 Hello and welcome to another edition of Frightfully Forgotten's Trash or Treasure, but before we get started, what are we drinking? We're drinking Darkness Falls. Falling in my gut, on my empty gut, which will make for a much better review. Today we are going to be talking about 1989's The Church. This movie was directed by Michelle Suave. He did a couple of good movie stage fright and cemeteryman. It's co-written and produced by the master himself, Dario Argento. Asia Argento is in this too. It's a little kid. The church starts off in the medieval times. The Teutonic Knights are riding into this village. Priest guys, the evil and the sick, sick, sick, all carved in this stone. Yeah. Devil worshippers come across this girl. Please don't hurt me. Grabs her face, crushes it, and they slaughter everybody. Person kind of walking around and hiding with this basket on his face. What's that all about? They're done killing the entire village and they're dumping them in this big pit. We have to build a church on this site to keep the evil inside. And you see this big metal cross being put onto the site. It's now modern times. One of our main characters, Evan, is just starting as a librarian at this church. Late for work, that stupid asshole. If you're as late for work for me, fire him right then and there. Your first day, man. You're fucking out. He meets Lisa, who's restoring a big fresco. Beautiful. Fresco on the side of this church goes up to the library and finds this little girl kind of playing in the library. Her name is Loti and her dad works in the church too. Lisa finds a parchment in the walls. What do you think of that? Lisa and Evan are kind of getting a little hot and heavy, so they go back to Lisa's place. While they're trying to bone a little bit here, Evan actually turns his head and sees a way to decipher this parchment. It says that there's this like seven-eyed demon that's the key to the whole church. He goes down into the basement of this church and he sees that seven-eyed demon thing, pry that lid off. He gets sucked into that, into the hole there and everything and it gets all crazy. All those arms come out and start choking on phone's Lisa. He starts to actually tear his own heart out. There's other people in the church that are starting to get possessed as well. On top of that, there's a wedding party that's come by and there's also a school trip and everybody gets locked in. There's a mechanism that starts to turn in the church and that's where we're going to end the plot points because the shit really hits the fan. So if you want to see what happens at the end of the church, keep watching, but is it trash or treasure? Well, that brings us to the treasure of this movie. The opening scene of this movie is probably the best scene out of the whole movie. It's the best scene cohesively. I really like the look of it. General premise of the movie is pretty good too. Yeah, like I like the idea of them building a church on this tomb, on this burial ground of all these heretics. What happens when you open up the grave of these heretics? The look of the movie is fucking, it is a beautiful looking movie. It is one of the best looking movies from the 80s that I've seen. The setting too. It's a great setting. This church, the church is amazing. It's an amazing looking church. It helps to add like that gothic feel. Great setting for a horror movie. The effects are pretty good for this movie too. That leads us to the kills. Yeah, because the kills and the effects kind of go hand in hand in this. Exactly. There's some great kills with great effects. When he tears his heart out. Yeah, that's that's pretty good. It looks fucking great. He holds it up and everything. Caretaker, that guy kills himself by impaling himself on the jackhammer. Jackhammer, fucking great. Yeah. And then he like as he's doing that, he's also breaking away the the seal. Yeah, it's hitting that tomb. Some good kills you don't see. Like when the old woman's hitting that bell with her husband's head. Woman stuck in that door and that guy's all crazy. He has that big gate. He's like carrying a whole gate. He's all nuts. Even that old priest when he dies. He jumps off the building and all that. And the music all helps. And it was done by Keith Emerson and Philip Glass too. So that brings us to the trash of this movie. First thing is, well, the story, like in the explanation of what's happening, like so they kill all these supposed heretics. They build a church on it. I don't know what everything means after that. That's about it. That's it. They don't explain a goddamn thing. Later on in the movie, they bring up this architect, flashback to him being tortured. The secrets in his mouth. Secret to what? Like what's the secret about? Why? Why is this architect being all tortured? What does that have to do with the people in the ground and the evil coming out? And then people getting possessed on top of that. What does that have to really do with anything? I don't know. It made no fucking sense. This movie makes no sense. There's a great line in this for that. One priest, he's like, I don't understand. I'm like, yeah, me either, man. I have no fucking clue what's going on. Nothing is linked to each other. The movie is all just separate pieces. I thought I was watching a bunch of music videos that had nothing to do with each other. Because it's all visuals. It looks cool. It looks great. But the story, like what? Where's the story in all this? Yeah. And there's like characters that come out of nowhere. They disappear and then you never see them again. And then there's new ones that show up. You're not given the chance to care about anybody. Yeah, like the characters like to get introduced to Evan and Lisa early on. Oh, they're the main characters. Good. I'm invested. Here's my two main characters. Halfway through the movie, they disappear. They bring in this wedding party and these kids. Then those two old people. Two old people and all those school kids. And you don't see Evan and Lisa again to light the last 10 minutes of the movie. And then he's turning into some gold. Yeah. Gold. He's having sex with her on this altar. Like, what the fuck does that have to do with anything? I don't know. Nobody has any sort of urgency in it. That guy kills that bride with that fucking gate. Well, supposedly in front of everybody. And everyone's just kind of hanging on afterwards. Yeah. Should we try to get out? Just the fact that the doors close and every exit in the church is locked off should be enough to freak you out. It's like, man, I don't care if nothing's going on in this church. I want to get the hell out of here. Yeah. I'm like, nobody gives a shit. By the time they do give you an explanation that priest, that old priest, I didn't learn anything. And it's too late. And then he just dies. He's like, die. He's like, what the hell? And the pacing for this movie is far too slow. I was watching the clock the whole time. I was like, fuck. Let's get on with it. When they did get on with it, it went nowhere. Yeah. I was like, no, no. Go somewhere. Cool opening scene in the medieval times. Like, oh yeah. Yeah, it was okay. Okay. They introduced the characters. Evan, Lisa, little girl. Okay. When something gonna happen, he opens up that gate. But it was just a dream, so nothing really happened. Yeah, nothing happens. And then when things start happening, a lot's happening. But nothing is happening at the same time, because nothing moves the plot forward. The writing and the dialogue for the characters is atrocious. Oh, horrible. Poorly translated. It's like you're reading a manual for like, putting together IKEA furniture. Or a fucking barbecue. Yeah. That's this movie. It's like, reading a manual that was translated from fucking Japanese or something. This movie has so much potential. It looks fantastic. General premise is very good. Good, but it wasn't used. It wasn't executed in any way that makes any sense. At least all those people that were buried in the floor. Come back to life. Come through that hole. Yeah, instead of just random people being possessed. From what? From what for for what? From what? We don't know. No, no, no. Because it was built on these heretics, I guess. But the heretics aren't doing anything. Yeah, it's like they had a bunch of cool visuals in mind. Oh, we're going to do a shot like this. It looks great, but what does that have to do with anything? Why does it matter in the grand scheme? That ends our Trash or Treasure review for the church. It is a nonsensical, non-coherent piece of junk. Yeah, it had so much potential. And I hate to say it's a piece of trash, because it is. It fucking sucks. And I was dreading watching it again for this. I just fucking hated it. Today, as I was preparing the chili that we're going to eat after this shoot, I was watching it as I was cutting up all the vegetables to see if I missed something. No, I didn't miss anything. It's all just nonsensical shit. It may have been better if it was actually Demons 3, which is kind of like what they really kind of wanted it to maybe be. Like they thought maybe let's make a Demons 3 after Demons 2. And I think, yeah, if this movie actually had demons in it, and there was demons coming out of that hole, through the hole, it could have been pretty cool. And if the demons came out early, and not three quarters in the fucking movie, it would have been a cool movie. So I think the initial idea I think would have worked better than the idea they tried to do. The church, complete piece of fucking trash. Exactly. This movie accomplishes nothing. And until next time, keep drinking.