Now veterans of the S. O. V. (shot on video) horror market, Mark and John Polonia made this initial entry while still students in high school. The story, such as it is, has to do with occult-related killings (perpetrated by the "Brothorhood of Satan"), and the efforts of two detectives (played by Mark and John) to solve the grisly crimes.
Rating this obviously crude effort against other movies of its kind, it's no better and not much worse than most. You can tell that Mark and John were basically learning as they went along, but what they lacked in technical savvy they make up for with a certain gonzo, go-for-broke attitude. Even they weren't really satisfied with the movie, though, and they basically gave up on it before moving on to their next effort, "Hallucinations" (and then "Splatter Farm", the movie with which they really made their name). So, for a movie that in its current incarnation is an unfinished product, it entertains as well as it can. While so much of it IS amateurish, the over-the-top murder set pieces and the tacky gore are so absolutely hilarious that they should have *some* horror fans howling with laughter.
"Church of the Damned" *can* be a slog to get through when the focus is off the kill scenes, even at a running time of barely over an hour. But it's amusing enough and gory enough to make it reasonably watchable.
Five out of 10.
