I saw segments of The Church on Bravo when I was 13 and thought it looked super scary. Flash forward far too many years later to the burned-out, cynical, grump that I am now and I realize that whatever dread this movie might have made me feel isn't going to work on my overly analytical adult mind.
Opening in the dark ages, a bunch of knights massacre a village accused of devil worship (turns out they really were, I think). A church is built on the spot, which many centuries later becomes a cathedral in Hungary, or Germany, or something. They're not too specific about the location. Now we're introduced to a large cast of characters, including a young, pre-tattoo Asia Argento, all of whom, apparently, have their own storylines which go nowhere. It's crazy to think that a total of eight writers teamed together to create this nothingburger. None of the main components of the story build to a climax or even fit together. It's like we're watching vignettes of different movies edited together.
As expected, the "big evil" underneath the church is unleashed and crazy stuff happens, I think, to the poor people stuck inside. But even with this thin concept it cannot stay consistent. Some guy goes mental and literally jackhammers himself to death through the chest. The dude from Holby City (no joke) finds him and flips out. No one is surviving a chest jackhammering any time soon. Ten minutes later, said jackhammered dude is alive again, chest intact, and stabs a pretty schoolteacher though the neck with a section of broken spiked fencing. He disappears again, and a few minutes later the kids are happy and joyful.
Wh...what???
No one involved knew where any of this was going or what do to with the concept. Everything is squandered under their "let's just go with it and see what happens" logic. I can imagine the editor looking at the dailies and having an aneurysm. It's not his fault none of this makes sense.
Although directed by Michel Soavi, this has Dario Argento's dirty fingerprints all over it. I'm just not a fan of the man's work at all. I know that Giallo is very special to a lot of film fans, but there's much better examples of the genre out there and The Church came in at the tail end of its life and is such a lazy, careless effort to go out on.
Opening in the dark ages, a bunch of knights massacre a village accused of devil worship (turns out they really were, I think). A church is built on the spot, which many centuries later becomes a cathedral in Hungary, or Germany, or something. They're not too specific about the location. Now we're introduced to a large cast of characters, including a young, pre-tattoo Asia Argento, all of whom, apparently, have their own storylines which go nowhere. It's crazy to think that a total of eight writers teamed together to create this nothingburger. None of the main components of the story build to a climax or even fit together. It's like we're watching vignettes of different movies edited together.
As expected, the "big evil" underneath the church is unleashed and crazy stuff happens, I think, to the poor people stuck inside. But even with this thin concept it cannot stay consistent. Some guy goes mental and literally jackhammers himself to death through the chest. The dude from Holby City (no joke) finds him and flips out. No one is surviving a chest jackhammering any time soon. Ten minutes later, said jackhammered dude is alive again, chest intact, and stabs a pretty schoolteacher though the neck with a section of broken spiked fencing. He disappears again, and a few minutes later the kids are happy and joyful.
Wh...what???
No one involved knew where any of this was going or what do to with the concept. Everything is squandered under their "let's just go with it and see what happens" logic. I can imagine the editor looking at the dailies and having an aneurysm. It's not his fault none of this makes sense.
Although directed by Michel Soavi, this has Dario Argento's dirty fingerprints all over it. I'm just not a fan of the man's work at all. I know that Giallo is very special to a lot of film fans, but there's much better examples of the genre out there and The Church came in at the tail end of its life and is such a lazy, careless effort to go out on.