Dario Argento protege Michele Soavi hit the ground running with his entertaining 1987 feature debut StageFright, but tripped over his laces soon after, giving us the lacklustre The Church in '89, and this mess of a movie in 1991. A two-hour-long series of disjointed surreal set-pieces that fail to satisfactorily come together for a weak Rosemary's Baby-inspired final act, The Sect is Italian horror cinema at its most bizarre, but almost its most boring.
Jamie Lee Curtis's big sister Kelly plays kindergarten teacher Mirian Kreisl who takes pity on a strange old man named Moebius (Herbert Lom), who she almost runs down with her car. After inviting the man to rest at her home, a series of bizarre occurrences rock her previously quiet world: there's something strange in her water supply, an Asian woman appears in her basement, Moebius puts a prehistoric bug up her nose, her pet rabbit uses the TV remote to change channel, and her usually choosy friend Kathryn is stabbed to death while picking up a random stranger for sex. Other strange stuff involves Moebius being attacked by a piece of linen, the discovery of an ominous well in Miriam's cellar, Kathryn coming back to life on the operating table (after surgeons have failed to revive her by zapping her repeatedly with a defibrillator), and a woman having her face ripped off during a Satanic ritual.
Chuck in a spot of stork rape (!), lots of rabbit imagery (a white rabbit symbolises fertility), a hilariously bad scene in which local doctor Frank (Michel Adatte) opens a coffin with a tin-opener (!!), Giovanni Lombardo Radice as a character called Martin Romero (a name guaranteed to have avid horror fans groaning), and a head-scratching finale in which the devil's baby saves the life of the schoolteacher, and what you have is a thoroughly perplexing oddity that is nowhere near as entertaining as it sounds. The performances are terrible, the direction is uninspired, and the score (by the usually reliable Pino Donaggio) is a Simonetti-style synth monstrosity.
Soavi's next film was zombie comedy Cemetery Man (1994), a film that gets much praise, but which I cannot stand, so as far as I am concerned, the director is very much a one hit wonder. Since then, he's worked almost exclusively for TV. Doesn't surprise me one bit.
Jamie Lee Curtis's big sister Kelly plays kindergarten teacher Mirian Kreisl who takes pity on a strange old man named Moebius (Herbert Lom), who she almost runs down with her car. After inviting the man to rest at her home, a series of bizarre occurrences rock her previously quiet world: there's something strange in her water supply, an Asian woman appears in her basement, Moebius puts a prehistoric bug up her nose, her pet rabbit uses the TV remote to change channel, and her usually choosy friend Kathryn is stabbed to death while picking up a random stranger for sex. Other strange stuff involves Moebius being attacked by a piece of linen, the discovery of an ominous well in Miriam's cellar, Kathryn coming back to life on the operating table (after surgeons have failed to revive her by zapping her repeatedly with a defibrillator), and a woman having her face ripped off during a Satanic ritual.
Chuck in a spot of stork rape (!), lots of rabbit imagery (a white rabbit symbolises fertility), a hilariously bad scene in which local doctor Frank (Michel Adatte) opens a coffin with a tin-opener (!!), Giovanni Lombardo Radice as a character called Martin Romero (a name guaranteed to have avid horror fans groaning), and a head-scratching finale in which the devil's baby saves the life of the schoolteacher, and what you have is a thoroughly perplexing oddity that is nowhere near as entertaining as it sounds. The performances are terrible, the direction is uninspired, and the score (by the usually reliable Pino Donaggio) is a Simonetti-style synth monstrosity.
Soavi's next film was zombie comedy Cemetery Man (1994), a film that gets much praise, but which I cannot stand, so as far as I am concerned, the director is very much a one hit wonder. Since then, he's worked almost exclusively for TV. Doesn't surprise me one bit.