Church, The (1989) (aka Demons 3; La chiesa)

7/10

"The Church" is a funky film written by Dario Argento and directed by Michele Soavi (also director of "Cemetery Man", aka "Dellamorte Dellamore"). I find calling this "Demons 3" a stretch as the first two 'Demon' movies are vastly different ii structure and tone. Yes there is a scratch and references from demons, but nothing like the first two films.

A young Asia Argento plays a young trouble maker by the name of Lotte, the daughter of Hermann the Sacristan. Tomas Arana ("Gladiator") plays the newly arrived librarian Evan. Barbara Cupist (Dellamorte Dellamore") plays Lisa, an art restoration expert. Throw in a bunch of priests (the head priest is a 'Jerk', and the youngest is 'Gus''), a bridal photo shoot, a school trip, and some assorted others. Let chaos reign.

A group that looks like the Templar knights invades a village looking for someone that is possessed, all on the words of someone who looks like a bum from New York City. They find a girl with a cross cut into her foot and crush her skull with one hand. Dang lack of shoes in the middle ages. Then they kill everyone else and throw them into a mass grave. When one of the 'corpses' kind of wiggles around, the Templars freak, bury everyone, put a huge seal in the shape of the cross on top, and built one big cathedral on top of the whole shebang.

We jump forward in time to when shoes are plentiful at the cathedral. We meet Lotte, Evan, Lisa, her dad, and the Jerk. Stuff happens for a while, including some workers that are jackhammering the foundation of the church for some reason. Possible plot point! Lisa finds some weird stuff, Evan finds some weird stuff. Lotte acts like a teenager. We get to meet Gus, who is pretty kick ass later on. People start having hallucinations and hearing things. And the cross with the seal is released, with the person scratching themself on it (bet you didn't see that coming!)

Fast forward to the big day when all the touristy, err dead meat, show up at the church. With half the movie left, half the people start flipping out (nice symmetry). Death by spiked gate, death by power tools, death by subway (?).

All the really fun stuff starts here. There is a nice dramatic scene between Jerk and Gus, as well as some strange demon sex. Many great scenes, besides the sex one that was just disturbing.

There is all kinds of violence. Head squishing, infant spearing, all that fun stuff. The gore is decent. The music is good, and the visuals are great. The film stock is well preserved or restored in the DVD version. The dialogue and sound FX levels vary a bit, but not too badly. The dialogue itself is stilted at times though the overall acting is OK. The plot seems straight forward for a while and then gets out of hand. Magical crosses, DaVinci level construction, the doom of earth? Really should have bought some shoes back then. It takes it time getting up to speed, but then it really takes off. Pacing and dialogue took off points.

While not really a 'Demon' movie, it does have a lot of demonic imagery. Definite rent for any Italian horror fan, and most likely a buy. A bit slow for a party view.