Scott LeBrun Jamie Lee Curtis' older sister Kelly is front and centre here as she plays Miriam Kreisl, an expatriate American schoolteacher working in Frankfurt, Germany. One day she nearly runs down an elderly, weird stranger named Moebius Kelly (genre veteran Herbert Lom, "The Dead Zone"), who passes away after she brings him to her house to recuperate. From there, even nuttier things begin happening, starting with the discovery of a catacombs beneath Miriams' own house. A handsome young doctor named Frank (Michel Adatte) sympathizes with her, and attempts to help her unravel the mysteries now abounding in her life.Written by director Michele Soavi along with his producer / mentor Dario Argento and Gianni Romoli, "The Sect" is noteworthy for some very slick, stylish, accomplished filmmaking. This is supplemented by a screwy plot where, for a while anyway, you're not exactly sure where all of this is going. The ultimate diabolical plans for Miriam automatically call to mind another horror classic that has clearly inspired "The Sect", but that won't be mentioned here. And this plot is helped along by some genuinely interesting and compelling horror film imagery; viewers may be pleased by the various squirm-inducing (although not necessarily gore-oriented) effects set pieces. Among the elements incorporated are a hallucinogenic insect inserted into a nostril (!), Miriams' sweet but magical pet bunny, who at one point does some channel surfing (!!), and a Manson-type Satanic cult leader named Damon (Tomas Arana, "Gladiator").The film eventually goes on a little too long to be completely effective. The subplot with Miriams' friend Kathryn (Mariangela Giordano, "Burial Ground"), for example, isn't all that necessary. Still, it's hard to deny the overwhelming, crazed atmosphere of "The Sect", enhanced by an excellent score by always-reliable Pino Donaggio ("Piranha" '78, "Dressed to Kill" '80, "The Howling").The performances are all reasonably good, with sexy Curtis creating a likeable lead character. Italian film veterans Giovanni Lombardo Radice ("Cannibal Ferox") and Donald O'Brien ("Zombi Holocaust") also appear, but it's the magnetic Lom and the effectively creepy Arana that leave the biggest impact.Highly recommended to fans of Spaghetti Horror and director Soavi.Seven out of 10.

lonchaney20 This is basically another take on the Rosemary's Baby scenario, but done in that inimitably weird Italian style. By this point Michele Soavi is beginning to find his own voice, and we can see him drifting apart from his controlling mentor/producer, Dario Argento. Things get off to a bad start with a ludicrous prologue in which some Satanic bikers slaughter a bunch of hippies. So far so good, except for the gang leader's ridiculous tendency to quote The Rolling Stones, talking about how their music is full of profound knowledge understood only by the chosen few. It's completely stupid, but it was a necessary sacrifice; Soavi and his co-writer (Gianni Romoli) allowed Argento to write the opening scene himself to ensure that he'd leave the rest of the movie alone. This is hilariously acknowledged in the movie itself, when at one point the head of the titular sect (a creepily subdued performance by Herbert Lom) picks up a music magazine in the protagonist's apartment and, with the air of a man who now knows better, reminisces about how deep the Stones' music was considered in the seventies.Anyway, like Soavi's other films this is brimming with nightmarish imagery (I love the burial shroud that flits in and out of the narrative) and mysterious symbolism, but it hasn't aged quite as well. The cinematography of Raffaele Mertes is serviceable during the film's moodier sections, but most of the time it feels a bit flat. The same can be said of Pino Donaggio's soundtrack, whose unimaginative synthesizer beats and drones were unfortunately endemic in the nineties. Since this is a Soavi film, though, it's still well above average and certainly never boring - he takes a derivative story and spices it up with bizarre images, stylized scenes of violence, a large helping of symbolism (much of it related to fertility), and even a pinch of Lovecraft. The ending is a point of contention for some, but I think it's both gutsy and surprisingly moving. This is perhaps Soavi's least successful horror film, but here we can already see him experimenting with images and ideas that will be perfected in his next project, Dellamorte Dellamore.

Scarecrow-88 An evil, Devil-worshipping sect, led by their enigmatic leader Moebius Kelly(Herbert Lom)have dastardly plans for Mirian(Kelly Curtis)and it concerns unleashing evil on the world through a sordid type of birth.That's the best I can do to explain this baffling supernatural, surreal religious horror outing from director Michele Soavi whose camera is always moving, capturing the action of every scene. The way an unusual blue water flows in Miriam's house' pipes or the POV of a rabbit as it moves throughout Miriam's abode..Soavi's camera captures such action intensely. There are quite a few bizarre moments in this flick like Giovanni Lombardo Radice's stabbing of a woman, later having her heart found in his pocket in a subway as a looter tries to lift something from his coat leading to his suicide after police surround him after aborting the train. Or a bizarre sequence where Miriam's neck is picked at by a crane. Herbert Lom has the most interesting part as the sect's leader, who informs Miriam of why she was selected to carry out benevolent plans against the world and God. There's a hole in her house's basement with major significance to the plot as it works as a type of gateway. What occurs to Miriam's schoolteacher friend Kathryn(Mariangela Giordano)when her face is "attacked" by Moebius' facial death shroud, and Frank(Michel Adatte), Miriam's confident whose a doctor she depends on as her life is spiraling out of control,when he discovers what the sect is up to(..like Frank, we are an eyewitness to a very disturbing ceremony where a female victim's face is removed so that their leader can gain "new life")are also very strange occurrences within the film. Miriam soon finds herself on her own against the dangers of a sect wielding a power far greater than mankind has ever known.While, at first, I tried to make sense of it all, soon I just gave up and enjoyed Soavi's distinctive camera-work..he really doesn't take an easy way out trying every type of visually innovative trick he can think of to make each scene memorable. And, there enough wildly imaginative ideas at work to keep one from getting bored. Very dreamlike, hypnotic score from Pino Donaggio seems to mesh well with Soavi's style and the film's strange subject matter.

deckardinlove Well this is not and usual terror film like other Hollywood movies. M. Soavi, director of another excellent movies like Dellamorte Dellamore or La Chiesa, takes you to a strange world where the evil surrounds Miriam, a lonely girl who is the victim of a sect, she is the person who must brings the devil to the earth. Visually, the film is incredible, genial camera angles, excellent colours and sounds management that makes you enter the story. There is also a reference to La Chiesa, the hole at Miriam's house, is the door to the evil, like the hole at the church of La Chiesa. Strongly recommended in order to see a different terror from Hollywood