The Sect
(aka: La Setta)
 (1990)
review by Black Gloves

A gang of hippie slaughtering, Satan worshiping bikers; prehistoric earwigs that only hatch their offspring in the brains of women; a 'death shroud' that possesses people; a woman impregnated with Satan's son by a giant stalk; maggots crawling out of a woman's ears, reanimated corpses and ... an amusing rabbit! These are just a few of the delights included in this wonderfully surreal collaboration between the maestro of horror Dario Argento and his protégé Michele Soavi. Appearing at the beginning of the nineties, with the golden age of Italian horror cinema long gone, "The Sect" comes across like one last blast of the kind of inspired craziness that Lucio Fulci used to dish out in the early eighties with titles like "The Beyond" and "City of the Living Dead". I have no idea how one goes about the business of script-writing, but a lot of the best Italian horror looks like it was thrashed out during a particularly sozzled late-night drinking session. If that were true, Argento and Soavi would have come away with particularly potent hangovers after concocting this little gem of a film!

Hitchcock once remarked, after employing two Italian writers to develop a script for a proposed project of his that never saw the light of day in the end, that: "The Italians are very slipshod in matters of story construction. They just ramble on." This is a pretty good way of describing the story for the "The Sect" ... one giant ramble! In fact it's not so much a story, more a series of bizarre ideas and ambitious set-piece, piled on relentlessly one after the other, with a quick (surprisingly successful!) stab at tying up all the threads at the end. This is not a criticism -- those of us who love the Italian horror genre enjoy precisely this aspect of these films: their willingness to forgo almost all logical coherence for the sake of giving full reign to the untrammelled imaginings of their creators. Argento and Soavi throw everything but the kitchen sink into this film's narrative, and the finished product showcases Michele Soavi's increasing maturity and skill as a director to great effect.

This is the third of Soavi's four movies and the second to team him up with Dario Argento as his producer and co-writer. Their first outing was the flawed "The Church", a film that had it's moments, but suffered for lack of focus -- with characters drifting in and out of the story and plot points introduced but forgotten moments later. "The Sect" proceeds in a similarly hallucinatory fashion, but this time we have a truly sympathetic character to focus on in the form of the lovely Miriam Kreisl (played by Kelly Curtis, sister of Jamie Lee) who plays a young but rather scatty school teacher who finds herself at the centre of increasingly wild and bizarre occurrences. Argento's influence can be felt all over this movie, particularly in the extensive use of steady-cam and the multitude of strange point-of-view shots that Soavi employs; but the one film of Argento's that most comes to mind is "Phenomena" -- simply because, that too is made up of a collection of outrageous ideas that centre around a young, sympathetic female lead, who has to go through a fairly rough ordeal as the film progresses (immersed in a pool of rotting corpses and maggots at one point!). Nothing compares to the traumas poor Miriam has to endure during "The Sect" though! And although the film does play like a series of random ideas tossed onto the screen on first viewing -- it actually does mostly make sense when you view it again knowing what is in store.

We start off in California 1970, where a group of amiable hippies are camped out in the desert. A bearded man appears on the horizon and joins the group, quoting lines from The Rolling Stones' 'Sympathy for the Devil'. His name is Damon (Tomas Arana) and the hippie community is happy to accept him into the group. Which is a big mistake! The film moves forward to later that night, when the entire group has been slaughtered by Damon and a bunch of his biker friends who have suddenly appeared. It turns out that the whole community, children and all, have been sacrificed to the devil. While their bodies burn on a giant bonfire, Damon approaches a limousine and is told by the anonymous occupant to wait for further instructions ...

We jump forward to Frankfurt,1991 and we see an average looking family man with his wife and small child emerging from their car in the city street (we learn later that his name is Martin Romero -- a small role for Giovanni Lombardo Radice. The character was apparently named after George A. Romero, who Argento had just finished working with on "Two Evil Eyes"). Suddenly the man sees a woman across the street and leaves his wife, saying as he goes that he's going to buy some milk. The woman notices him and starts to run. Eventually see loses him and makes her way home. But, unfortunately, the man from the street is already in her house! The woman is viscously murdered. Later, the murderer is riding on the tube when someone tries to pick his pocket. The pickpocket gets a nasty surprise when the chain he removes is still attached to a large chunk of the murder victim! There is panic on the tube-train and the murderer makes a quick exit at the next stop, but is eventually captured by the police. The woman who was murdered apparently 'betrayed' the religious sect she belonged to and the Romero has been ordered to kill her.

Next we see an old man (Herbert Lom) leaving his home with a package, and setting off on a bus journey. On the radio playing on the bus there is a report about a spate of killings all over the world, which have been linked to satanic sects. The old man leaves the bus and stands in the middle of the road, as if in a trance. Suddenly a car speeds round the corner and the driver has to swerve to avoid hitting him. The driver is a primary school teacher called Miriam (Kelly Curtis) she feels so guilty that she offers to let the old man stay at her house and rest (another big mistake!). Back at Miriam's house (where she lives alone apart from her pet rabbit) the old man spooks the young teacher -- he seems to know much about her life and feelings of inadequacy. The old man seems too sick to leave and so Miriam reluctantly lets him sleep on the sofa. That night, the man unwraps his package which contains a vial of some kind, and enters Miriam's bedroom and produces an earwig-type insect which he forces up the sleeping Miriam's nose!

It would be unfair to go into too much more detail about what follows (I've mentioned some of the elements above), but any fan of Italian horror is likely to have a blast with this film! Much of it is made up largely of elements we've seen before many times, and I would hazard a guess that Soavi is rather fond of Rosemary's Baby. Not only does "The Sect" recapitulate the basic idea of a group of Satan worshipers trying to bring the evil one back into the world in human form, but, both "The Sect" and "The Church" pay homage to that film in scenes where the Devil copulates with a woman (in "The Church" it was a goat/devil who does the dirty deed, while in "The Sect" it's a giant stork-like bird!). But the whole caboodle is delivered with such supreme confidence and style, and looks so absolutely beautiful at times, with some wonderful set-design, particularly the basement cavern beneath Miriam's house that contains a gateway to hell, that the film always feels original even if it isn't. The last twenty minutes or so contain a whole string of tense set-pieces that keep you riveted right up to the very end wondering how the whole thing could possibly be resolved.

It's good to see Kelly Curtis in a major role that recalls her sisters early career in the horror genre. She even looks like Jamie Lee Curtis at some points and there is a reference to the two sisters' mother, Janet Leigh, in the murder sequence near the beginning. The woman murdered by Giovanni Lombardo Radice is named Mary Crane, and although the murder takes place in a kitchen, the shower scene from "Psycho" (where Janet Leigh's character, Marion Crane is killed) is referenced when Mary Crane pulls at a curtain as she dies in the same way as the shower curtain is pulled in the Hitchcock film.

Finally, a brief mention of Pino Donaggio's memorable score is in order. The main theme is fabulous, and sounds like a cross between Goblin and The Coctaeu Twins, while the incidental music ranges from pounding Goblin-esque synth-rock to more atmospheric synthesiser washes. It plays a big role in establishing and maintaining the mood throughout. Outstanding.

The disc under review is the new Italian DVD from Cecci Gori. The image quality is pretty good but there is grain and some annoying artefacts visible at times. The colours are vivid and the image sharp -- the frescos on the wall of Miriam's basement look stunning. All in all I'd say the image quality is good but could be better. Audio wise English speaking viewers are restricted to a basic Dolby Digital 2.0 track. The disc includes an Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 track and a DTS 5.1 track but no English subtitles are included which is a real shame. Extras wise there is really nothing worth mentioning -- just Argento and Soavi filmography's and biographies (all in Italian) and some trailers for "The Sect" and "The Church".

Any Argento or Soavi fan has to see this film, and I don't hesitate to recommend this disc, since it is the only DVD release available at the moment as far as I am aware. But people who have already seen the film but want to add it to their DVD collection might want to wait and see how any future Anchor Bay release matches up to this one because although it's good, there is definitely room for improvement (especially audio-wise).

"The Sect" is a great example of Italian horror and one of the best of Michele Soavi's four films