Paul Magne Haakonsen I remember watching "The Church" a good many times back in the early 1990's on VHS. It was a great movie back then, and it was that memory of the movie that made me return to it in 2017 and have a trip down memory lane.Now, the movie was great back in the day, but it was actually only moderately mediocre by my standards today. So something has happened to my taste and preference in movies over the years. Now, with that said, I am not saying that "The Church" (aka "La Chiesa") is a bad movie, not at all. It is an adequate movie in itself, but it just isn't outstanding in comparison to many other horror movies.The effects were adequate. Of course, you need to take into consideration that the movie is from 1989, so some of the practical effects might be a bit cheesy by today's standards. And that is of course a natural evolution.However, I remember the movie as being kind of disturbing back in the day. But now it just turned out to be yet another horror movie that follows a standardized formula of how to make a horror movie.Certain aspects of the movie were working out nicely, such as the threat of possession and the impeding dread that lurked inside the isolated church. However, there were also some aspects that were campy and working less in favor of the movie, such as the nudity and the absurdity of some of the situations.The characters in the movie were essentially shallow characters that lacked proper depth and character traits. So on that account it was a bland experience to witness the actors on the screen.It was nice to see a young Asia Argento in this movie, although she wasn't the lead. But she was always the one who stood out as the most memorable in this movie, back then and even now."The Chuch" is definitely colored by its time of creation and its location of filming, as it permeates that late 1980's Italian horror feel all over.There is definitely something to be had in "The Church" for long-time fans of the horror genre, and especially if you have grown up with horror movies. However, for newcomers to the genre, then I believe that "The Church" will pass as being laughable and outdated at best.

Scott LeBrun Italian film director Michele Soavi certainly showed plenty of potential in his debut "Stage Fright", and went on to do other fine work in the horror genre - "The Sect", "Dellamorte Dellamore", and this entertaining shocker. One might argue that it's kind of slim on story, but the style on display more than makes up for that. "The Church" is unceasingly grim, loaded with atmosphere, heightened by many striking visuals, and packed with some deliciously grisly violence and makeup effects. It's one of those horror films that lives up to the word "horror". It can appeal to a variety of fans within the genre, for it takes its time and gives us the kind of "slow burn" approach that some people wish they'd see more often.In Medieval times in Europe, some crusading knights slaughter the residents of a village - including the animals. They had believed these people to be in league with the Devil. Subsequently, they build a church over top of the dead bodies. Centuries later, a librarian named Evan (Tomas Arana, "Gladiator") is hired by the church, and his fascination with the local history proves unwise. His snooping around allows the forces of evil to arise, take possession of the living, and commit murder. The church seals itself up, and a variety of victims are trapped inside by these demonic forces.The international cast also includes Hugh Quarshie ("Highlander"), Feodor Chaliapin Jr. ("The Name of the Rose"), Soavi regular Barbara Cupisti, Giovanni Lombardo Radice ("Cannibal Ferox"), and the young Asia Argento (daughter of co-writer / co-producer Dario Argento), who plays a spunky child who regularly sneaks out of the church in defiance of her father Hermann (Roberto Corbiletto, "Dangerous Beauty"). The acting is generally solid, with Quarshie an appealing hero.The finale is the absolute best part (at least, it was for this viewer), and worth waiting for. It features one of the most hideous goat like characters to be seen in religion themed horror. And the music by progressive rock specialists Keith Emerson and the prolific "Goblin" is extremely effective throughout.A must for fans of Spaghetti horror.Seven out of 10.

fedor8 The vast majority of movies from the late 80s look awful, and TC is no exception. Given that this silly Italian flick suffers from the usually host of darioargentonian flaws – silly plot-twists, occasionally amateurish performances, and weak and /or stupid dialog – the one thing that would have been a saving grace would have been impressive visuals. However, the bland, colourless, ugly 80s aura destroys any "eerie" mood this clumsily put together bundle of religious-horror clichés could have had. Argento is well-known (or at least should be) for his style-over-substance approach, i.e. his penchant to toy around with the camera and sets rather than spend time fixing his usually idiotic scripts full of bad logic and far-fetched situations. (This especially goes for his legendarily moronic thrillers.) Dazzling visuals were essentially this movie's only hope, but Argento fails to deliver even in that; supposedly his strong suit. The actors are mostly amateurs; in fact, most of them are so bad that Argento's 13 year-old daughter Asia (who is nothing to shout about talent-wise) comes off as a professional by comparison; even she has some clue how to play her scenes which can't be said for ANY of the actors in the anti-climactic church-destruction scenes. It is almost as if Argento gave acting roles to people who were at first merely recruited as extras. The dialogue is stilted and occasionally laughable even. The attempts at humour are badly timed, not to mention puerile. The demon costumes and make-up are so bad that even Ed Wood might have found fault with them. Dario trusted his make-up department so little that he rarely dared extend close-up shots of the demons to longer than half-a-second. He must have suspected that if he let the viewers see the demons for longer than that, they'd invariably laugh. (The viewers, not the demons.) It's a fine line between a B-movie and a shoddy-looking A movie; although, in this case, the "A" must stand for Argento, and not as a symbol of high quality.While the 1st half has a (small) measure of non-imbecility and non-dreariness, the 2nd half sees the plot and the movie disintegrate into amateurishness; this is when TC becomes a B-movie, for all practical purposes. In fact, I submit that had this exact same movie been made by a Hollywood and/or American director, its IMDb average would have been much lower. This serves as yet another example – and proof – that: 1) anything Argento touches, no matter how mediocre or outright bad, automatically gets overrated - simply because his name is in the credits, and 2) European films get far better critical treatment than American films. This astonishing – and fairly obvious – bias is a result of the special "bull aura" that European films and directors have (stemming from the flawed and frankly naïve belief that US films are commercial pap made by non-talents, whereas European ones are "artistic" and profound). This silly prejudice has been blinding film students and the more fanatical movie-goers for decades, often preventing them from objectively appraising either. This is why on IMDb you will sometimes see a great American movie rated only with a 6.0, while a fairly mediocre European movie might have a 8.0 average.Another major flaw of TC is that it gets rather dull in spots.

Michael_Elliott Church, The (1989) ** (out of 4) This Michele Soavi film was originally intended to be the third entry in the DEMONS series, which producer Dario Argento has started up with director Lamberto Bava. For whatever reason the title was changed but it's easy to see how this could be considered the third film. In this movie, we start off hundreds of years in the past when a group of Knights attack a village of Satan worshipers and bury them. Years later a church is built over them and it doesn't take long until their spirits come out of the ground and possess people who then go on a killing spree. THE CHURCH has been built up pretty highly in some crowds as I've read reviews calling it one of the best Italian horror films out there and I've even read a few reviews stating that this is far beyond anything Argento has ever done. I can't say I agree with any of those opinions and when the end credits started to role I couldn't help but feel disappointed because while there's some nice eye candy I can't get over the fact that this movie goes on way too long and not much ever really happens. I think the opening sequence showing the attack on the Satan worshipers was beautifully filmed and there was some nice atmosphere to go along with it. Sadly, everything that follows is pretty weak and a lot of the blame has to go towards the screenplay, which never comes together. I guess we can overlook the fact that the story makes absolutely no sense because to be fair very few of these type of Italian films ever made sense. The problem is that there's nothing to the screenplay and you just sit there for over an hour without anything happening. Director Soavi is able to build up some atmosphere and there's some nice cinematography but this doesn't cover up all the warts. The story goes absolutely nowhere and when it finally starts up you'll be too bored to care about anything going on. The final thirty-minutes has a group of people getting trapped inside the church as the demons begin to attack. Those expecting to see the gore of the DEMONS series are going to be really disappointed as there's not too much of the red stuff. The majority of the cast members are strictly by-the-numbers with the exception of Asia Argento who is quite impressive in her scenes. At over 100-minute it's fair to say that at least twenty-minutes should have been cut out. THE CHURCH might be respected in some circles but I found it to be an incredibly over hyped and boring affair.