A unscrupulous librarian discovers a secret buried beneath a cathedral that might open the gates of Hell
This 1989 flick stars Hugh Quarshie, Tomas Arana, and Feodor Chaliapin Jr. It was written by Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini, and its Director Michele Soavi
Get this.
In October I watched watched Demons and Demons 2 back to back in preparation to watch this film. What inspired this was a entry found in IMDb, stating:
Though it was originally conceived as another entry in the popular Demons series, director Michele Soavi insisted that the film stand alone and not be connected with the films Demons (1985)or Demons 2 (1986) . In an interview Soavi referred to the Demons films as ‘pizza schlock’ and wanted La Chiesa to be more sophisticated.
IMDb
An interesting idea, right? Watch the film, see how it changed from sequel to its own beast. Seemed like the perfect plan.
Only I went off to do more research on this flick for some reason and found the following statement in Wikipedia:
[Producer Dario] Argento would later state that The Church “was never Demons 3, nobody but [Demons/Demons 2 Director] Lamberto [Bava] ever wanted to make Demons 3; I didn’t want it, the studio didn’t want it, nobody wanted it”.
Wikipedia entry of The Church.
It should be noted here that The Church is, nevertheless, title Demons 3 in some places. Apparently somebody wanted a movie by that name.
Anyway, not a sequel. Still, it’s a reaction to the previous film series, and I’m going to compare the three. Because I was doing it while watching the film and because it amuses me. Hopefully the reader gets something out of it, too. That’s the real point here, right?
To give a small degree of background, here’s the very basics of the movie.
The Church begins hundreds of years earlier when a group of knights kill off an entire village worth of witches. Or maybe not. Maybe its a few questionables and the rest are innocents. The film’s a bit coy on the matter.
Move to more modern times, we find a huge cathedral had been build upon the grounds. It’s going under renovation, and in the process a unscrupulous librarian discovers a secret buried beneath the building. He thinks it might make him famous, or a God. In truth, the reverse is true. He becomes possessed and soon working about bringing Hell to Earth.
No matter what Argento says, from what I read The Church hews close to the Demons series. You can see some of the Demons series’ DNA in the plot. Towards the end people get trapped in the cathedral, they start becoming possessed by demons, and various characters ending up in horrific situations.
On the whole, it’s a more serious affair. Somber, moody, it has a nice thrill to it’s run time. Arguably it’s better shot than either Demons movie.
It’s also more incoherent, especially towards the end. There’s a certain sense that they ran out of money before the movie was finished, though in fairness the Demons we see are impressive for the time.
I think that, despite the flaws, The Church bests both Demons movies. Sophisticated or not, it’s not pizza schlock.
Which is probably why I don’t like it as much as the Demons movies.
There’s a certain charm missing from the flick. It’s probably the absence of Bava in the Director’s chair. It also doesn’t have the usual suspects in the writers’ booth. Unlike the Demons movies, there’s no singular protagonist to pull for. Everything works, it does its job, but it isn’t, I dunno, boss.
All three movies are favorites of mine. I get the urge to watch them from time to time. I even own copies of all of them. But there are only two of them I could just sit down and watch on a moment’s notice and The Church isn’t one of them.
(Fairness to this flick, it beats a lot of Italian Horror when not considering Demons. Don’t want to come across too negative.)
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