The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Catholicism refers to the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church. The church has a long history and is the largest Christian denomination in the world. Catholicism is widespread in Latin American countries, Ireland and Italy, among many others.
Catholicism has a number of essential doctrines that differentiate it from mainstream Christianity. These include a male priesthood who must remain celibate their entire lives, while women become nuns; the belief that the Pope is the appointed head of the church and God’s voice on Earth and that his teachings are infallible; the belief that the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, has a consecrated position. There is also the belief in those who lead sanctified lives can be appointed saints and have special power.
Beliefs also entail the confession of one’s sins to a priest and small penance that one must do to receive forgiveness. Controversial has been stances against divorce, contraception and homosexuality. There are many other aspects, particularly now defunct doctrines such as Latin liturgy, relics and the notion of Purgatory (a holding place between Heaven and Hell where one’s prayers and devotions can aid the dead progress on to Heaven).
In genre portrayals, Catholic priests have been seen as the frontline defenders against demonic possession in the Possession Film ever since The Exorcist (1973). The Church is also seen as funding vampire and other Monster Hunters. They are also seen as aiding in/fighting against the coming of Biblical End Times. The Vatican Library is seen as having objects of great rarity and occult value.
There have been a number of works that are critical of the church’s beliefs and practices, ranging from Witch Persecutions and The Inquisition to modern real-life accounts of paedophile priests. Some other works promote Conspiracy Theories about the church. There have also been films that feature psychopathic priests or nuns or are thrillers set around the confessional.
Team-up between Ken Russell and Anthony Perkins with both in full-on lunacy mode. Kathleen Turner gives her best performance ever as a fashion designer moonlighting as a hooker who is stalked by Perkins as a psycho priest
Acclaimed classic of 1980s Italian horror where a mysterious typewriter ribbon leads a writer in search of zones where the dead can return to life
One of the early films from Paul Verhoeven, an amusingly blasphemous tale that draws more than a little from Don’t Look Now with gay writer Jeroen Krabbe becoming wound into the dealings of femme fatale Renee Soutendijk
The third and last of the Monty Python films, a variety of skits that are variously outrageous and frequently leave behind all good taste
The first of The Amityville Horror sequels and a far more entertaining film than its predecessor by abandoning the pretence at telling a true story and adding a possession plot and makeup effects to the mix
Obscure but worthwhile psycho-thriller with Richard Burton as a priest at a Catholic boy’s school dealing with a pupil playing taunting psychological games
From Frank LaLogiaa, a director who has made too few films, a low-budget film with Stefan Arngrim as a teenage Antichrist. This is a film filled with as much promise as it does absurd effect
The third and by general consensus the weakest of The Omen films. It fails to deliver its promise of depicting the Armageddon but Sam Neill gives a performance of magnificently dark charisma as the grown-up Damien
Ray Bradbury’s book about the human colonisation of Mars is an SF classic for its wistful, nostalgic poetry. This tv mini-series adaptation is killed by a lumbering director who over-explains Bradbury’s imagery in the most literal ways
The directorial debut of William Peter Blatty, the writer of The Exorcist, a strange and unclassifiable black comedy set in a military asylum. Imagine One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest directed by Robert Altman
Notorious Video Nasty, a key work in the Nunsploitation genre with Anita Ekberg as a drug addicted nun who kills her patients. Apparently based on real life
Michael Winner directs a film about a sinister apartment building but his typical crude and heavy-handed style fails to conjure anything remotely scary
This is regarded as one of the worst sequels ever made, featuring many of the actors but with John Boorman stepping in as director. It’s an incomprehensible mishmash of ideas but not without some laudable elements
From British director Pete Walker who specialised in films about insane authority figures slaughtering Swinging Sixties youth – in this case, he caused a considerable stir with a film featuring a psychopathic Catholic priest
The second-to-last Hammer film, an adaptation of one of Dennis Wheatley’s occult novels, shows them trying to catch up with The Exorcist and its ilk
A psycho-thriller that has gained a modest cult reputation. This comes seeped in Catholic guilt and director Alfred Sole delivers twists and turns with a fine hand. Featuring a young Brooke Shields in her film debut.
This is where all the cliches of Devil Children began. A big hit among the 1970s occult boom, this is essentially Sunday tabloid Christianity – a lurid, doom-filled take on Book of Revelation End Times prophecies that moves with a slick polish and a series of schlocky deaths every few minutes
An Italian-made ripoff of The Exorcist. Probably the most lavishly produced of all Exorcist ripoffs, this soon slips into lurid shock theatrics. Star Carla Gravina should get full marks for going beyond the call of duty
One of the key films from cult director Walerian Borowczyk, a quartet of exquisitely photographed and art directed erotic tales, including one about Countess Bathory
Difficult to find 1970s Canadian-made occult film that doesn’t quite live up to expectation. Mostly it is a police procedural and the devil worship cult angle only emerges as a left field ending in the last ten minutes.; Not tight enough as a detective story to fully work
A landmark classic of the horror genre, a film whose take on demonic possession and exorcism laid down a series of tropes that are still present over five decades later. A gruelling and intensive horror story into the bargain
One of the early films from Lucio Fulci – the film that he always insisted was his best – concerning a series of child killings in a small town. Quite different to the sort of film Fulci became known for
One of the standout entries in the giallo film and certainly one of the best plotted of the genre, concerning a series of murders at a Catholic girls school
Not to be confused with the Chucky films, this is a little-seen film about a series of sadistic games played by pupils that targets other pupils in a Catholic boys’ boarding school
A film that was the cause of much censorship controversy when it came out where two teenage girls decide to become devil worshippers and engage on a spree of cruel and malicious acts
Ken Russell makes an historical work about the Catholic Church’s persecution of a supposed outbreak of possession at a convent in 17th Century France. As to be expected of Russell, this is shocking and outrageous. Oliver Reed gives one of his best performance
Obscure film in which director Fernando Arrabal depicts a series of vignettes from his childhood depicting the sadism and cruelty of the Spanish Fascists
Little-seen Czech film that sits on the blurred edge of a dream in its hazily surreal view of the world through the eyes of a young girl where the figures around her seem to become vampires that constantly loom with darkly allegorical sexual threat
An oddity from Hammer Films – a colourfully interesting lost world film set in the Sargasso Sea filled with trapped ships from all eras and cheesy monster. More dramatically interesting in the build-up than when we arrive
The second and more sophisticated of the Ze do Caixao/Coffin Joe films with director Jose Mojica Marins as a diabolic undertaker who delights in inflicting a catalogue of tortures on the weak-minded
Hammer Films offer their take on the werewolf film starring a young, unknown Oliver Reed. Director Terence Fisher creates a lush film rich in symbolism, made with the full weight of Hammer’s production values
A ridiculously melodramatic Catholic historical drama wherein a statue of the Virgin Mary comes to life to take the place of a nun so she can run off and woo a young Roger Moore … A lushly made canvas but otherwise absurdly overwrought piety
One of a spate of miracle films during this period, Catholic nonsense with Jane Wyman and Van Johnson finding love that transcends death
A ghastly sanctimonious Catholic miracle film from the 1940s about the elevation of a Hollywood starlet to sainthood simply because she was glamorous