The Church (1989) on Netflix
Evan takes a post as librarian at a Gothic cathedral built over the mass grave of a village slaughtered by Teutonic Knights. The Bishop warns him off the catacombs.
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb6.2/1010,426 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes64%
Trailer
Plot summary
In medieval Germany, Teutonic Knights killed the villagers they took for devil worshipers and buried the bodies, then raised a Gothic cathedral above the grave to hold the evil in. Evan arrives as the cathedral's new librarian. Lisa, who is restoring the church's frescoes, and Lotte, the Sacristan's teenage daughter, hiding out in the library to avoid school, become his companions there. Father Gus is kind to him, while the elderly Bishop warns him not to enter the catacombs. Lisa finds a parchment that carries what resemble architectural plans.
Cast
- Roberto Carusoas Freddie
- Roberto Corbilettoas Hermann, the Sacristan
- Alina De Simoneas Lottie's Mother
- Olivia Cupistias Mira
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Church (1989)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Church began as the third film in the Dèmoni series, but director Michele Soavi insisted on distancing it from the series and rewrote the screenplay to remove any connection.
- Searching for a church to shoot in, Dario Argento said they looked across Italy, France, Germany and Switzerland and found nobody would let them film in their church because of the film's subject matter; the crew settled on a church in Hungary.
- Argento disliked Keith Emerson's 12-track demo for the score, calling it a bombastic march like a Carabinieri fanfare, and used only three Emerson tracks; Soavi added two Philip Glass tracks and relied on Goblin for the rest.
- Lamberto Bava left the project after the screenplay was restarted from the beginning, and Michele Soavi took over as director right after finishing his own film Stage Fright.
- The film was shot MOS, without sync sound, and all dialogue was dubbed in afterwards; English-speaking leads Hugh Quarshie and Tomas Arana recorded their own dialogue, while the mostly Italian cast were dubbed by others.
- The closing scene was shot among the remains of St. Nicholas Church in Hamburg, which had been destroyed back in 1943.
- Italy's film rating board gave The Church an F.M.18 certificate for its many particularly violent and shocking scenes, but a year later the film commission overturned the ruling and changed the rating to V.M.14.
- Soavi, who derisively called the Demons films "Pizza Schlock", parted ways with Dario Argento after The Church, ending their long-time creative partnership, because he wanted to move beyond in his creations.
