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witches coven was slaughtered & buried by the Knights of the
Black Cross, a cathedral built on their tomb. In 1988 however, a
nosy librarian (Tomas Arana) & a female restorer (Barbara Cupisti)
are trying to uncover the secret of the cathedral ... not such a good
idea, as they soon find out. Because soon, Arana is possessed by some
demon & attacks first Cupisti, later a young Asia Argento as the
daughter of the sacristan (Roberto Corbiletto). And of course, anyone
scratched by Arana turns into a demon himself. Soon of course, the
cathedral is swarming with demons, while an ancient mechanism is set
into motion to seal it from the outside world, thus disabling the demons
from getting out ... for the humans inside it's a deathtrap of course -
tough luck. So some rather horrible scenes follow until priest Hugh
Quarshie finds the one spot in the whole cathedral to touch to make the
whole building collapse & burying the demons below, another failsafe
built in by the architect back then. Only Asia does survive the ordeal.
Storywise, this may sound like another part of the Demoni-series
(which La Chiesa was once intended to be), stylistically though,
it's far above these little chillers, director Soavi being very capable
ofaesthetically combining the gothic setting of the cathedral with his
rather gory killings to great effect, having what you might call an eye
for the good picture. Also, some of the horror sequences are really
innovative & imaginative, e.g. the sacristan killing himself with a
pneumatic drill, or a girl hanging down a hole, only to be hit by the
subway below, ..., these scenes also very competently made. Apart
from that, the movie has precious little to offer, though, all the
characterizations being very flat, only rarely rising above
onedimensional parody, with no central character to identify with: Arana
& Cupisti as librarian & restorer are offered as leads in the
beginning, only to vanish from the proceedings pretty early in the film,
Priest Hugh Quarshie, who saves the day in the end, has nothing much to
do until then, being little more than an extra, & Asia Argento, the
sole survivor of the ordeal, is not even in the cathedral during
most of it. Also, the reaction of all the participants in the horrific
proceedings leaves a lot to be desired, them seeing each other die like
flies but never seem to lose their good humour (which would probably be
a good thing in reality, but doesn't work at all in a horror-flick). So
what is left is all style but no substance, which at least hints at that
there's something better (Dellamorte Dellamore) to come from
Soavi.
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