The Church

Stylish and Odd
This is a great atmospheric, gothic horror film with a bit of gore to spice things up. There's not much going on as far as plot is concerned. We have a prologue showing a group of Templars massacreing a supposedly Satannically obsessed pack of villagers, and then building a cathedral over top of the burial ground. Fast forward to the modern day, where a demonic curse is released by an overly curious librarian, leading to havoc and the trapping of a number of individuals within the cathedral. That's about the short and long of it. People are possessed by demons, demons run amuck, the cathedral is shot ominously, it's all rainy, characters do little but release demons/be possessed by demons/be killed by demons etc. The plot doesn't much matter, and Soavi doesn't let it get in the way of the good stuff.

This has got some really good production values, and the acting is generally quite good by the standards of this sort of fare.(I particularly the librarian, during the...

Making Church Fun
Being a fan of Argento's works, I will say upfront that my views are slightly skewed in his favor. Still, this work, teaming Argento with Michele Soavi, is something of a favorite of mine. As viewers, we find ourselves introduced to a church that was, in times past, erected to contain the pesky menace of its vengeful, longtime occupants. To illustrate this, we get a lovely sequence showing the seeming slaughter and subsequent burial of all an entire village. It looks like brutality at its finest at first, but then, as hands grasp at those who try to trap the damned here, the crusaders seem to have found more than they can handle. So, how do you handle this? Why, seal it up and build a church on it, of course! Fastforwarding to the future, the church and its guarded secret is threatened and, of course, unleashed upon those unlucky enough to be trapped inside. Of course, this leads to an ending most befitting.
This film brims with an eerie atmosphere that, most deservedly, helped...

Was I the only one who gave this a chance?
I don't know why so many people chose to ignore this movie. While I love Fulci and Argento, many critics of Church consider mediocre efforts such as New York Ripper, Phenomena, and Demons to be "Italian Horror Classics". This movie makes those films look like boring puddles of puke.
Sure, there are things wrong with this movie, but I've made a list of reasons why this deserves to be a classic:
1. The church itself is amazing! While many "Catholic Metaphysics" horror films come off as un-researched and exaggerated, this movie seems truly authentic.
2. The style of this film, worked by director Michele Soavi, has the same level of atmospheric moodiness that made movies like "The Beyond" and "Suspiria" classics. Any time you can make the day seem creepy you've done something right.
3. ... horror movies ... because if they aren't plain cheesy, they lack anything distinct and memorable that you could recall ten minutes after watching. (example: New York...

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