A Waterfall of Dreams and Conspiracies
…The Sect (1991)
Movie fanatics tend to be people who find a genre or style they like and then fixate on it exhaustively. The obsession may have to do with a certain performer or director, or more generally, an era or geographic region of cinema. I attribute much of my autodidactic knowledge of different cultures around the world to various fixations I have had throughout my life--German Expressionism and New German cinema, the history of Japanese film, and of course, Italian horror. Over the past decade or more, I have seen dozens--probably hundreds--of Italian horror films, although there are surely other people out there who are even more obsessive and adept on the subject than me. There is something to be said though, about avoiding a completist attitude, and leaving some films to be seen later on. One movie I waited on until this year is Michele Soavi’s The Sect (1991), quite honestly because there are not many good Italian horror films past the mid-1980s. The new Severin Films disc release of the movie is pleasantly surprising. It had been so long since I felt the excitement of watching a new-to-me wild, bizarre, surreal Italian horror movie that was also extremely well crafted. The Sect takes so many elements from other movies, art movements, and esoteric cultures that have already been seen in cinema, but somehow makes it all exciting and frenetic once again.
The word “incoherent” is often used by detractors looking to put down gialli and other subgenres of Italian cinema. While it is sometimes a valid criticism, what people don’t seem to realize is that an incoherent plot frees up a movie from the strictures of narrative, creating new opportunities for where it can go. Incoherent does not necessarily mean bad in all cases. Succinctly explaining the plot of The Sect is a daunting task in itself. The movie opens in a desert with a location card designating “South California”. A Manson-esque, Christlike figure wanders into an encampment of hippies, eventually murdering all of them with the help of a leather gang. The arrival of a limousine indicates that the savage violence is just one incident in a much larger international conspiracy. Next we find ourselves in Frankfurt, Germany, where a man played by Giovanni Lombardo Radice murders a woman and steals the heart out of her chest. Eventually he chooses suicide by cop in order to avoid explaining his involvement in the aforementioned conspiracy. Only after this do we finally meet Moebius Kelly (Herbert Lom) and Miriam Kreisl (Kelly Curtis), who become co-protagonists of The Sect. He is a strange old man who uses gross black eye drops for some unnamed ailment. She is a school teacher who finds herself deep in the conspiracy after nearly hitting Moebius with her car. After taking him home, he discovers a well deep under her house, which he seemed to have previous knowledge of. This well is a portal to the surreal dreamscape that is at the heart of the movie. This allows for the story to become the equivalent of a visual jazz solo. We see strange, blue stringy things in Miriam’s drinking water, a psychotic marabou stork, and Miriam’s nameless pet rabbit who watches a lot of late night TV. In the last half hour we suddenly find ourselves watching the plot of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) superimposed over the movie we had been watching up to that point. Miriam is impregnated--possibly by the Dream Stork, but also possibly by a beetle Moebius releases from a jar in order to crawl up her nose (?). Either way he becomes a daddy figure to her, encouraging her descent into the Lovecraftian, Satanic sect who has been responsible for all of the chaos. It isn’t a spoiler to say that in the end there are big explosions and a majestic eagle that symbolizes some kind of freedom attained through the whole ordeal. In another movie, this seemingly random progression of events would not come off in such a captivating way, but The Sect inexplicably makes it work.
Although more of a psychotronic, supernatural horror movie than a giallo, that particular Italian sub-genre is known for relying on extravagant visual set pieces as opposed to an always-progressing narrative. As detailed in Mikel Koven’s book La Dolce Morte, much of the spectatorship of Italy’s terze visione theaters (which were more regional and second/third-run) would be made up by a distracted clientele.* Audience members would often socialize as the movie played, paying attention only when the set pieces involving gratuitous sex and/or violence would possess the crowd. The Sect has similarities to this structure, but takes the concept of the set piece to a new level. Except for a bit of a lull around the fifty minute mark, almost every sequence is an elaborate, lucious and somehow beautiful set piece. Soavi takes this approach to the logical conclusion--what if every sequence in the movie is a set piece that stands alone? The combination of sequences encompasses a powerful feature that uses elements of surrealism and the sublime for the audience’s audiovisual pleasure.
Almost every scene in The Sect has a little something extra. Our opening in Southern California has a reference to The Rolling Stones, which comes back later in the picture. Meanwhile in Frankfurt, after Radice’s character rips a woman’s heart out, it gets pickpocketed on a crowded subway train because there is a gold necklace wrapped around it. A little while later I find myself asking what the fuck even are those disgusting, black eye drops that Moebius is always using? I don’t think we ever get an answer. The theme of time starts with a broken clock in the opening scene, and then comes back in the form of a conspicuously large calendar in Miriam's home. We later inexplicably see all the numbers dumped on the floor as she flees her aggressors, giving us a pretty obvious indicator that Soavi is referencing Salvador Dali’s famous painting “The Persistence of Memory” from 1931. Much like time doesn’t mean anything in Dali’s world, it also means very little in The Sect, which eventually takes on a non-chronological dream logic. Moebius’ death mask--which also attacks Kathryn--may also be an art historical reference, this time to Rene Magritte’s The Lovers (1928). While the emotions in both instances are markedly different, the white sheet obscuring a human face lends a feeling of haunting uncertainty.
And let’s not forget Miriam’s white rabbit seen in the blue light of a late night TV show, clicking the remote control like they’re trying to find some special infomercial. I don’t know exactly why this rabbit is presented to us like this, but I don’t care. I don’t need to know. It is amazing. Just when you think The Sect can’t possibly keep delivering, it does, like when Miriam’s friend Kathryn (Mariangela Giordano) suddenly comes back to life--“A case of catalepsy. A burst of adrenaline that brought her back to life. It wouldn’t be the first time.” It most certainly won’t be the last either. Just in case we needed more of a cohesive plot, we get a couple mentions of Lovecraftian faceless ones from the old continent, compounded by an obvious lifting of the paranoid Satanic pregnancy plot of Rosemary’s Baby. Whether you buy it or not, the grime and gristle left by the explosions at the end is washed away for an instance of rebirth. One perspective on The Sect is that the entire Satanic group of the title is a complete macguffin, only there to push an artistic spectacle of surreal, gothic, and fantastique set pieces.
The spirit of this month’s writing is specifically about enjoying movies on physical media, as opposed to streaming, file sharing, or in the cinema. Last year the mighty Severin Films released The Sect on blu ray and 4K UHD, along with two other Soavi movies, The Church (1989) and Cemetery Man (aka Dellamorte Dellamore, 1994). I chose to focus on The Sect because it goes so much farther than the un/holy walls and histories we see in The Church. I also enjoy the surreal yet serious tone of The Sect as compared to the occasionally goofy mood of Cemetery Man. Either way, all three releases are impressive in what they have to offer beyond just the movies. In an interview, Soavi discusses how the well below Miriam’s home is similar to the catacombs beneath his home, and we even get a brief video tour of the basement. We also get an interview with Dario Argento recounting his relationship with Soavi, and specific memories of The Sect. There is an additional booklet with an essay by Claire Donner, “Michele Soavi in the Shadow of the Golem”. In a world of technological distraction it is important to have companies preserving films and presenting them in an ownable form for those with media libraries. The Sect is one title that deserves to be on those shelves.
Koven, Mikel J. La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and The Italian Giallo Film Oxford: Scarecrow Press, 2006.
