La secte

A woman is chosen to bear the son of Satan by a cult headed by a mysterious old traveller.

I find it pretty unfortunate to say the least that Michele Soavi last made a horror film way back in 1994. Unlike most of his Italian peers he seems to have bowed out on a high. With this film along with Stagefright, The Church and Cemetery Man, Soavi has a pretty impressive body of work. He was the premier Italian horror director from the period 1987-94. I can't say definitively why he never returned to the genre but needless to say he is a great loss.

Similar to his earlier movie The Church, The Sect was also produced and co-written by Dario Argento. Soavi was something of a protégé of the great man. This one shows the influence pretty clearly once again. It has stylish direction and inventive cinematography. It also benefits from a good score from Pino Donaggio. So its overall look and feel is pretty good, while it has some well-conceived locations such as the tree and the well. Soavi really comes into his element with the dream sequence and cult ceremony scenes. The dream sequence in particular is a bravura display of cinematic technique. It's surreal, weird and very memorable. It's the highlight of the movie for sure.

It has a decent enough cast that includes Herbert Lom as the mysterious old traveller, cult favourite Giovanni Lombardo Radice as the man who is chased in the underground with the human heart, while Jamie Lee-Curtis's sister Kelly leads the picture in the role of the teacher. It's by no means a faultless film; in fact it's probably the least good of Soavi's quartet of movies. It's probably a bit over long while its ending did seem very rushed and a bit unsatisfying. Nevertheless, it remains one of the very last good Italian horror films and like all Soavi films, is well worth catching.

I first saw this film prior to its original release in the UK at the London Film Festival where Michele Soavi himself was in attendance. Afterwards I shook the man's hand and congratulated him on a fine film. The whole audience was very appreciative really. That was the last time I saw it until I finally found it again on a fine import dvd from xploitedcinema. I'm glad to say it still holds up very well indeed - the story grips from the start and doesn't let go right up to the incredible ending. Ok, so the story may have echoes of Rosemary's Baby but how often do you see a truly original horror film ? I can only think of a handful. Track this film down and you won't be disappointed.

Jamie Lee Curtis' older sister Kelly is front and centre here as she plays Miriam Kreisl, an expatriate American schoolteacher working in Frankfurt, Germany. One day she nearly runs down an elderly, weird stranger named Moebius Kelly (genre veteran Herbert Lom, "The Dead Zone"), who passes away after she brings him to her house to recuperate. From there, even nuttier things begin happening, starting with the discovery of a catacombs beneath Miriams' own house. A handsome young doctor named Frank (Michel Adatte) sympathizes with her, and attempts to help her unravel the mysteries now abounding in her life.

Written by director Michele Soavi along with his producer / mentor Dario Argento and Gianni Romoli, "The Sect" is noteworthy for some very slick, stylish, accomplished filmmaking. This is supplemented by a screwy plot where, for a while anyway, you're not exactly sure where all of this is going. The ultimate diabolical plans for Miriam automatically call to mind another horror classic that has clearly inspired "The Sect", but that won't be mentioned here. And this plot is helped along by some genuinely interesting and compelling horror film imagery; viewers may be pleased by the various squirm-inducing (although not necessarily gore-oriented) effects set pieces. Among the elements incorporated are a hallucinogenic insect inserted into a nostril (!), Miriams' sweet but magical pet bunny, who at one point does some channel surfing (!!), and a Manson-type Satanic cult leader named Damon (Tomas Arana, "Gladiator").

The film eventually goes on a little too long to be completely effective. The subplot with Miriams' friend Kathryn (Mariangela Giordano, "Burial Ground"), for example, isn't all that necessary. Still, it's hard to deny the overwhelming, crazed atmosphere of "The Sect", enhanced by an excellent score by always-reliable Pino Donaggio ("Piranha" '78, "Dressed to Kill" '80, "The Howling").

The performances are all reasonably good, with sexy Curtis creating a likeable lead character. Italian film veterans Giovanni Lombardo Radice ("Cannibal Ferox") and Donald O'Brien ("Zombi Holocaust") also appear, but it's the magnetic Lom and the effectively creepy Arana that leave the biggest impact.

Highly recommended to fans of Spaghetti Horror and director Soavi.

Seven out of 10.

"La Setta", or "The Sect", is that most unfortunate type of film, the kind with a collection of good moments but no discernable thread to string them all together. The result is a movie so boring that when a memorable scene happens, you probably won't be paying attention.

The plot has something, loosely, to do with the titular sect of devil worshippers, who appear to be based on the Manson family, at least in the movie's prologue. They kill a bunch of hippies in 1970, while a song from 1972 plays on the soundtrack. They also look shaggy and unkempt.

Then the movie switches to present day, and a kindergarten teacher almost runs over an old man, played by legendary German actor Herbert Lom. Of course, the meeting is really no accident, he's involved in the sect, and as with so many horror movies about evil cults, our protagonist is involved with the sect too, she just doesn't realise it. She's the essential ingredient the cultists need to make the devil come back or whatever.

If you think that last bit was a spoiler, the English-language distributors apparently disagree with you: they give it away in the film's title on those shores: "The Devil's Daughter".

You've seen it all before anyway, and done better: "The Wicker Man" also featured a religious cult in which the unsuspecting hero was the vital ingredient the cult needed for their evil plan. So did a little-seen, (but much better than "The Sect") Dutch movie called "The Family". "Rosemary's Baby", anyone? Maybe even "The Omen" films, in which the protagonist was indeed evil, but didn't know it at first.

It's been done before, and done better, and you've seen it at least a few times.

I said the movie has memorable moments but no interesting plot to tie them together. I think what it really has is moments that could be memorable in a better movie, but here, are not.

I'm at a loss to explain how this movie was directed by Michele Soavi, who made the superb "Cemetery Man" next. Perhaps it was the influence of Argento co-writing the screenplay that made this one so confusing and dull.

Not to mention overlong. Who the hell thought a trite devil-worshipper movie needed to be almost two hours?

Horror movie mostly set at a house with a great number of gory and bloody scenes. Third movie by Italian horror maestro's most gifted acolyte, Michael Soavi. A school teacher : Kelly Curtis becomes involved with an elderly man : Herbert Lom who she previously ran over at a car accident . But Satan has chosen his victims. Soon after , she finds herself being hunted por an eerie Satanic cult . The battle with evil has begun.

Creepy and scary movie with a number of amazing and terrifying scenes and lots of blood of gore. It is an atmospheric chiller with subterranean secrets about a young German schoolteacher who becomes involved with the Manson-like devil-worshipping sect headed by a mysterious person . The film is acceptable and passable but has a convoluted plot, being middlingly paced with several scenes that don't make sense and some frames in the wake of Argento's Inferno. The picture blends sacrifices, tortures , bravura set pieces, supernatural events, Alice in Wonderland references, ghastly appearances, general dream-like ambiance, stylist visuals and anything else.

It packs a colorful and atmospheric cinematography by Raffaele Mertes . As well as thrilling and mysterious musical score by Pino Donaggio. This gore-feast picture was regularly directed by Michael Soavi, that's why it has a number of flaws and gaps. Soavi is a fine artisan who started as a director assistant in various notorious films most of them directed by his maestro Dario Argento or Lamberto Bava as Tenebre, Phenomena, A Blade in the Dark, Demons. With new skills went on assisting Dario Argento as FX supervisor for Opera. Then Argento offered him to shoot another movie, the horror film titled La Chiesa or the Church with Dario as producer and shot in Hungary. In the Eighties and Nineties Soavi made some decent terror movies such as "Aquarius, The Chiesa, The Sect and his best one : Dellamore Dellamore or Zombie Graveyard" with Rupert Everett and Ann Falchi. All of them established as an fine expert more on suspense and scares than on graphic gore.