The Church
The Church is often referred to as Demons 3, and while the film may be tied thematically to the first two Demons movies, it clearly cannot compete in pacing and gore despite being more technically sound. The film comes from vastly overrated horror director Michele Soavi and it is a grind to watch.
The film is about a church that has been built over a mass grave of demons. It shows the wholesale slaughter of some medieval peasants, in what is definitely the best and most interesting sequence of the film. Cut to modern day and we find a bunch of bland people working and living in the church, unaware of the evil that resides underneath them. As the gothic church is being remodeled, the church’s librarian uncovers some of the mysteries of the church’s past and unwittingly unleashes the curse of the demons upon the world. Some kids, a slut on a motorcycle, and an old couple are trapped inside the church which seals up tighter than a nun’s butthole as soon as the demons are released. The trapped churchgoers must find a way to stop the evil reign of terror before they all become demons. It sounds more exciting than it is as the film is mostly just a bunch of people being furtive and making dumb noises.
There is no doubt that Michele Soavi is a master of creating a good looking movie and filling it with some scattered scenes of genius, but his pacing is juvenile at best. The film is languorous in nature and spends all its time lovingly depicting the location’s gothic architercture… not very exciting. The movie will put your ass to sleep with its slow build up and the end results aren’t worth sitting through all of that boredom… as even when the shit hits the fan it does so in slow motion. If you are a turtle or lover of pointless slowness… aka gothic horror… you may find the pacing to your liking.
The acting is ok, in that dubbed foreign actor kind of way. There are no real recognizable faces and no one stand out or distinguishes themselves. Asia Argento is in the film as a young girl that sneaks out of the church every night to drink, smoke, and dance to bad pop music… but that’s really just trivia as her character is rather uninteresting.
The gore is great in The Church… there’s just not enough of it. There are several severed heads and kills and even some winged demon action and nudity, but all of these things are so far apart that interest wanes and the Sandman begins to sprinkle his sleep dust in the viewers’ eyes.
It’s clear that the movies other title, Demons 3 is just an effort to cash in on the mild success of the first two demons movies. The film has absolutely nothing to do with those other flicks except for being about some demons. While the film is fairly coherent, it’s just plain boring to watch. You’ll find yourself wishing you had panels on your ceiling like they did in high school because at least then you could count the holes in your ceiling in between the quality shots of violence and gore.
Film Synopsis: This film is boring. It’s films like this that give European horror a bad name. Skip it. If you’re trying to watch all of the Demons movies, don’t even bother. The series ended with Demons 2, all the films that come after that are just cheap rip-offs attempting to cash in on the success of the first two films.
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