An evil, Devil-worshipping sect, led by their enigmatic leader Moebius Kelly(Herbert Lom)have dastardly plans for Mirian(Kelly Curtis)and it concerns unleashing evil on the world through a sordid type of birth.

That's the best I can do to explain this baffling supernatural, surreal religious horror outing from director Michele Soavi whose camera is always moving, capturing the action of every scene. The way an unusual blue water flows in Miriam's house' pipes or the POV of a rabbit as it moves throughout Miriam's abode..Soavi's camera captures such action intensely. There are quite a few bizarre moments in this flick like Giovanni Lombardo Radice's stabbing of a woman, later having her heart found in his pocket in a subway as a looter tries to lift something from his coat leading to his suicide after police surround him after aborting the train. Or a bizarre sequence where Miriam's neck is picked at by a crane. Herbert Lom has the most interesting part as the sect's leader, who informs Miriam of why she was selected to carry out benevolent plans against the world and God. There's a hole in her house's basement with major significance to the plot as it works as a type of gateway. What occurs to Miriam's schoolteacher friend Kathryn(Mariangela Giordano)when her face is "attacked" by Moebius' facial death shroud, and Frank(Michel Adatte),Miriam's confident whose a doctor she depends on as her life is spiraling out of control,when he discovers what the sect is up to(..like Frank, we are an eyewitness to a very disturbing ceremony where a female victim's face is removed so that their leader can gain "new life")are also very strange occurrences within the film. Miriam soon finds herself on her own against the dangers of a sect wielding a power far greater than mankind has ever known.

While, at first, I tried to make sense of it all, soon I just gave up and enjoyed Soavi's distinctive camera-work..he really doesn't take an easy way out trying every type of visually innovative trick he can think of to make each scene memorable. And, there enough wildly imaginative ideas at work to keep one from getting bored. Very dreamlike, hypnotic score from Pino Donaggio seems to mesh well with Soavi's style and the film's strange subject matter.

THE SECT is an underrated last-gap Italian horror flick from cult director Michele Soavi, although he would return for a final masterpiece in 1994's DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE. This one's a slightly lesser piece but nonetheless thoroughly entertaining thanks to bags of style from Soavi's direction, full of stylish camerawork and even a POV shot from a pet rabbit - how often do you get to see that? The film suffers from being a bit overlong and a bit too obtuse when it comes to plotting; the occasional Lovecraftian reference promises much, but the shock climax (eerily foretelling a key moment for Daenerys in GAME OF THRONES) is more head-scratching than anything. Still, Herbert Lom gives a fine late-stage career performance and the direction is to die for, so there's more good than bad here; I was reminded of a cross between the haunted house flicks that Fulci and Lenzi were making in the 1980s as well as Argento in terms of style.

Nothing like a bad Italian combination of "Rosemary's Baby" plus "The Wrath of Khan" to make for a low intensity boring film. The beginning of the film opens with evil satanic bikers killing i.e sacrificing some desert hippies. It then jumps to 1991 Frankfort where a Van Helsing looking guy (Herbert Lom) sticks a bug up a school teacher's (Kelly Curtis) nose. Very long. Very boring. Not well acted. There are better ways to spend your time and money.

Released under the title "La setta."

PARENTAL GUIDE: F-bomb, sex, nudity.