Best movie of this year hands down!

To me, this movie is perfection.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

"La seta", a.k.a. "The Sect" or "The Devil´s Daughter", is a terrible and too long "Rosemary's Baby" rip-off with an incoherent story. The segments in 1970 in California and 1991 in Frankfurt are absolutely unnecessary and do not add any value to the plot. The lead story of the school teacher Miriam Kreisl, performed by Jamie Lee Curtis' older sister Kelly Curtis, who is awfully dubbed in Italian, is full of unnecessary comings and goings. A young woman living alone in a lonely place bringing a lunatic stranger home is something that does not make any sense. Everything the guy does at her place during the night could have been done while she is at school with the exception of the worm in her nose that would have taken a moment during any night by anybody from the satanic cult. The conclusion with the devil´s baby sacrificing to protect Miriam is another absurd in the poor story. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "A Filha do Demônio" ("The Devil´s Daughter")

"The Sect," also released as "The Devil's Daughter" in the U.S., follows an American schoolteacher in Frankfurt who crosses paths with a mysterious elderly man. Little does she know, he is not as innocent as he seems, and their chance encounter sets in motion the plot of a group of Satanic ritual killers who plan to use her for a very important occasion.Comparisons of this film have been made over and over again to "Rosemary's Baby," though I think that's a bit unfair to both films; it's no doubt an influence, but "The Sect" is far weirder and considerably less well-plotted (and the truth of the matter is that only the last ten minutes even remotely resemble Polanski's epic). Directed by Argento protege Michele Soavi, "The Sect" is as entertaining as it is absurd. The plot is shoddily strung-together, borrowing heavily instead from Argento's "Three Mothers" trilogy. Incoherence comes with the territory of Italian horror by and large, and "The Sect" is no different; plotholes abound and the real motives and nuances of the Satanic cult remain incredibly vague, which is a major pitfall.That said, in all of its unintentional ambiguity, the film is hinged on several key moments that are quite memorable and well-executed, one of which involves a completely demented operating room sequence. The demonic angle underpins all of this, but is again underdeveloped, and the finale is clunky as it doesn't really manage to bring the audience to any sense of resolution or awareness of what they've just witnessed. Kelly Curtis (first daughter of Janet Leigh, sister of Jamie Lee) is hit-and-miss here, though the overdubbing makes it difficult to really gauge her performance. Herbert Lom makes an appearance as the elderly henchman who sets the entire plot into motion and is a welcome presence. All in all, "The Sect" is an entertaining mess of ideas. It has all the cornerstones of a good Satanic horror flick: A mysterious cult, inexplicable supernatural phenomena, possession, conspiracy, and ancient beetles-but there is not really a thread running through any of these things to make for a sturdy film. That aside, I do find it incredibly entertaining in all its weirdness, and there are a few hallucinogenic sequences that are well-executed. Standout moment: The sequence in which Curtis's posessed colleague propositions for sex at a truck stop, and everything that follows. 6/10.

By chance, this was on TV tonight and I had been looking everywhere to find this one, so I was glad to finally see it. That being said, I feel as though my expectations were a bit too high on this one. It's not as if the film is bad, which it ain't, but I feel I was expecting another "Suspiria" or "Inferno" which, a few similarities aside, are quite different from this one. Still, there are some truly powerful images that sticked in my head after watching it and the first dream sequence was just brilliant. The acting was pretty good also, with Kelly Curtis coming off as a likable protagonist alongside the great Hebert Lom giving an eerie performance as one of the villains. There's also a fine script that, though owes a lot to "Rosemary's Baby", came out as fresh and quite unique really, and not the carbon copy one might expect. The cinematography is also spellbinding, and as in his previous (and in my opinion slightly superior) "The Church", Michele Soavi proves to be a visual artist on the same level as Dario Argento. The film's flaws come mostly from the strong made-for-TV feel and a rather cheesy score from Pinno Donagio, as well as some rather unintentionally funny moments here and there (easily overcomed by the claustrophobic, nightmarish atmosphere). Overall, a quite decent obscure chiller that deserves more attention than it gets. I only wish I could like it more myself, as it's one of the last great Italian horror movies of the past twenty years or so. Hopefully, repeated viewings will make me appreciate it more, because it surely got potential. 7/10

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.