I love you, America, but you fall so easily for false dichotomies. You are standing at a pivotal moment in history. Have any of you even considered how much that song sucks?
With its stiff, straight up and down pomp and pageantry, you sound like you never learned to fuck right. There's no swivel in your hips. Plus, the melody was stolen from a British drinking song. Who can blame you for sounding like a lousy lay.
I thought you were proud. Write your own tunes. Your other patriotic hit, "My Country Tis of Thee", is literally the British national anthem, for crying out loud.
In composing the musical embodiment of the spirit of your people, it might be wise to draw influence from other cultures who have built their reputation for lovemaking. Consider the Italian national anthem.
It kind of teases you at first. Those drum rolls resound in the pelvis. Sure, it's still a little stodgy, it's a national Anthem. You can still hear the Italians have their fun.
As a result, the Italians have established an international reputation. They fuck well. They wrote a good national anthem. They also used to make some great horror movies. The movie I'd like to talk about came in toward the end of their reign of cinematic weirdness.
This week's Thursday Thriller is The Church.
This 1989 Michele Soavi film was produced by Dario Argento. According to IMDb, it was initially conceived as the third installment of the Argento-produced Demons franchise, but Soavi had higher artistic aims.
The action starts with some knights on horseback thundering into a poor medieval village. A priest leads them in and tells them that every village denizen is a witch and has brought forth a great plague. One night opens his face shield so a young girl can stare into his great Nordic blue eyes and beg for mercy. He responds by crushing her pretty, innocent, little face with his gauntleted hand. On examination of her body, the priest and knight find she has a cross carved on the bottom of her foot -- the sign of the demon.
The knights kill everyone and bury them in a mass grave. To smoosh the demons down real good, they build a cathedral on top of it.
What could go wrong, right?
Cut to centuries later, the church's foundation is crumbling and the Catholics have hired a bunch of people to work on its restoration. A scholarly type named Evan (Tomas Arana) gets to poking around in the basement and pries loose a seal in the floor with his pocketknife. Instead of a big pile of dirty skeletons, he discovers a hole that drops to oblivion and casts the room in an eerie, blue glow. He finds a hole and looks inside. Demon hands grab him around the throat and take possession of his soul. He then kills the Sacristan (Roberto Corbiletto), who is then also possessed.
The Sacristan confesses his desire to do evil to a priest, then punches him through the partition, and runs downstairs to impale himself on a jackhammer.
After that it gets pretty weird. A Goonies-style boobie trap locks the church shut with a lot of visitors inside. The Sacristan impales runs a bridal model through with a hefty chunk of wrought iron. A fish demon jumps out of a holy water fountain and attacks a guy. I could go on.
The soundtrack is especially cool. It's all synthesizers and pipe organs and features Keith Emerson, Goblin, Phillip Glass and Fabio Pignatelli.
The Church streams on YouTube.
Mention The Church at The Devil's Attic this weekend and get $2 off admission.
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