The Pyx (1973) User Reviews

Black is the whole show here

[preppy-3 · 5/10 · 9 September 2006]

Prostitute Elizabeth Lucy (Karen Black) is found dead at the beginning--she fell (or was pushed) from the top of a building. Police sergeant Jim Henderson (Christopher Plummer) investigates and finds himself involved in satanic rites, ritual killings and more. Also there are flashbacks to the last few days of Lucy's life to see what happened to her.

Interesting but very confusing. It starts off pretty good with Black singing (and doing a credible job) over the opening credits and throughout the film. Then it gets very involved, the story gets muddled and murky and leads to an unsatisfying end. To be honest I'm STILL not sure what happened! Also there's bad overdubbing of voices, poor direction and a hysterically bad score at the end which sounds like a bunch of Munchkins signing! The acting is pretty good considering the material. Plummer (a great actor) looks miserable and gives a rare bad performance. Black however was just great. It's a very difficult role and she pulls it off. I kept watching solely for her. So--if you do want to see it see it for Black.

Be warned: The St. Clair DVD is in terrible shape. It (obviously) inserts a new title (calling it "The Hooker Cult Murders"!), has faded color and jumps VERY badly at the beginning. Also the sound quality is poor and the movie ends a full nine minutes before it's 111 min running time. That may have some reason for me not understanding it.

Interesting, but flawed

[Driver-5 · 6/10 · 13 July 1999]

Like Larry Cohen's bizarre (and wonderful) GOD TOLD ME TO (1975), THE PYX is an interesting mixture of horror and detective thriller. After a hooker (Karen Black) supposedly commits suicide by jumping from a high-rise building to her death, cop Christopher Plummer investigates and uncovers a strange religious cult led by Jean-Louis Roux. These scenes are intercut with events from the previous 24 hours, in which Black is encouraged by her sinister madame (Yvette Brind'Amour) to join the cult. Unfortunately, despite Black excellent performance, most of these scenes are plodding and dull, due to the fact that we know Black's fate. Also, these scenes are often inserted during the more interesting investigation scenes with Plummer, who also gives a fine performance. Still, there's enough unusual about THE PYX to make it worth watching. The Montreal setting with its mixture of English and French dialogue gives the film a disquieting atmosphere, and the cop scenes have an almost documentary feel about them. The badly panned-and-scanned US video release destroys Rene Verzier's camera work (as well as make one or two moments quite confusing).

At least you get serenaded by Karen Black

[BrandtSponseller · 6/10 · 6 May 2005]

This is a somewhat infamous (if mainly because Karen Black appears in see-through lingerie) Montreal-lensed early 1970s flick that has been floating around in various poor-quality DVD versions for some time. I just rented the new Trinity Home Entertainment release. The good news is that the film is now on DVD in its proper widescreen aspect ratio, but there are two bits of bad news. One, the print of the film that Trinity used for their DVD is horrible. It has various splices, scratches, and the color is bad. The second problem is more insurmountable--this just isn't a very good film.

Although The Pyx (aka "The Hooker Cult Murders") is correctly considered partially a horror film (because of material in the last 15 minutes or so), the bulk of the film is crime/drama, and it leans towards the "police procedural" subgenre of crime. There is some stuff here about hookers and drugs, and some violence/aftermath-gore, but this kind of material is very sparse and very tame. I could only recommend the film to Karen Black fanatics/fetishists, fans of early 1970s uneventful crime/dramas (if indeed anyone fits that description) and anyone who would like to see a depressing early 1970s semi-urban grunge captured on film, as that's the atmosphere director Harvey Hart manages to evoke (ironically aided by the crappy print). That the film was made in Montreal is evidenced by the periodic forays into French dialogue, which isn't subtitled, but it's infrequent enough that it's not a problem if you can't understand French.

The story, based on a novel by John Buell, concerns a prostitute, Elizabeth Lucy (Black), who is found dead after a drop off of a high-rise. She is clad only in lingerie, wearing an upside down cross and holding a pyx--a small, metal container used in Catholicism to bring consecrated hosts ("hosts" are the symbolic pieces of bread used in the Eucharist, or sacrament) to the sick. Jim Henderson (Christopher Plummer) is the police sergeant who ends up investigating the case. The film continually bounces back and forth from Henderson's investigation, which involves the more visceral crime scenes, as infrequently as those occur, and flashbacks to Lucy's immediate past, which involves more of the "sex" and drugs material, as infrequently as that occurs. The crux is that both Lucy's immediate past and Henderson's investigation are leading to the same climax--Lucy is moving forward in time while Henderson is roughly working his way back.

The principal problem with The Pyx is that it is so bland. It is also plagued with minor gaffes, like editing problems (and no, those aren't all just bad splices). Hart and screenwriter Robert Schlitt both come from a television background, but the pacing and momentum here are sub par even for a made-for-television film.

The scenes of Lucy with a smarmy client, preparing smack (heroin), having problems with her employer (a madam), arguing with her roommate (the source of the sometimes advertised "homosexual" angle--her roommate is a gay male) about whether she wants dinner and so on just aren't that interesting (even though some of the subject matter seems to have potential). There are also a number of transition scenes featuring actions like driving, walking and such that are so banal that it's almost impossible to keep one's attention on the screen--there was one scene I must have rewound three or four times, but I could never help myself from drifting. There are also a number of roughly directed scenes such as one between Henderson and the gay roommate that is just long shots of them walking city streets, sometimes with vehicles driving by and blocking the frame, where they do not appear to be talking to each other in the image, but where their voices are dubbed on the soundtrack. The Pyx is no paragon of direction or cinematography (or acting, editing, or anything else for that matter).

The police procedural stuff featuring Henderson was a bit better, but as soon as Hart would increase the intensity level just a smidgen (as with the scenario that Henderson walks into in the madam's apartment), he'd quickly return to boring flashback sequences, or someone would be driving for five minutes or something. To make matters worse, these occasional intensity increases tend to be prematurely lopped off with poor editing. Also, some of the police procedural stuff was very oddball--like the scene where they start playing a Gregorian chant on a reel-to-reel for a suspect in an interrogation room. But I like oddball stuff, so that was a bonus to me.

The final, "double climax"--we first get something of a thriller "false ending" before we move more into horror territory--was one of the better sections of the film, but by the time it arrives (it takes about an hour and fifteen minutes) it's difficult to get very excited about it. Still, it was enough to save The Pyx from an F (a rating of 5 or below).

Finally, the music deserves comment. It is fairly bizarre throughout, if not necessarily because of the music itself, because of the way it is contextualized. The main body of the film features a few songs by none other than Karen Black. These are extremely dated, quirky folk/religious songs, which, while not exactly poorly done, are severely out of place. The music in the climax is more stereotypical "Gothic Horror" classical, but it has a bizarre choir melody that sounds like a very primitive example of sampling (maybe it was done on a Mellotron, since proper samplers did not yet exist when The Pyx was made; the Mellotron was a kind of early faux "sampler" keyboard that utilized loops of tape). The timbre of the choir changes as much as the pitch, giving a "Satanic" flavor to the piece that just borders on--and occasionally crosses into--the sublimely ridiculous, making the climax unintentionally funny at times. Again, I liked the oddity of it, if only the film weren't so bland otherwise.

Truly underrated

[Cujo108 · 15 September 2011]

Detective Jim Henderson (Christopher Plummer) is called in to investigate the mysterious death of Elizabeth Lucy (Karen Black in rare form), a hooker who fell from the roof of a Montreal high-rise. What he uncovers is far more sinister than a simple accident or suicide.

This Canadian gem is a prime example of a film which has been criminally overlooked. It starts with Lucy's fall and then goes back and forth between her life leading up to it and Henderson's investigation. Both strands of the storyline are intriguing, and the constant mix between the two gives the film a mournful atmosphere. It's an innovative way to tell a story, even more so when you take into account the year this film was made. We watch as Elizabeth tries getting her life on track, wanting to leave drugs and prostitution behind her, all while knowing that things don't end well for her. Plummer's detective is a lost soul in his own right, harboring a few demons which remain from circumstances surrounding the death of his wife. The sense of regret and overall sadness is predominant throughout, never letting up. Even after the credits roll, the feeling remains.

"The Pyx" is a hard-hitting piece of work, something that likely comes as a surprise to anyone expecting a cheap exploitation flick. Indeed, the alternate title, "The Hooker Cult Murders", surely did it no favors in this regard, all while spoiling the film's mystery in the process. Instead of low rent trash, Harvey Hart's picture is a classy horror tale doubling as heartbreaking allegory for the struggles of addiction and the utter emptiness one can feel, desperate for any potential release from inner torment. It is a beautiful work of art and one of the more emotionally complex films in the genre.

Hart paces his film so as to let the mystery grow ever so slightly with each frame, all while garnering it's power from mood and character. Black has never been better than she is here. Whenever her name pops up, it's her role in "The Pyx" that always comes to mind first. Plummer also excels, especially in his final scene where he comes face to face with both Elizabeth's killer and his own inner demons.

The slow-burn pacing certainly won't please everyone, but I think it works beautifully in bringing out the aspects that really make this film shine. When all is said and done, the mystery at the core is brought to a most satisfying conclusion, the scenes detailing Elizabeth's fate and the end confrontation being the best of the picture. Special mention must be made of the bizarre music used during the cult gathering. I thought it added immensely to the atmospheric dread of the scene. Likewise, the song sung by Black herself over the opening credits sets the mood for the somber events to follow.

"The Pyx" ranks right up there with the likes of Cronenberg and Clark in the annals of powerful Canadian horror. Hell, no need for such restrictions; it's an amazing film in general, one deserving of far more respect. In a just world, it would be heralded as a classic.

An interesting attempt

[moonspinner55 · 5/10 · 2 April 2001]

Cynical detective investigates the murder of a prostitute, a case which has occult underpinnings. Murky, unpleasant picture with bloody deaths and odd nude shots of Karen Black (perhaps it's Black's body-double, for you rarely see Karen's face connected to the shapely naked figure). Christopher Plummer does a great job as the investigator; a handsome wise-ass, he's terrifically funny in his offhand manner and gives this a big boost. There's a bummer of a subplot involving a homosexual, and the damp Canadian locales are visually dull, but I did admire director Harvey Hart's structuring of the before-and-after storyline. Despite some great reviews from the critics, "The Pyx" just kind of tails off, and the credits hit the screen before you can stop scratching your head. ** from ****

Well-Done Mystery

[BaronBl00d · 7/10 · 20 December 2004]

I really enjoyed this somewhat little known Canadian film about a Montreal police detective hot on the trail of a prostitute's death. Christopher Plummer does an excellent job as the cop trying to find out who killed Karen Black. Black is dead in the beginning of the film ,and the film alternates between what Plummer is doing in real time and flashback-type sequences with Black going through everything that happened up until her death. Black is lovely and adequate in her role, and the point of view used with her AFTER she was killed was quite inventive. But it is Plummer's performance which really seizes the film and makes it into something more than a regular murder mystery movie. Plummer discovers by piece by piece of evidence that Black became the victim of some sort of cult. Director Harvey Hart does an able job with the script creating tense scenes when needed and alternating shooting continuity between the two story lines. The film should not be over-looked. The biggest problem with the film for me is the opening credits which seems to drone on forever and accompanied by the most boring film song I have heard in a long. long time.

Disappointing thriller.

[gridoon · 4/10 · 13 February 2003]

The ambitious script deserves some credit for the way it keeps intercutting the past with the present tense, a technique that results in some intriguing effects; in one scene we see somebody killed, in the next scene there he is, moving and talking! But, the pace of the film is plodding, the performances detached and completely unengaging (or maybe the characters are detached and completely unengaging; in any case, you don't sympathize with them), the direction too "arty" (for example, a driving scene with no dialogue runs about five minutes, while one of Karen Black's "melancholy" songs plays on the soundtrack). Plus, the VHS print I saw was SEVERELY damaged. (**)

Two compelling lead characters & performances make this worth seeing.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 16 November 2011]

"The Pyx" may indeed lose a bit of its effectiveness if one already knows one of the ultimate twists going in, but it's still a reasonably absorbing, if awfully slow moving, detective thriller with a touch of horror and a strong emphasis on Catholic guilt. It's a somewhat overlooked Canadian movie, filmed on location in Montreal, that derives most of its impact from the performances of its two Academy Award nominated stars. Canada's own Christopher Plummer is solid as Detective Sergeant Jim Henderson, investigating the death of prostitute Elizabeth Lucy, played by Karen Black.

Both leads deliver touching performances as each of them struggle with their own inner demons. And they receive great support from some of the other actors, particularly Jean-Louis Roux as Keerson, Yvette Brind'amour as Meg the madam, and Terry Haig as Jimmy.

The movie's most prominent aspect is the way it moves back and forth in time, following both Henderson as he works to solve the crime, and Elizabeth on her doom-laden path. This leads to moments that are interesting but might be disconcerting for some viewers, as characters are killed off in one scene and alive and well in the next. Director Harvey Hart, working from a screenplay by Robert Schlitt, based on the novel by John Buell, emphasizes mood and feel at all times, and it's commendable that he and cinematographer Rene Verzier would shoot this in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio and give it that sense of scope. It's worth noting, also, the level of talent that Black displays here, as she composes the songs heard and sings them beautifully as well.

Even if the climax is spoiled for the viewer ahead of time, it's still nicely creepy, and leads to a pretty devastating ending confrontation where one character is able to see into another's soul. The producer is Julian Roffman, who 12 years previous had been director on a 3-D movie titled "The Mask" considered to be Canada's first horror movie. "The Pyx" (the title refers to a small round container used to carry the consecrated host to sick or invalid individuals or those otherwise unable to receive Holy Communion in a church) is good entertainment, overall, and definitely worthy of a look.

Seven out of 10.

An interesting premise, somewhat effective performances...but.

[whynot2 · 4/10 · 4 October 2006]

I picked this up in a cheap DVD bin. I immediately recognized as 1 of 2 movies that I saw when I was a starving (pretty much literally) student living away from home for the first time, in 1973, and couldn't resist picking it up and giving it a look, that many years later.

As other reviewers have noted, the promotion for the movie is pretty, ahem, imaginative. There's not a lot of sex (hardly any, actually), very little nudity, any reference to homosexuality is passing and irrelevant, there is no horror other than the horror of murder and violent death by knife and gun (we need more???), and it is not oriented towards the supernatural beyond the fact that the villains dabble in black masses -- there are no otherworldly events, no actual contact with the devil a la Rosemary's Baby or Devil's Advocate.

So it's really a detective story. The device of tracking parallel time-lines does add some suspense and tension (exactly what did happen to this girl, and will the detective crack the case); however, I found that the tension peaked somewhere around mid-movie, and the trip to the end more or less plodded to anti-climatic conclusions to both time-lines.

Unrealistic (as I imagine them) scenes certainly contributed to that plodding effect. At one point, amidst wild gunfire, a uniformed policeman tells the arriving detective, "he's up there and he's got one of our men as hostage", and then resumes shooting in the general direction. Uh, yea.

Now, there are unexpected pleasures to be wrought from watching obscure movies now and then, and while I generally am pretty resistant to the 'oh wow, I've been there' effect, I did find the 1972 vintage shots of 'Place Jacques Cartier' and 'Rue St. Paul Est', well before the resurrection of the area as "Old Montreal' to be such a surprise.

THE PYX (Harvey Hart, 1973) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 4 June 2008]

I first heard of this one via Leonard Maltin's Film Guide – where it's rated a staggering ***1/2; the reviewer goes on to claim that it was "ignored" in the U.S. (the film is a Canadian production), which explains its obscurity: it didn't help matters that two other films bearing similar odd-sounding titles, namely THE PHYNX (1970) and THE ASPHYX (1972), had just been released! However, I agree with his assessment that this is a title worthy of far greater attention than it seems to have garnered over the years – a fact which is sadly borne out by the truly dire condition it's been made available in so far (scratchy, fuzzy, washed-out colors, muffled soundtrack and, to add insult to injury, a faux Widescreen look i.e. masking the top and bottom off an obviously panned-and-scanned print!).

Anyway, the film itself is an occult thriller which sees cop Christopher Plummer investigating the mysterious death of hooker Karen Black (it was even renamed THE HOOKER CULT MURDERS): he's especially confused by a couple of objects (in view of their religious/satanic significance) she was carrying on her person at the time – a necklace with an upside-down cross, and a pyx (the small round container in which the consecrated host is carried when a priest holds communion off church grounds). Seamlessly running parallel to this plot line is another detailing the events leading up to Black's demise; this intriguing jumping-back-and-forth-in-time device (borrowed from either version of THE KILLERS [1946/1964]) certainly gave the film an identity among the mass of contemporary thriller/horror fare – and such intermittent development also greatly accentuates the suspense inherent in either situation (since one character is oblivious of her fate while the other unaware of what his probing will eventually unearth).

Still, the intelligent script is careful not to trip in its own cleverness – given that the audience is able to put all the pieces together well before the hero does (the former having had direct access, so to speak, to Black's past experiences) – and manages, in fact, to come up with one final unexpected revelation that's quite a knock-out (recalling that other cult thriller with a strong spiritual element to its essential Good-vs-Evil angle, THE WICKER MAN [1973], but also an amusingly heretical episode in Luis Bunuel's delicious masterpiece THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGOUISE [1972])! With this in mind, the fragmentary style is clearly reminiscent of yet another contemporary classic – DON'T LOOK NOW (1973) – while the police investigation snowballing into violence (one particularly nasty instance of which being directed towards a character's black feline!) and ending up by implicating the baffled hero looks forward to the equally underrated GOD TOLD ME TO (1976).

The film is made all the more believable and compelling thanks to some excellent performances: Plummer is fine as ever, but Black has one of her best-ever roles (and even get a chance here to showcase her secondary talent as a singer/songwriter!); also notable is Yvette Brind' Amour as Black's tough landlady/pimp. Having mentioned the songs – which, endowing proceedings with the tenderness and fragility inherent in Black's character, give the whole an undeniably haunting quality – one can't refrain from mentioning the eerily slowed-down or speeded-up music heard during the climactic Black Mass (a sequence which is rendered even more creepy by having some of the participants decked-out in animal masks!).

Finally, other films from director Hart I'd be interested in watching are the William Inge adaptation BUS RILEY'S BACK IN TOWN (1965), DARK INTRUDER (1965) – another little-known but well-regarded occult thriller – and SHOOT (1976), apparently a DELIVERANCE (1972) wannabe starring Cliff Robertson, Ernest Borgnine and Henry Silva! Incidentally, the producer of this one – Julian Roffman – had already made his own cult horror effort with the weird 3-D outing THE MASK (1961), a low-budget film I've been pining for since childhood (due to stills I'd seen from it in a Sci-Fi tome of my father's written by the late eminent Philip Strick) but can't seem to be able to get a hold of

An intimate glimpse into the heart of a lost soul and missed opportunity for something great.

[RomanJamesHoffman · 5/10 · 15 August 2013]

'The Pyx' is a claustrophobic murder mystery about experienced detective Jim Henderson (Christopher Plummer) who investigates the death of a heroin addicted prostitute Elizabeth (Karen Black) after she supposedly committed suicide by jumping from a high-rise building. However, as Henderson encounters the various shady and unfeeling characters he begins to delve deeper into the mystery to find instead that Elizabeth has fallen prey to a sinister Satanic cult.

However, despite approaching 'The Pyx' with the best intentions (as after reading a superficial plot summary it brought 'Rosemary's Baby' to mind) it remains fundamentally a patchy film which just about manages to keep its head above water. The film clearly has artistic aspirations in telling the story through two separate strands: one following Henderson's investigation, and the other following the final movements of Elizabeth herself, and constantly cutting between each strand. This is a nice idea but sometimes it seems a little labored and significantly affects the pacing. This said, on a couple of occasions the dual plots converge and scenes of genuine pathos result. In fact, I feel compelled to mention that after about 40 minutes or so I found myself checking my watch and contemplating stopping the film but the scene with Elizabeth injecting heroin and experiencing a drug-induced flashback of happier times which then cuts suddenly to Henderson watching a rope outlining her body being picked up by children for a skipping rope was incredibly poignant and convinced me to continue watching. Another captivating scene was when Elizabeth meets the Satanic head honcho for the first time on his boat and is subjected to the equivalent of psychological rape which I found as unnerving as I found the previously mentioned scene beautiful.

So, the strength of the film is clearly the characterisation of Elizabeth. However, it seems that the vividness of the character and her trials asks questions to other aspects of the film which it fails to answer as it is essentially one long character sketch rather than a story in its own right. As a result, the film is let down by serious pacing issues and an anti-climatic climax (with a Satanist as far from the charismatic and alluring Roman Castevet in 'Rosemary's Baby' as can be). Indeed, it's debatable that the film even needs the whole Satanic thing at all. All of this meant that when the film finished I was slightly annoyed at feeling it had taken so long to tell relatively little and ever so slightly happy that it had ended.

Overall, I find it a difficult film to recommend, and wouldn't be surprised if people who watch it don't like it…but I am sure that most who watch the film come away with a peculiar feeling of having seen an intimate glimpse into the heart of a lost soul, which by itself is something the majority of films fail to ever do.

*********************

Public domain movie. See it free here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMpLo9xG7co

Watch the trailer here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0qXW-4cKOg&list=UU07_ffsSbmp4slD_PiH5cUA

An Intelligent Thriller

[brianehl2 · 10/10 · 28 March 2006]

Karen Black shines as Elizabeth Lucy, a heroin-addicted prostitute, in one of her finest roles from this under-rated and little-seen French-Canadian effort, filmed in Montreal. She also composed and sang three haunting songs which appear on the film's soundtrack. Christopher Plummer is also first rate as the policeman investigating her mysterious death; with somber overtones and a feeling of dread, the film, the film alternates between flashbacks and current time. Highly recommended, for those who like intelligence and thoughtfulness in their thrillers; they will not be disappointed with this one. The supporting cast is all equally proficient, and effective in their roles, especially Yvette Brind Amour as Meg the Madam. The grim and despairing world of heroin usage is presented unflinchingly as well in a hard-hitting way. The beautiful city of Montreal is presented in several time shots as well; to me, at any rate, one of THE very best and over-looked films of the early 1970's.

Sex, drugs, and Songs of Psalms?????

[manicgecko · 6/10 · 2 April 2006]

Actually a fairly decent movie, delving into the morality issue of Canadian prostitutes hooked on heroin. All kidding aside this is a fairly well acted movie, with a good plot for a movie with a cult reputation. However there are some fairly significant problems that may drive me away from watching it again. First it is SLOW. Benefit - it isn't hard to keep jumping between real time and flashbacks. Problem - you kept wanting something to happen to speed this thing up - you felt every second tick away.

Second - my copy at least gave me a migraine trying to keep it in focus. Shots were swimming, blurry, and over all distracting from plot. I actually cleaned my glasses a couple of times really trying not to blame the movie.

Finally this film is another gun in my arsenal with very few exceptions, singers should not act, actors should not sing. I am sure Karen is a mighty fine vocalist, and it did give a haunting feel to the movie singing bible verses, but my ears were bleeding halfway through the movie. I did enjoy the chipmunk version of the chanting monks towards the end of the movie though.

The jury is still out whether the story is enough better than the technical qualities of the movie for me to watch this again. Probably will just buy the book.

Too tedious to call very good

[bensonmum2 · 5/10 · 9 July 2005]

• The Pyx (aka The Hooker Cult Murders) is billed as a horror movie. It should probably more correctly be called a drama with a bit of horror thrown in. It's during these bits of horror that The Pyx becomes interesting. Unfortunately, the majority of the movie is devoted to the drama and is rather tedious and boring.

• The movie opens with the death of a heroin-addicted prostitute from a fall from the top of a building. Other than sheer white lingerie, she's wearing an upside-down cross and holding a pyx (Not being Catholic, I didn't know what it was either. Apparently, a pyx is a small container used by priests to hold communion wafers.) The investigation soon points to something even more sinister than at first thought - a Satanic sacrifice.

• The Pyx is told in two separate story lines. One is a flashback from the prostitute's (Karen Black) point of view leading up to the time of her death. The other is from the detective's (Christopher Plummer) point of view of his investigation following the murder. The movie frequently cuts back and forth between the two story lines. And while the police investigation is at least somewhat interesting, Karen Black's flashback is an exercise in tediousness. Despite being a heroin addict and a prostitute, her life is incredibly dull. It's during these scenes that the movie really suffers. If her life could have been made to seem at all interesting, the movie might have been very good. But as it is, the scenes of Karen Black walking around, arguing over dinner, and driving are just plain boring.

• As I previously mentioned, the horror bits are very infrequent. Other than the final scene with bits of a Satanic ceremony, there's really very little horror. I suppose the scenes showing the aftermath of a couple of murders could be considered horror, but that's really stretching it. I'm sure that a few ardent horror fans have been disappointed in the mis-categorization of The Pyx.

• Finally, I've got to mention the music in The Pyx. It's terrible. I've heard dogs howling at the moon that had a better musical quality. Most of the songs were apparently written and sung by Karen Black. While I've always enjoyed her as an actress, this is my first encounter with her as a singer. Hopefully, it will be my last.

Quiet, dignified, very frightening film...

[InjunNose · 17 January 2005]

"The Pyx" is a sad, scary tale of prostitution and Satan worship, but you'll be disappointed if you're expecting something bordering on the pornographic. This is a subtle, unique horror movie, one of a handful of the genre's serious films. Karen Black was always good, but "The Pyx" is her tour de force--she is simultaneously brittle and sympathetic as the junky prostitute whose suicide (or murder?) Christopher Plummer is investigating. (Plummer is also impressive, but everyone takes a back seat to Black here.) Black contributes a couple of songs to the soundtrack, acoustic dirges with lyrics borrowed from the Song of Solomon, that are beautiful in an ethereal, spooky fashion and which match the tone of the film perfectly. There's some great camera-work, too, and I loved the way the story unfolded largely through flashbacks. I've watched "The Pyx" three or four times over the last ten years, and each time it has remained with me long after the closing credits rolled. This is one of the very few films that conjure a genuine and profound sense of disquiet for the viewer, frightening him and causing him to despair over the evil in the world and within himself.

A Karen Black Mass Mess.

[BA_Harrison · 3/10 · 29 September 2019]

Karen Black plays smack-addict hooker Elizabeth Lucy, who falls to her death from a balcony. Christopher Plummer is Detective Jim Henderson, who investigates the hooker's untimely demise, the events leading up to her death told in a series of flashbacks intercut with Henderson's police-work.

I have two big problems with this film: 1) it's incredibly slow, with very little of interest happening for much of the time, and 2) it's not very thrilling since we know of Elizabeth's fate from the outset. Black and Plummer are fine in their roles, but they cannot make up for the sluggish pace and uneventful script.

Admittedly, the finalé, in which we see the hooker lured to her fate at the hands of a Satanic cult, is suitably atmospheric, with eerie chanting (a haunting mix of slow vocals and weird speeded-up chipmunk singing) and menacing robed figures, but Director Harvey Hart blows it with a confusing scene in which Plummer's cop is goaded by the lead Satanist into shooting him (by accusing Henderson of being happy when his wife died?). In the end, the film feels like a waste of talent and a waste of time.

3.5 out of 10, rounded down for the melancholic, hippie-style folk songs (sung by Black) that only add to the dreariness.

a creditable but not entirely successful effort from Canada

[myriamlenys · 7/10 · 11 August 2018]

Called upon to investigate a potential crime scene, the police discover the body of a handsome woman who, for whatever strange reason, is dressed in an unusual diaphanous robe. Did her death result from an accidental fall, suicide or murder ? The detectives soon discover that the dead woman was a drug-addicted prostitute called Elizabeth. Unravelling the strange and vicious story behind her demise will take longer - and will entail great risks...

Let's start with the good. "The pyx" was quite good at suggesting that ancient evils and occult ceremonies can live and thrive even in the most advanced of modern cities. The juxtaposition of the mundane with the uncanny was well done - and quite gripping. There was also a moving evocation of the life of a prostitute, with its fear, artificiality and loneliness. The interesting music was an integral part of the movie, greatly contributing to the general mood.

Sadly the movie, after a very atmospheric and slow-burning build-up, took a turn for the worse somewhere around the 4/5th mark, becoming both more cheesy and more implausible. The ending too was far from brilliant. If there ever was an ending which called out for an outburst of supernatural terror, existential despair or visual weirdness, it was here, in "The pyx"- but no. A case of "not with a bang, but with a whimper"...

If you want to see how this kind of thing should be done, go and watch "Rosemary's baby", which (unlike "The pyx") is a straight ten stars.

Yeah, this movie sucks bad, but at least it's got Karen Black!

[wardomnibus · 3/10 · 21 May 2009]

Oh come on now, I keep seeing posts where this movie is described as "an intelligent thriller". Uh, where's the intelligence and where are the thrills? I didn't check the "spoilers" box because the entire plot is revealed in the first 15 minutes. I've seen more scintillating plot lines on "The Streets of San Francisco". It has that 1970's made-for-TV look complete with the blurry, quick-fading, washed out MetroColor print that few will ever want to preserve for any film archive. Well, on second thought, I will check the "spoilers" box so I can state that it would have been nice to see a "Rosemary's "Baby"-like avatar of Satan play hide-the-salami with Karen Black. But alas, no such luck - only some swishy Black Mass priest dressed up like Gaius Caligula with too many lines of pretentious dialogue. If no "intelligence" or "thrills", maybe just alittle titillation!!?? Instead we get gratuitous blood and gore - several guys getting graphically gunshot. Well, enough bitchiness; at least it was nice seeing Christopher Plummer looking 20 years younger than he did in "The Sound of Music" which was filmed about 10 years previous??? And Karen Black? She's totally hot-looking here, and, dare I say it, her performance is almost UNDERSTATED.

Unsettling Paraonoid 70s Occult Thriller

[Steve_Nyland · 6/10 · 20 April 2009]

***MAJOR SPOILERS*** ***MAJOR SPOILERS*** ***MAJOR SPOILERS***

Harvey Hart's THE PYX is about as unsettling of a paranoid 1970s thriller as you can ask for. Imagine THE PARALLAX VIEW but with Satanists and you'll see what I'm getting at. The film revels in it's urban paranoia right down to having an apparently vast international consortium run by Satan controlling human events from behind the scenes via conspiracy, and some oblique twists and turns in it's flashback centered plot that only become apparent once the film is over and the unease has settled into the mind of the viewer. You start to replay events and developments in your head and realize that plot points which occur in the last hour were explained in the first twenty minutes, but only make sense when the concluding fifteen minutes are taken into consideration as the film's story tells itself backwards + sideways, ala PULP FICTION. I honestly don't think we are supposed to know exactly what happened when all is said & done but the mind can't help but try and reason it out. While not a particularly satisfying thriller it's one hell of a manipulation, and this is what I came up with as far as my own answers:

Christopher Plummer gives a blasé, half-aware performance as a Montreal homicide detective assigned to unravel the mysterious death of a prostitute played by Karen Black who may have known all along what was going to happen but felt so trapped in the web of paranoia and her own disenfranchisement that she sort of goes along with it. Her story is told in flashback with Plummer stumbling upon clues to the mystery in the film's real time, which is made all the more confounding by not having anyone come right out and say "She had been targeted for sacrifice by a Satanic cult." I'm not even sure how she ended up dead on the pavement below a 20 story apartment complex: Did she willfully kill herself to provide the police with clues to the sinister group that she found herself shadowed and eventually absorbed by? Or was she pushed off the terrace by the cult leader as a genuine sacrifice? When we finally see how she dies the way the scene is staged is completely ambiguous, no doubt on purpose.

And who is this cult leader anyway? Since the normal approach within modern thinkers is to disavow supernatural answers to riddles and look for prosaic, down to earth explanations, the natural conclusion is that the guy was simply insane, rich, omnipotent, and delusional. But that conclusion ignores a revelation literally made in the film's final few moments which would have been impossible for a mere human to have been aware of. Which is that deep down inside Plummer was secretly delighted when his estranged wife was killed in a car accident years before the film's actions take place. Granted someone rich and powerful enough might have deduced that about Plummer after being informed that he was the one assigned to the case & done their homework on him, but Plummer never responds to the charge verbally and we can only observe the look of horror on his face and conclude that the cult leader was actually possessed by Satan, as he thanks Plummer for freeing him by murdering him in cold blood.

What the film may lack in action or thrills is more than compensated for by simply refusing to not answer any of the questions it poses. The film is also unremittingly bleak and dismal, presenting viewers with a cold, wet, claustrophobic Montreal that is devoid of any warmth, comfort, or sanctuary. The only light hearted moments in the movie are unintentional, specifically a section of Gregorian chant on the soundtrack slowed down & sped up to simulate a hallucinogenic drug soaked Satanic ceremony that comes off sounding like Alvin & The Chipmunks. It's silly but at the same time you can sort of see what they were getting at, an observation that speaks for the whole movie, which eschews a traditional Gothic horror structure for an X-Files like procedural that ends up coming to an unsettling, paranoia inducing conclusion. If the point of the film was to induce a feeling of unease within it's viewers that only surfaces once the story is over it succeeded marvelously. It's been over 12 hours and a good night's sleep since I saw the movie and I'm still walking around feeling depressed, paranoid, and doubtful. Nice job.

Sadly the surviving current elements available to contemporary viewers are unsatisfactory pan/scan small screen re-formattings of the original widescreen photography, which at the same time contributes to the film's claustrophobia and yet robs viewers of being able to actually see what is happening in key scenes. There's one murder in particular that is difficult to understand because you can't see who or what is in the side of the picture for two or three fleeting seconds. Widely available on bargain bin DVD sets for years (under the dubiously sensationalist title THE HOOKER CULT MURDERS), the film is in dire need of a restoration that most probably won't ever happen, meaning that like it's characters the film itself is condemned to take it's mysteries to the grave.

6/10: Worth seeing, and difficult to shake.

Black's singing is too much

[shannongrantham20 · 2/10 · 13 October 2015]

This movie, I'd like to say, sucks, but I don't feel that is a fair comment. The acting is passable, but I really can't stand Karen blacks singing: she sounds like a strangled cat, strained and unsettling. But the story is convoluted and at times hard to follow, since a good bit of it is told in flashbacks that are thrown in in such a way that you might not realize you're watching a flashback. That's what happened to me the first time I saw this film, so it came across as quite confusing. It actually took me a couple of viewings to figure out what was wrong. I don't know what that says about me, but unfortunately that's what happened. The biggest problem with the film is I just don't buy the story: a secret society, like a Satanist cult, that has to sacrifice someone for some reason -- I never figured out what that reason was because there were too many things in the film that distracted me, like Karen Blacks singing.

Bizarre Canadian Horror Film Featuring Sexy Hooker Karen Black & A Satanic Cult

[Real_Review · 6/10 · 24 May 2019]

The effects aren't great and the movie jumps around in time a lot - if you aren't bilingual (English and French) then you might not get it right away. However, it's original, and Karen Black is beautiful as a heroin addicted hooker. I love the shots of Montreal in the 1970's throughout the film. I plan to watch this again someday.

RealReview Posting Scoring Criteria: Acting - 1/1 Casting - 1/1 Directing - 0.5/1 Story - 1/1 Writing/Screenplay - 1/1

Total Base Score = 4.5

Modifiers (+ or -) Originality: 1

Total RealReview Rating: 5.5 (rounded up to 6 for IMDB)

Exasperating curio

[Maciste_Brother · 4/10 · 14 May 2008]

I saw THE PYX 20 years ago on TV, in a "pan & scan" version, and I thought the film's mood was memorable enough for me to seek it out once it became available in widescreen. I finally saw it in WS and the "pan & scan" version suddenly looks better in comparison. So much of the action took place on the far side of the screen (far left or far right) that the screen composition was almost silly. Some scenes, like the one with Christopher Plummer and that gay man walking in Old Montreal, or the interrogation scene we're shot from so far away that I felt I needed binoculars.

If the cinematography was frustrating, the music score was nearly disastrous. What sounded good back in 1973 doesn't necessarily sound good today, certainly regarding that overplayed Joan Baez-like song. The music during the Devil worshiping scene is basically sounds/music played backwards. Playing music backwards to hear Satan is now a funny cliché and that music certainly didn't help create any tension. The acting was forced. Karen Black looked remarkably old even though this is one of her earliest films. The makeup job was bad and the above mentioned cinematography made her look older than she really was. Christopher Plummer's role is almost negligible. The mood is still there but it's impact is lost when seeing in WS. In fact, as the film went on, the less I enjoyed the atmosphere. I realized it was over-zealously lugubrious, not atmospheric. It's also very dated but it's not awful because of it. In fact, it's one of its positive aspects.

THE PYX is a frustrating films ever. So much good stuff going for it and yet so little of it actually adds up to a satisfying cinematic experience. The best thing about it is the 1970s feel/look of Montreal. It's an amazing time capsule.

A bleak, but eerie and absorbing horror mystery thriller

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 22 November 2006]

Tough, cynical lapsed Catholic police detective Jim Henderson (a typically superb Christopher Plummer) investigates the mysterious death of forlorn heroin addict prostitute Elizabeth Lucy (a fine and heartbreaking performance by the divine Karen Black, who also sings a few hauntingly melancholy songs on the soundtrack). Henderson uncovers a nefarious Satanic cult and experiences a downward spiritual spiral similar to the one which led Lucy to her grim and untimely end. Strongly directed by Harvey Hart, crisply shot in sumptuous widescreen by Rene Verzier, elegantly scored to shivery perfection by Harry Freedman, and well acted by a stellar cast (Jean-Louis Roux is especially impressive as the evil sect's suavely sinister leader), with a chilly and depressing tone, an intriguing, if somewhat muddled script by Robert Schlitt, plenty of spooky, uneasy and unnerving atmosphere, an interesting and imaginative back-and-forth nonlinear narrative structure, gritty Montreal locations, and a truly shocking zinger of a bummer ending, this engrossingly gloomy horror mystery thriller delivers a quite potent and lingering punch while provocatively exploring with unflinching severity the dire consequences beget by falling markedly short of one's religious principles.

Ethereal Wave songs

[Cristi_Ciopron · 7/10 · 27 July 2012]

For a movie attempting at a chilling, twisted originality, 'The Pyx' plays straight some standard features—the nudity (Elizabeth's ass, Jane's perky tits), the religious items. The same approach, on testosterone, will result in 'Angel Heart', some 15 yrs later.

In 'Angel Heart', a guy—not a policeman—investigates, and the corpses start piling up.

In 'The Pyx', Plummer sketches gently the policeman he's playing—low—keyed, inconspicuous, nonchalant, yet macho and tough; anyway, Plummer is good, and effortlessly intriguing. As a storytelling, 'The Pyx' is a masterwork of non—linear classicism; and I believe this screwed storytelling narrows the plot, it narrows the plot severely, almost incredibly much, enhancing in exchange the oppressive atmosphere. The director focused on the storytelling's virtuosity, with rather typical '70s emphasis on experimentalism. But the outburst of violence barely squares with the vagueness of the story, and it seems unconvincing to leave it so wholly unexplained, as if the core was hollow; we should know more about Keerson's mind (Keerson is played _lispingly by Roux, a quite ridiculous lisping, withered villain), and why does he begin so resolutely a hopeless battle with the police, plus signing the scenes with gory inverted crosses, etc.. This movie is original, interesting, intriguing and flawed.

The plot is quite meager, underdeveloped—sketchy, if you will—more like a pattern of hints, ultimately unsatisfactory. I mean, 'The Pyx' doesn't deserve its reputation of the movie of the Satanism; it could of been, it missed. The truth is, the movie, the script doesn't really enter the world of the drug addicts, of the _occultists, etc., Montreal's underworlds. It merely hints at those. And the action was too hurried for the confrontation between the policeman and the blasphemer not to look way too contrived and _malapropos; they are exchanging comic books lines, as if they would of fight off since forever. That kind of highly dramatic showdown would of required a longer succession of events in the police's investigation—not a mere day ….

But then again, one must acknowledge the movie's attempt at some sound theology—the prostitute refused to confess, yet she protects the host, which means she's herself worthy of receiving, and not desecrating it by unworthy communion—she becomes herself a host, adding her sacrifice to that she benefits from.

Every masterpiece (which 'The Pyx' isn't), or at least intensely original work, is a standalone; nonetheless, 'The Pyx' is a chance to find out about Montreal, the novelist Buell, or Plummer, whose career reminds me of Hackman—both, good actors who have been, for a while, in good movies. Plummer resembles a smart priest, he has this sharply intelligent clerical air; more of a genuinely priestly type than, say, V. Sydow.

Karen, a remarkably gifted actress, was the very feminine, bitchy, wry type—here, in the role of a messed up woman. An American actress, she was 33 yrs when shooting this movie. She is a Scientologist, four times married, and essentially a '70s actress.

She sings a few tunes, Ethereal Wave, or ethereal goth, though by the early '70s none would have called them that, that have been justly remarked. Her songs are of the classy folk type, tentatively anticipating Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins—and significantly contemporary with Cohen's crooked folk.

Original and well—meaning, adorned, studded with thoughtful imagery, 'The Pyx' chooses the impressionistic haze of the early '70s, over the relevance of 'Cruising's descent into Hell; the synopsis of 'The Pyx' promises a descent into the underworld, which this movie _ain't—but a minutely sketched pattern of disturbing images, and veiled hints at a sickly world one would of liked to find more about. Such as it is, it surely _ain't one of the naturalistic descents into the Hell of some nastiness; and here is also its originality and even beauty of sorts.

Plummer plays a sharp, focused cop; one of his better roles.

Daddy Plummer must have been the most affordable supporting actor ever—since it looks like everyone could afford him for supporting roles—since The Fall of the Roman Empire, The Night of the Generals, Battle of Britain, Waterloo, until Malcolm X, Wolf, 12 Monkeys, The Insider, A Beautiful Mind, Alexander—an interesting physiognomy, not much of an actor—not with contemporaries like Hackman, and squashed between the generation of Newman, and those of O'Toole, Nicholson, etc.; Plummer was 2 yrs older than Barray. The stage demands less _expressivity.

So 'The Pyx' is one in a handful of leading roles made by Plummer; as demeanor, he resembled a bit Harrison.

I don't like playing second fiddle to some hooker, especially a dead one.

[lastliberal-853-253708 · 5/10 · 11 February 2012]

We may not be seeing Oscar nominee (Five Easy Pieces) Karen Black's rear in this film, as she uses a body double, but we do get to hear her sing three songs on the soundtrack, so that is something positive.

It is shot in Canada during the winter, so it is dark and bleak. Appropriate for a story about a murdered prostitute (Black), and Satanic rituals.

Double Oscar nominee (The Beginners, The Last Station) Christopher Plummer plays the detective trying to solve the murder.

Despite the presence of Black and Plummer, it really didn't grab me, and I was irritated by the lighting. I really don't like pictures that take place at night.