Rating: 
Summary: Gimmie That Old Time Religion
Review: This one came at the tail end of the 80's boom in Spaghetti Splat. It's not a perfect work of cinema art by any means. The dubbing (and the English script) in some places is particularly atrocious, one of the horror set pieces is really sub "Tales from the Crypt," and a Polanski homage is probably more than a bit too literal. These problems are easy to overlook, however, as the table is also overloaded with all manner of delectable goodies as far as the eye can see. The art direction and cinematography are great, as one would expect. The music is good stuff, too. (A couple of Phillip Glass pieces are particularly well used.) There are some wonderfully imaginative moments of a horrific nature, dreamy and surreal passages of striking beauty and all of the usual nonsense. You haven't quite seen this one before. Its unique, and it easily eclipses Lamberto Bava's rather pedestrian "Demons" films, to which it is a sort-of sequel, on all fronts. Hopefully Soavi's "The Sect" will be available uncut soon. That one is a dreamy fairytale horror movie in which it is pretty impossible to predict what you are going to see from one scene to the next.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining, but Convoluted
Review: This slow-paced "thriller" is entertaining all-in-all. The storyline is too convoluted; it twists and turns like a multi-headed snake, going in too many directions and not following through with several of the main characters, and there are MANY main characters; too many. The first half promises a mysterious journey through the dark, secret passages of an ancient church built over the earth of a massacre that took place generations before. We're never certain whether the "innocents" who were murdered by the Templar Knights were actually devil worshippers or just misunderstood early Christians, as possibly indicated by the stigmatas that mark the bottom of their feet.
As for too many characters, we have a very sexy leading lady, and rugged handsome leading man, a striking ancient priest who seems at times like he will be the savior of earth, a young black priest, and an innocent young girl who is either the reincarnation of one of the murdered innocents from the past, or THE girl herself. All these characters promise a storyline to follow, but then their importance fades towards the end of the picture, and no real hero, with the exception of the young black priest, come to the foreground.
Still, with the creepy, gothic church interiors and the sinister demons that begin to kill and take over victims, the film will hold the interest of Itallion Horror Cinema fans.
The dvd is presented in widescreen, and the picture quality and sound are superior. Not much in the way of extras, but the theatrical trailer and a bio of director Michele Soavi. For Italion Horror film buffs only.
Rating: 
Summary: It doesn't get much worse...
Review: Well, actually, it could. Picture quality and dubbing are indeed quite good.
But that's not why you'd buy an italian horror movie, is it? Here's the downside: ridiculous acting, effects that are nowhere near special (and few and far in between, too), a plot and characters that in most cases make little or no sense... So, unless you're a hardcore collector of italian C movies, think twice before you order this - there's much better stuff around to spend your money on.
Rating:
Summary: The Collection Plate Holds......DEATH!!!
Review: What's going on in the church? Well, back in the middle ages a community of alleged devil worshippers get slaughtered by some templar-like knights. After throwing the bodies in a pit, they get an alchemist to build a church on the pit. Flash forward to nowdays and the church is up and running. Some Curious George librarian decides to unravel the mystery, letting all the revenge-hungry demons out. This is about one hour through the film. For the remaining 40 minutes the people inside the Church are trapped and have to deal with all kinds of demon hocus pocus. This project started out as a third Demons film, but went through some ch-ch-ch-changes. There are similarities to the Demons films however. The demonic possession in this film seems to spread from person to person in the form of a physical infection/sickness. They even call it a "plague" at one point. WILL THEY GET OUT ALIVE???? Dario Argento's protege, Michele Soavi(who went on to do the awesome Cemetery Man) obviously learned a thing or two from his teacher. The Church isn't a fantastic film, but it's quite good and shows Soavi's potential. It's not a total gorefest, it's only really gory when it has to be. There is a very gruesome suicide by jackhammer that'll get your attention. As others have pointed out, the devil monster in this film looks excellent. And boy it does! Too bad he's got about 5 seconds of screen time(and that's not really an exaggeration either). For the price of this dvd it's quite a painless gamble. If you like the Fulci approach to Italian horror, The Church can go either way with you. But if you dig Argento's style, most likely you'll dig this as well.
Rating:
Summary: Below my expectations.....
Review: When I heard about this movie, I wanted to watch it for it's name alone, I felt nervous watching it because I thought it was going to be as frightening as other horror films involving religion. Now, the acting is very good, the scenery is amazing and eerie, it's what I expected to look like when I saw the cover of it. There is plenty of gore and in very gruesome ways, the subway scene is historic! There is one scene from this movie that is a really famous painting, let's see if you will know what scene I'm talking about. I liked the ending of the movie, it's a real twist, but I was expecting alot more. I kept saying to myself, this has to be the scene where the dead rise! But there are no zombies in this movie so don't expect any, there's alot of de javu in this, but I really expected more, like a battle between good and evil. The atmosphere couldn't have been any better, if you're a horror fan wanting to watch something different, with a really creepy atmosphere watch this movie. If you're looking for a horror movie with tons of action, look elsewhere, though this was fun to watch it leave me wanting to know more about what happened, that's probably the reason I wasn't too satisfied with it, because it leaves you wanting something. Oh and here's some advice, never go into a church with metal doors.
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