"Satan will no longer be beast... but beauty!" That declaration comes early in The Eighteenth Angel, signaling the kind of horror movie we're in for: thick and cheesy. When that line (and others like it) is uttered by mad monk Maximilian Schell, it's even creamier. Schell is ushering in the return of the Antichrist by genetically engineering Satan's minions, but he needs the transplanted faces of beautiful humans to complete the task. Enter Rachael Leigh Cook (pre-She's All That), who travels with dad Christopher McDonald to Italy, perilously close to Schell's monastery-laboratory. The movie has lots of Omen- style devilry, and it's somehow reassuring to see Omen screenwriter David Seltzer still flogging the old 666 gimmick. The genre has its kicks, but the execution here is pretty clumsy, and Cook is a clueless heroine. For pure camp value, however, Maximilian Schell approaches Rod-Steiger-Amityville-Horror status. --Robert Horton
2.
A father (Christopher McDonald) travels with his daughter (Rachel Leigh Cook) to Rome to investigate an elusive Satanic cult that may have played a role in his wife's murder. It seems the woman was considered the "eighteenth angel", who's death was the essential part of a ritual that would bring upon the return of Satan to Earth. Meanwhile, the cult is working to clone beautiful people in order to form an army of "angels" to greet their master. A supernatural thriller written by David Seltzer (THE OMEN.)
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In the name of evil
A 500-year-old clock is set to strike...at last, the Devil is due.
An ancient Etruscan order has been keeping time with a 500-year-old clock-a clock that foretells the triumphant return of Lucifer. In the ultimate marriage between science and Satan, the rector of this dark order hopes to merge the soul of the beast with the beauty of the angels in fulfillment of hell-raising prophecy. With the help of an outcast genetic researcher, he has already created the human blanks which will embody the devil's soul. Now all he needs is a beautiful face.
Christopher McDonald (Requiem For A Dream, Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams) and Rachael Leigh Cook (She's All That, Josie and the Pussycats) star with Stanley Tucci (Maid In Manhattan, Road To Perdition), Wendy Crewson (The Santa Claus 2, The 6th Day) and Maximilian Schell (Deep Impact, John Carpenter's Vampires) in a spine-tingling thriller written by David Seltzer, author of the horror classic The Omen.
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