Harvey Hart’s The Pyx is a film as peculiar as its title (which refers to the vessel that carries the Eucharist to those who need it in the Catholic church). For the most part it’s a rather plodding police procedural interspersed with a more interesting set of flashbacks charting the final days of a doomed prostitute but in the final lap it suddenly transforms into a Satanic horror film. Informed as much by Alan J. Pakula’s Klute (1971) as it is by Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968), it isn’t really much of a horror film at all to be honest despite some last minute trappings of the Satanic horrors that were so popular in the late 1960s and early 70s.
In Montreal, a high-priced prostitute, Elizabeth Lucy (Karen Black) falls to her death from a tower block and local cops Henderson (Christopher Plummer, a Canadian native making his first film on home soil) and Paquette (Donald Pilon) turn up to investigate. Initially their only clues are the discovery of a pyx and a large, inverted cross around Elizabeth’s neck. As the pair investigate and witnesses and potential leads are killed off, we flash back to see Elizabeth, a heroin addict, who was hired by a “special client” who seems as much interested in her Catholic upbringing as her body. Her client turns out to be a Satanist who wants her as a sacrifice in his Black Mass.
Well made and with some interesting quirks and distinctions (it’s an unashamedly Québécois film with supporting characters conversing in un-subtitled French) but it’s far too long and tends to meander at times when a brisk sprint was called for. Plummer seems ill-at-ease throughout, as though disinterested in the material, though Black is really rather good as the doomed Elizabeth, bringing something a bit more interesting than expected to a rather cliched hooker with a heart of gold role. She also provided vocals for some rather haunting folk songs written by Harry Freedman – in 1967 she’d briefly become on the very many members in the ever-changing line up of the long-lived and prolific American ensemble The New Christy Minstrels so had some form in the folk world. It’s one of her more engaging performances. Poor Donald Pilon though is rather short-changed as the lead cop’s sidekick, frequently being side-lined in favour of the more famous Plummer.
Hart does well to keep the two parallel timelines moving along nicely (it becomes clear as the film progresses that Henderson was already actively searching for Elizabeth in the run-up to her death) and without it becoming too distracting or confusing. It’s an interesting take on a fairly bog-standard scenario by writers Robert Schlitt and John Buell (from Buell’s novel of the same name) and without it, it might have been just too dull. As it is, it’s not the most riveting of the 70s Satanic horror films (it was shot just before William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) was released) but the unusual structure is at least interesting enough to keep you going through some of the duller moments.
The climactic Satanic Black Mass is unfortunately rather bungled by some inexplicable soundtrack decisions. Hart films it atmospherically enough but undermines the eeriness by having some speeded-up vocals on the soundtrack as part of the supposedly menacing ritual chanting. It might have seemed at the time that this would make things sound unworldly and unsettling but it ends up sounding like the ritual has been gate-crashed by novelty singing “phenomenon” The Chipmunks… The horror elements come completely out of the blue which will please some but annoy others who will find the shift of gears between the police-procedural/portrait of a doomed hooker narratives and the darker, more outre business at the climax too jarring for comfort.
The Pyx isn’t an awful film by any means. But it is too long, unreasonably delaying the payoff in favour of the more serious drama, leading to the impression that Hart and co. didn’t really know what kind of film they wanted to make. Worst of all, it just isn’t scary at all and even the hints that the “special client” is the Devil himself are half-hearted and not really developed. It’ll hold your attention and reward you just enough to ensure that you don’t feel short-changed but it’s never going to be anyone’s favourite film and it’s a decidedly minor entry in the 70s Satanic horror cycle and it’s perhaps no great surprise that it has fallen into semi-obscurity.
The EOFFTV Review 