The Church (film)

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Movie
German title The Church
Original title La chiesa
Country of production Italy
original language Italian
Publishing year 1989
length 98 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Michele Soavi
script Michele Soavi
Dario Argento
Franco Ferrini
production Dario Argento
Mario Cecchi Gori
Vittorio Cecchi Gori
music Keith Emerson
Goblin
camera Renato Tafuri
cut Franco Fraticelli
occupation

The Church (Original title: La chiesa ) is an Italian horror film directed by Michele Soavi from 1989. The film was produced by Dario Argento , who was also involved in the script; his daughter Asia has a small supporting role.

The strip, which also appeared under the name Demons 3 , is the unofficial third installment in the Demons series (also known as Dance of the demons ).

action

In the Middle Ages, a group of Teutonic Knights wreaked havoc on villagers accused of heresy . All residents find death. Afterwards, their bodies are buried in a mass grave and, on the advice of a mysterious old man, the construction of a church on their final resting place begins. The creatures believed to be possessed by Satan are supposed to be banished to the place forever.

In the present, the restorer Lisa discovers a mysterious piece of ciphered parchment while working on a Gothic cathedral built on the corpses of those killed villagers . She confidently turns to the new librarian Evald, with whom she soon begins a passionate affair. The man responsible for cataloging ancient books convinces the young woman to keep her historical find a secret for the time being, so not to report it to the responsible canon . Evald tries on his own initiative and driven by an adventurous curiosity to fathom the secret of the ancient script, including the old walls. In the course of his research, he learns something about a hidden place and a legendary "stone with seven eyes", an ancient seal in the underground of the sacred building. He recklessly opens the seal and thus unwittingly lets evil rise from the grave. All of a sudden he himself is attacked by something strange, loses consciousness for a short time and is now psychologically and physically changed. He is now a servant of evil. Evald then tries to get close to the pubescent Lotte, the young daughter of the also afflicted sexton. This recognizes in him as well as in her father evil demons and flees. Shortly afterwards the situation escalates.

Various believers, visitors and a wedding party are enclosed in the venerable church as if by magic. After other people in the locked building became infected and attacked their fellow human beings aggressively, in the meantime the first death occurred, the old canon, who learned of the ancient activities from an old inscription, decides to do something against the murderous "brood of Satan". His plan provides for the cathedral to collapse with all the people in order to prevent the epidemic from spreading to areas outside the church. The dark-skinned priest Kos does not want to leave the trapped to their fate and - after the canon's surprising accidental death - fights on his own against the overwhelming power of evil. However, he must soon realize that the evil has already taken hold of a large part of the trapped. At this point he meets Lotte, who can leave and enter the cathedral at will through a small hole in the basement. He advises the young woman to leave the house of God.

At the end of the film, Kos follows a written directive that corresponds to the will of the deceased Canon. It says that the secret of the cathedral should be buried. Through a discovered mechanism he succeeds in bringing down the house of God with suicidal intent. Only the tower of the building remains. In the last scene of the film, Lotte exposes a stone with seven eyes amid the rubble. A little later, the mysterious stone block loosens and reveals an underground access into which the young girl looks down in joyful anticipation.

production

Many outdoor shots took place in Hamburg. In the film, for example, during Lotte's nocturnal excursion, you can see the illuminated Mönckebergstrasse, the bridge between the Inner Alster and the Outer Alster, as well as several underground stations. After the destruction of the Gothic cathedral, the striking inner-city ruin of St. Nikolai Church serves as a backdrop.

Reviews

The lexicon of the international film wrote that the work was "an unconvincing horror shocker who vaguely plagiarized Carpenter's ' Prince of Darkness ' (1987)" . The film is also "full of drastic special effects" and "for hardened fans of the genre."

Trivia

On the 2001 album "Werwolfthron" by the right-wing extremist black metal group Absurd , the plot of the film is processed in the song "The Cathedral".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Church. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used