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Her recently deceased father has financially supported a convent on a
remote Crimean island, so now, aftr his death, Elisabeth (Louise Salter)
travels there to find out firsthand what this is all about. But all the
nuns of the order seem to be very secretive, not to say weird, and a
little stroll around the convent one night reveals some things that do not
belong in a traditional convent ... only young sister Sarah (Venera
Simmons) seems to be on Elisabeth's side, but before long, Elisabeth
doesn't even know if she can trust her anymore.
Elisabeth makes an attempt to escape, but this attempt only seems to
drag her into the nightmare that surrounds the castle, and it leads into
her own past, as it seems that she, who was actually born on this island,
is somehow connected to the convent and its unholy worship of a god who
lies dormant in the catacombs - a god the nuns want to awake, but they
need a special shattered amulet to do so ... and somehow Elisabeth has
just found the last piece of the amulet ...
Eventually, the nuns drag Elisabeth to the catacombs with her shard of
the amulet, where Elisabeth doesn't only find out her mother - who was
said to have died at childbirth - is still alive, but she also finds out
that her friend Sarah is really her sister and the leader of the dark
cult. And soon enough, Elisabeth's mother becomes the sacrifice of the
cult, as only her blood can activate the amulet (which with Elisabeth's
shard is now full again), which in turn awakens the beast/unholy god of
the catacombs. Elisabeth eventually seems to give in to the dark side, but
ultimately she shatters the amulet, which puts an end to all the horrors
... or indeed does it ?
Without making direct references to it, this film was quite obviously
influenced by H.P.Lovecraft and his tales of unholy underground gods and
unnamable horrors, carried by a constant feel of unexplicable unease. To a
point, the film manages quite well to translate this to the screen,
producing a proper atmosphere of unease and menace without giving away too
much ... but only to a point. Plotwise, the film soon takes a turn towards
the silly, while every now and again giving up on stringent storytelling,
and in the end, atmospheric horrorfilmmaking is totally given up for a few
weak special effects, worst of all Sister Sarah's distorted head and body
which looks lexactly like what it is - a lousily done special make up job.
And the final resolution of the film - the shattering of the amulet - can
only be described as underwhelming.
Rather a disappointment, actually, but not without its interesting
bits.
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