The Church (1989)
A group of worshippers and a wedding party are trapped in a cathedral when the new librarian is possessed by the spirits of devil worshippers, massacred centuries before and buried beneath the building.
The Church is a stylish and often gruesome film with a confused narrative that often doesn't make sense but this kind of adds to the films charm. The film seems much influenced by it's producer and co-writer, Dario Argento, especially with it's inventively gory deaths, lavishly surreal set pieces and lashings of religious hokum, yet it is also these reasons that the film yields greater rewards with repeat viewings.
The imagery on offer is simply superb. The medieval witch hunt is downright nasty especially the burial of the bodies, not all who are dead i might add, under lime as the church foundations are laid. This of course is just the beginning. As the evil under the church is woken from it's sleep the film becomes a brilliant macabre classic. Naturally there's strong gore but the Gothic atmosphere offered up by Soavi is thick with foreboding. From captivating sequences such as the winged demon with a naked woman wrapped inside it's wings to the final set piece as the bodies rise from the grave as one in a seething, malignant alter of human sacrifice. Soavi defines modern Gothic horror to a tee.
Watching the film in HD via the Shameless blu last night was pretty awesome.
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