The Film (4/5)

    The Sect was the third of four horror films Michele Soavi would make during his career falling between 1980's The Church and 1994's Dellamorte Dellamore (aka Cemetery Man). The film like The Church was produced, and co-written by his mentor Dario Argento, as sort of a Dario Argento "Presents" sort of film.  Argento was unable to make as many films as he would have liked, and leaned on directors like Soavi and Lamberto Bava to produce content seemingly in the mold of his work. Of course, both directors regardless of the leash Argento tried to keep on them would inevitably leave their own stylistic imprints on their works for Argento as producer.

   The Sect is a film I had been meaning to watch for close to 20 years, being a fan of both Italian horror, and specifically Soavi, and yet I kept putting it off. I had seen all of the director's horror output, and had even taken a minor segue into one of his more recent films with The Goodbye Kiss (which was excellent). Oddly, the Sect feels sort of like the odd number in Soavi's horror filmography, but then again no two of his horror films truly felt alike. Statefright was more of a traditional giallo, though leaned more toward the slasher genre that was prominent in the 80's. The Church was originally cast as a Demons sequel, before going it's own way, it blended some surrealist flourishes into a grand violent twisted experience, and Dellamorte Dellamore is a surreal black comedy in the guise of a zombie film. The Sect, however, mixes opens like a Manson-esque story, but becomes a bizarre Satanic thriller.

   The film stars Kelly Curtis (Jamie Lee's sister, Deep Space Nine) as Miriam. A young school teacher in Germany, who one day hits a strange old man named Moebius with her car. He refuses hospital care, and so she takes him home to rest. He will eventually die while at her home, but not before he allows a strange bug to crawl up her nose. This sets off a bizarre series of events involving a cult leader from the 60's, and potentially the birth of the devil's child.

    The Sect is a really odd film from Soavi, and tonally it's all over the place. Normally, when it comes to Italian horror, this is something I can easily swing with.  However, with Soavi I expected something else, so I have a feeling this is a film that will require repeat viewings to firmly gel with.

     The film opens in the 60's at a hippie camp where Damon (Tomas Arana), appears reciting Rolling Stones lyrics, he is taken in by the hippies, but then alongside his own cult members promptly butchers them by nightfall. The film then skips to Germany in 1991, where a woman is brutally and quickly dispatched for committing some infraction against a modern cult, her murderer is caught with her heart in his pocket, and commits suicide by a police officer's gun.  We then come to the scenario with Moebius and Miriam which is both more straight forward, but also all over the place, and with the 2 prior sequences delays settling into the film until over 20 minutes into the film's running time.

   The film does have a quite unique and interesting score from Pino Donaggio, and looks fantastic with some really great stark cold blues that are quite chilling. The performance from Kelly Curtis channels her sister, and makes a normal seeming character in a bizarre circumstance quite relatable.

Audio/Video (3/5)

    Scorpion Releasing presents the Sect in a solid 1:78:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer. The Blu-ray has apparently gone through 45 hours of color correction in the U.S., and it shows with nice stable color reproduction, and occasional more colorful sequences that pop.  Detail is solid, and there is a nice organic grain structure during the presentation.

   Audio is presented with a DTS-HD MA 2.0 track in English. Everything here is audible from score to dialogue but there is a lot of hiss that can be heard on this track among other audio anomalies.

Extras (2/5)

   We get a 30 minute interview with co-star Tomas Arana, an on-camera interview with director Soavi and trailers for other Soavi and Argento films.

Overall

    The Sect is an interesting experience from director Soavi. It is not quite what I expected from the director, but it was certainly wild and enjoyable. The Blu-ray from Scorpion Releasing looks and sounds excellent, and has a few solid extras to recommend it by. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.