paper halfway through it loses tension and steam and I found the ending to be a bit of a let-down, although not awful.

Acting wise I'm sure it was good but I watched the dubbed version in English, and the dubbing was quite frankly terrible. I think the girl (Lottie) was dubbed by an older woman which was a bit weird I found.

Scares wise I found it impressive, it included great practical effects and lots of hammy gore. Surprisingly it was meant to be a completely serious film but I still feel like a lot of it is played off as tongue in cheek.

6/10: Good overall and definitely worth a watch for horror fans but there are a lot of issues that I feel drag it down such as the loss of tension in the second half and poor dub work