Director: Dom Frank
Writer: Dom Frank (Screenplay)
Starring: Clint Howard, Bill Moseley, Ashley C Williams, Lisa Wilcox, Deitra Leak, Holly Zuelle, Matthew Nadu
Plot: After a Pastor and select members of his congregation agree to sell his family’s 100-year-old church to a local developer, their sins begin to manifest in front of their eyes and hell breaks loose…inside the church.
Tagline – He is Watching
Runtime: 1 Hour 21 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Simple Religious Horror
Story: The Church starts when real estate agent Ronald Lawson (Nadu) are trying to get a deal done purchasing a church from Pastor James (Moseley) to turn the church into the latest development for his company.
With the papers signed both sides find themselves trapped inside the church being tormented by an unseen force that isn’t happy the church is being sold.
Thoughts on The Church
Characters – Pastor James runs the church, he wants to be loyal to the followers, only he is seeing the numbers dwindle and his only option is to sale the church to the investor. Ronald Lawson wants to impress his father by being the one to get the deal done when it comes to buying the church, he finds a way, but his own personal problems cause him to be haunted by what is in the church. Elizabeth is the assistant to Roland who can help get a deal done, the rest of the characters we meet are different people who work for Roland, who are part of the deal from the developer’s side and members of the board in the church.
Performances – Bill Moseley is the horror icon that we know, he often appears in horror movies in support or cameo roles, here we do get to see him through the whole film which is good to see. Matthew Nadu takes the lead role and does a solid enough job. The film does get slightly saturated with too many characters which stops anyone becoming the main attraction of the film.
Story – The story here follows a development group that wants to purchase a church and after a sale is agreed things turn sinister when an evil in the church refuses to let the people leave the church. This does ask us the question about whether a church should be sold to be demolished for developmental purposes, which is the highlight of the story. the story ends up being split into two, first half is showing us how the characters are thinking about the deal and the second is all the scares. Inside the church the hauntings don’t seem to completely explain or explained in anyway, just randomly occurrences. We do get too many characters meaning anything that does happen to any of the characters we don’t get enough time to process what happen either. The story has potential, but only turns into a quick bump and scare with an ending which will leave you rolling your eyes.
Horror – The horror we experience in the film is basic, the positive come from the fact we do see the events happen in a group rather than solo moments being picked off, this can be scary but doesn’t feel scary.
Settings – Once we are in the locked church the setting for the film works, we rarely see hauntings from inside a church, which is could be considered one of the smartest moves this movie makes.
Special Effects – The effects are a mixed bag, because they are consistent when it comes to how the disappearance happen, but certain elements later in the film come off weak.
Scene of the Movie – The first person taken.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Too many characters.
Final Thoughts – This is a simple horror film, it does the basics well without doing anything that will make us go and scream. We have a good idea that doesn’t get executed to the best levels.
Overall: Simple horror with little originality.
Rating
