“Why isn't anybody doing anything to get me out of here?”
Is The Church a surreal meditation on the evils men will do in the name of religion? A haunting Eurocentric take on genocide and the ghastly cost of burying the past? Or, given its origins as an intended third installment in the Demons series, just a slightly more artistic take on its goop-and-guts laden predecessors? The suitably operatic score by such luminaries as Keith Emerson, Phillip Glass, and Goblin would argue for the former interpretation; the plain fact that the film really doesn’t have any coherent through-line once all’s said and done makes the latter a more convincing reading. Still, first-time director Michele Soavi does his level best to impart a sense of stateliness and dignity to the proceedings. After the film’s initial burst of ultraviolence, in which a group of 12th century Knights Templar massacres an entire village for the crime of devil worship, Soavi slows down the pace to a deliberate slow-burn, allowing his protagonists to be ever-more shrouded in the detective mystery of the titular church’s origins and growing dread. Once the evil (or just wronged innocents out for revenge?) are unleashed, Soavi engages in an orgy of surrealistic dream sequences and increasingly out-there kills, culminating in a coupling that Rosemary’s Baby would only glance at sideways. There’s a suitably gothic atmosphere drenching everything, but the problem really seems that Soavi is held in check by the otherwise straightforward narrative. A looser plot and greater degree of creative freedom in the future allowed Soavi to truly craft some impressive, impressionistic horror in Cemetery Man, his real opus.
No comments:
Post a Comment