The Church Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

The Church Blu-ray Movie Review

The Devil makes him do it.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 19, 2018

Chances are that unless you’re a really devoted follower of character actors, the name of Feodor Chaliapin, Jr. won’t ring any bells despite being obviously quite distinctive, though my hunch many fans would instantly recognize his face as belonging to the guy who played the cataract encumbered villain behind the murders in the film version of The Name of the Rose. While that role brought Chaliapin at least a bit of recognition toward the end of his long life, he had actually been acting for decades, going back to the silent era, and contributing at least bit parts to such well known films as For Whom the Bell Tolls, and after The Name of the Rose, Moonstruck and Stanley and Iris. Five years or so after Chaliapin essayed the role of a somewhat duplicitous holy man in The Name of the Rose, he was back at it again in Dario Argento’s production of Michele Soavi’s The Church, albeit this time in modern times and as a bishop. While the timeframe for Chaliapin’s character was contemporary, The Church itself begins in an era that could indeed have come from Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose pen, with a bunch of knights chasing down some devil worshipers and summarily executing them. This prologue may have the unfortunate tendency to remind those with uncontrolled senses of humor (ahem) of certain elements at play in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, including the knights’ garb and a simpleton who is remarkably similar to the slack jawed types typically played by Terry Gilliam. Of course there’s no intentional comedy here, and in fact the opening scenes are rather horrific in documenting the unbridled violence of the knights against the alleged devil worshipers. The upshot of the carnage is that a huge pit is dug into which the corpses of the “defiled” are dropped, a pit which is then quickly filled and topped with a giant cross which is intended to keep any evil spirits confined. The monk supervising the slaughter insists that a church be built on top of the mass grave to further sanctify the spot and keep any demonic elements at bay. Guess how that one works out?

With the kind of Poltergeist-esque plot conceit of a structure built on top of a cemetery (more or less, anyway) firmly in place, the film segues forward a few centuries to introduce Evan (Tomas Arana), who (in a kind of curious tangential link to one of The Name of the Rose’s central plot points) has been hired as a librarian for a massive Gothic church. The Bishop (Feodor Chaliapin, Jr.) is none too pleased that Evan has arrived late on his first day of work, and he seems similarly dissastisfied that Evan has already made a pass at Lisa (Barbara Cupisti), a pretty fresco restorer who has the unfortunate habit of dropping things off of her scaffolding at inopportune moments. Evan also has a kind of weird interchange with young Lotte (Asia Argento), the daughter of the sacristan, but a teen who looks suspiciously like one of the victims of the medieval slaughter in the film’s opening vignette.

While there are a number of interesting elements at play in The Church, some of which I’ll address in a moment, this film suffers from what I have jokingly referred to as the “ARB Syndrome”, meaning it appeared “after Rosemary's Baby”, one of many films that came out in the wake of Polanski’s masterpiece and attempted to utilize at least some aspects of Ira Levin’s original plot. Here, the whole mating with the Devil element is played (and depicted) much more literally than in Rosemary’s Baby, and this is one case where a bit more of a discursive approach may have actually upped the horror ante.

On the plus side, The Church benefits from a really evocative use of an ancient cathedral in Budapest (according to a fun interview with Asia Argento included on this disc as a supplement), with Soavi’s peripatetic camera wandering the aisles and naves like some kind of furtive demon in search of a soul to usurp. There are also some fun sidebars to the main story, including the fact that the church has been rigged with a bunch of ancient machinery that actually closes worshipers and various other characters in the sanctuary once Evan inadvertently breaks a holy seal of sorts. Evan’s resulting possession is actually rather well handled in terms of performance by Arana, but this is another case where Argento, Soavi and a host of other credited and uncredited writers might have taken a cue from how Polanski utilized at least relative ambiguity in detailing Guy Woodhouse’s “transformation”.

There’s been a longstanding discussion over whether The Church should be seen in the context of Demons and Demons 2, since in the planning stages at least The Church was supposed to be part of the series. Soavi himself is on record as stating he didn’t want The Church to be associated with the supposedly “schlocky” Demoni films, though there are at least subliminal connections to be seen, including the fact that The Church once again offers a bunch of people trapped in a structure where there are nefarious spirits roaming around. But The Church has a somewhat more literate ambience than the Demons entries. It isn’t always successful, but it does show Soavi attempting to inject some fairly rote horror elements with a little bit of style.

The Church Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Church is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of a consortium between Scorpion Releasing, Doppelganger Releasing and Music Box Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1. The back cover of this release touts a "brand new 2K scan of the original negatives, with over 45 hours of color correction done in America, exclusive to this release." The palette is really quite impressive looking throughout this presentation, with really solid saturation and some extremely vivid tones at times, especially some of the blood reds and cool blues that show up with some regularity. Soavi and cinematographer Renato Tafuri favor a lot of extreme close-ups, often with somewhat askew framings, a technique which supports generally excellent detail levels. There is some minor lateral wobble noticeable during the opening credits sequence, and there is some variability in grain resolution as well. The opening sequence (which includes the optically printed titles) is understandably the grainiest looking, but even the first part of the "contemporary" footage has a rather thick grain structure. That tends to waver a bit as the film goes on, and it looked to me as if some high frequency filtering may have been applied to some of the very dark scenes later in the film, since the fine grain field is much less noticeable then. There are also a few stray flecks and specks that have made it through the restoration gauntlet. All of this said, this is generally speaking a nicely organic looking presentation and the vividness of the palette is really quite remarkable at times.

The Church Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Church features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix that shows the expected looseness in sync that often accompanies post-dubbed Italian features. One of the film's calling cards is its score by prog rock icon Keith Emerson, along with Goblin (and, evidently, Philip Glass, though he didn't get any credit), and the synth heavy score sounds generally okay, if a little boxy and brittle on the high end. Dialogue is rendered mostly cleanly, though a few accents are a bit thick at times, and unfortunately this disc has no subtitles.

The Church Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with Michele Soavi (1080p; 19:48) is a good sit down with the director, who talks about what sparked his interest in horror, his relationship with Dario Argento, and some of the aims he had for this film. In Italian with forced English subtitles.


• Interview with Asia Argento (1080p; 8:36) is also fun, though it's hampered a bit by her understandably vague memories about the long ago production when she was still quite young. She talks about the shoot and what it felt like to be an adolescent surrounded by so much talent, but also how safe Soavi, whom she's known since she was a tot, made her feel.


• Play Trailers includes the The Church Trailer (480i; 2:05) along with those for other films.

The Church Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Church manages to overcome some fairly rote horror tropes to deliver a rather stylish offering that is often creepy though rarely outright scary. The use of the Gothic church gives this film a really palpable sense of place, and while the dubbing doesn't help things, performances are generally well modulated. Technical merits are generally excellent for those considering a purchase.