In Boston, the music teacher Hugh Stanton (Christopher McDonald), his wife, the writer Norah Stanton (Wendy Crewson), and their teenager daughter Lucy (Rachael Leigh Cook) are a happy family. On the day of Hugh's birthday, Norah and Lucy organize a surprising party for him. Norah is researching the Etruscan civilization and has an interview with the notorious Father Simeon (Maximilian Schell), who is the leader of a sect that worship Satan, and she brings Lucy with her. They meet Father Simeon and Lucy leaves her mother to receive the guests of the party. Out of the blue, her mother commits suicide jumping off the roof of the building. While grieving the loss of her mother, Lucy turns into a rebellious teenager and soon she is invited to move to Rome by a modelling agency to take photos against the will of her father. The reluctant Hugh travels with Lucy to satisfy her dream and the farmer Maria Elena (Enrica Maria Modugno) lodges them in her farmhouse. Meanwhile, Father Simeon and his sect believe that Satan will reborn soon and will choose a beautiful youth among eighteen called "angels" to return to Earth, and Lucy is the Eighteenth Angel.
Revisiting "The Eighteenth Angel" (1997) in 2024, the impact reduces since the prophecies for the year 2000 did not realize. But in 1998, when I first saw this film, it was not original but much better. The dark plot of the need of (6+6+6) angels to Satan returns to Earth is interesting, and not bad as indicated in many reviews. It is also one of the earlier films of the filmography of Rachael Leigh Cook. Maximilian Schell is excellent in the role of the evil father that worships Satan. My vote is six.
Title (Brazil): "O Décimo-Oitavo Anjo" ("The Eighteenth Angel"
