Movie Review: The Church (2018)

Pastor James (horror legend Bill Moseley) is the sole hold out on a plan to gentrify the city and therefore bring some wealth to the neighborhood where his ancient church stands. Of course those shifty folks behind the plan won’t take no for an answer and soon the spirits that dwell within the church begin to carry out their preternatural plan to show their dissatisfaction of giving up their holy dwelling.
So what’s good with The Church? Well for starters it has some fine performances from some horror legends such as the aforementioned Moseley, Lisa Wilcox, and Clint Howard turn in solid acting with what they are given. Also, the basic concept of the “anything but holy” goings-on inside of an ancient church is solid fright flick grist for the monstrous mill…in other words, that shit worked before, it works well, and it works here as well. Unfortunately, that’s where my good will towards this picture ends…
On the negative side, some of the acting in this baby (basically anybody that isn’t the fine folks mentioned above) is akin to a mummified dog turd left out to bake on a hot summer’s day…that would be excusable if the rest of the film was superlative, but unfortunately such is not the case here. Speaking of why this isn’t an amazing fright flick, there is waaay too much time spent on the land deal and fucking around with various nonsense, and not enough time spent on the supernatural shenanigans, and when we get to the ghoulish goods, it’s papers flying around and red gel lights…a random episode of Amen was scarier than this shit. Finally, the film lacks any real visual style or panache, and just ends up feeling flat and unimpressive to the viewer.
Look, filmmaker Dom Frank has the potential to make something great in our beloved horror biz…but The Church definitely isn’t that picture…you can pass this one faster than the fucking collection plate boils n’ ghouls.