The Church

The Church (1989)

La chiesa

The Eleventh Commandment.

In a Gothic cathedral built on the mass grave of a Teutonic purge, an ancient discovery by the new librarian will release an unholy maelstrom of madness, violence, and demonic vengeance.

Date of release
1989-03-10
TMDB
6.0 / 10 (263)
Runtime
1h 42m
Genres
Horror
Director
Michele Soavi

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
  • Filmed in: Germany and Budapest

The Church is a 1989 Italian supernatural horror film directed by Michele Soavi, from a screenplay co-written with Dario Argento and Franco Ferrini, and produced by Argento with Mario and Vittorio Cecchi Gori. It stars Hugh Quarshie, Tomas Arana, Barbara Cupisti, Asia Argento, Feodor Chaliapin, Jr. and Giovanni Lombardo Radice.

Production

In an interview conducted on January 22, 1988, directors Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento were discussing a follow-up to Demons 2 stating that they were working on a follow-up film, with Argento stating it would not be called Demons 3, but potentially Ritorno alla casa dei demoni (transl. Return to the House of the Demons).

The decision of re-starting the screenplay from the beginning led to Bava leaving the project as he began working on a set of television films in October 1988. This led to director Michele Soavi to enter production as the director, right after he had completed his film Stage Fright.

Soavi has derisively referred to the Demons films as "Pizza Schlock", and expressed that he wanted The Church to be more sophisticated. In an interview with Cinefantastique, Soavi explained that he wished to move beyond with his creations following the film's release, and because of that he parted ways with Argento, ending their long-time creative partnership.

On finding the appropriate church for the film, Argento stated they looked throughout Europe: Italy, France, Germany and Switzerland and found that nobody wanted them to shoot in their church due to the nature of the film. Finding it easier to shoot in Eastern Europe, the crew explored Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria eventually settling on a Church in Hungary.

The church scenes were filmed at Matthias Church and St. Elizabeth's Church in Budapest, and the Church of St. Mary of the Visitation in Rome. Exteriors were filmed on-location in Budapest and Hamburg. The remains of St. Nicholas Church, Hamburg (destroyed since 1943) were used for the closing scene. The rest of the film was shot on sets at both Elios and De Paolis studios in Rome.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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