The Church

I think Michele Soavi’s The Church is the perfect kind of Italian Saturday night horror oddity. I caught it again on Turner Classic Movie’s TCM Underground, rather surprised by it being featured on the channel (I don’t know, though: a few weeks ago, the channel showed Fulci’s House by the Cemetery, so I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that The Church made the cut). It has garnered a cult following if just for its strange plotting after a rather straight-forward start. The Knights Teutonic hunt down “witches and servants of the devil” and kill them. This film follows such a massacre, with the knights (following a priest who helps them discover a cavernous lair when the witch camp live, showing one of the knights the “sign of the worship”, a crucifix mark on the bottom of a witch’s foot) slaying all the witches in camp, digging up a large hole to bury them all. Then the knights initiate the creation of a church to be built over the large burial dump in order to hold their evil in containment.

Tomas Aranas is a librarian who encounters evil he’s unprepared for when he looks for treasure in the basement of a church who commissioned him to organize their books. He becomes romantically involved with a woman studying the history of the church, played by Barbara Cupisiti, who finds a parchment with writing that guides him to the chamber which has a crucifix of stone that works as a type of covering (it has a multi-eyed demon head of stone which, which loosened, sets off the crucifix and releases the evil from the burial spot of the witches, turned on any innocent who might happen to be in the church building). Aranas becomes possessed, as does a marriage troupe (bride, husband, and their entourage), and a teacher showing around students inside the church getting trapped when it is accidentally locked down.

Feodor Chaliapin as the elderly and more than a little batshit crazy has a wonderful face. It had this cadaverous quality, with the fine lines of age giving him plenty of character and color. The dubbing provided him with a raspy, haggard voice that would irritate anybody serving in the church. Hugh Quarshie is actually not a bad lead in the heroic priest role. He has an integrity and courage about him I found rather surprisingly effective. This kind of film (particularly in Italian horror, which often gives them an endearingly cheesy quality) doesn’t always develop such a respectable lead in the priest role (or any part where a male established character is thrust into a crazy horror situation) who doesn’t step out of bounds and go over the top. Well, Chaliapin makes up for it, definitely.

Aranas has this dark quality about him, as his cold eyes peering through parted hair hanging over his face after his possession that is very distinguishable. He is quite animated and friendly before pulling out his heart from his torso, holding it towards the sky as if Mustafa hoisting up Simba in “The Lion King”. The effect of Aranas looking down at the hole in the floor of the burial chamber in the church where the crucifix of stone was located as “protection” beaming out blue light is damned attractive; in fact, it is one of those memorable scenes so aesthetically significant, it might recall Michael Mann’s “The Keep”.

There are so many bizarre moments that the screenplay unloads on us, though. Like the homoerotic kids getting close and personal, or the bride finding a mirror (her looks are important, even among a lot of terrible shit happening) and seeing a hideous hag staring back resulting in her scratching apart her face. You have the goat-faced demon fucking Capisiti as possessed humans surround the table set up in one of the chamber rooms inside the church. There is the alchemist/architect who was responsible for creating the church (including a special fixed in destruction device that Quarshie eventually utilizes to help his cause in order to halt the evil’s release into the world), with the Knights Teutonic stuffing a “switch” in his mouth before burying him away (his body being found is important in Quarshie’s heroism within the film’s finale), tied to some wheel of gears and sprockets which control the possible structural damage (call it a failsafe, if you will) in order to cull the evil permeating about.

This film will be notable for its scene showing Arana as a demon closely resembling the Boris Vallejo painting listed below. I knew I had seen this before, researching it to learn it was very reminiscent to the painting I had seen in a sci-fi collector s book.

I like the connection to Asia Argento (big fan of hers like many other admirers) with this film. Her being this promiscuous young teen who has learned of an escape route in the church retreating to clubs to have a little fun, considering her pops is a bit of a cranky sacristan. I did find the little efforts to sexualize her more than a bit creepy. I mean one scene has possessed Aranas lusting at Asia's legs under a table. She wears a rather tight dress to the club. Asia, of course, gets some questionably awkward dubbing. But her character is given significance. She's the final person in the film, looking down into a hole which might be a precursor to the demonic release?

***/*****