Plot

An old Gothic cathedral built over a mass grave develops strange powers that trap a number of people inside with ghosts from a 12th Century massacre seeking to resurrect an ancient demon from the bowels of the Earth.

A church is built during medieval times on top of a pile of dead bodies that were considered possessed. Hundreds of years later a young librarian unleashes the evil within by removing a rock in the catacombs, and many strange events occur, and many people seem to have changed suddenly. Father Gus, the only one not possessed, must save the city from the pandemonium by finding the ancient secret of the church so it can crumble to pieces.—Nebiros <[email protected]>

In medieval Europe, crusading knights massacre a village full of suspected devil-worshipers and build a large Gothic church above the cursed remains. Centuries later, the elaborate cathedral still stands, but when its sealed crypt is accidentally reopened, a group of people trapped inside the church become possessed by the fury of the damned. Can the blood of the innocent survive this unholy communion, or will the ultimate demonic evil be unleashed upon the WORLD?.—Anthony Pereyra {[email protected]}

In the Middle Ages, the Knights Templar invade a supposed coven of witches and they slaughter the community. They dig an unholy collective grave, bury the bodies, and build a church on the top of the corpses. Centuries later, librarian Evan is hired the organize the church's books and meets Lisa, an archaeologist who is researching the church's catacombs. He accidentally unleashes, and is possessed by, an ancient demon. Sooner several visitors are trapped inside the church and possessed by demons. Father Gus and teenage Lotte are the only persons that are not possessed, and Father Gus discovers a secret in the construction of the church that might be the last chance to save humanity.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In medieval Germany, a band of Teutonic Knights massacre a village of supposed devil-worshipers and bury their bodies underground, building a Gothic cathedral over the mass grave as a means to contain the demonic evil within. One of the first to be killed is a little peasant girl wearing a brown cloak and a wooden mask over her face. It is not made clear whether or not the villagers are indeed devil-worshipers (although they are implied to be witches), and the resulting genocide is quite brutal; even the villagers' animals are slaughtered, and one of the Knights falls in among the bodies and is left behind to be buried alive by his own fellow people. It is declared that the church will be a barrier between the world and Hell.

In the present day, the cathedral's new librarian Evan arrives for his first day on the job. He meets Lisa, a mosaic artist supervising a restoration of the church's elaborate frescoes, and asks her out on a coffee date. He also meets Lotte, the Sacristan's rebellious teenage daughter, who is lonely and hiding out in the library to avoid going to school. Evan is a likable man, and quickly finds himself among good companions throughout the church. While Evan befriends Lisa and Lotte, as well as the kind-natured Father Gus, he has a harder time impressing the stern, elderly church Bishop. Evan is late for work on his first day, not to mention caught under a desk talking to Lotte, who was showing him a metal bell that makes a noise like horses running when shaken. The Bishop warns Evan not to enter the church's catacombs, nominally due to their instability, and quickly leaves him to his work, though not without berating him for his tardiness.

Lisa begins restoring a fresco in the cellar, when she uncovers a hidden compartment containing a mysterious parchment carrying what resembles architectural schematics. Evan sneaks the parchment out of the church under the suspicious Bishop's nose, and goes home with Lisa. They bond over a mutual interest in medieval art and architecture, although Evan is much more zealous about it, talking the entire drive back to Lisa's house as if he is in a trance. The two start to make love in Lisa's bed, but then Evan has a sudden realization and finds hidden Latin text on the parchment referring to a "stone with seven eyes." The text is visible when a mirror is held to it. Evan flees, leaving Lisa for the night. Meanwhile, a dinner takes place between Father Gus, the Bishop, and the bespectacled Reverend who conducts sermons. Father Gus is clearly an outsider, his benevolence and hope for humanity unwelcome at the table, not to mention his trouble with learning Latin, which the Reverend purposely tries to get him in trouble for.

As Evan explores the catacombs to find the stone later that night, Gus and Lisa experience strange, paranormal visions. Lotte, meanwhile, is caught by the Sacristan after a night out at the shopping mall; the Sacristan berates her about her inappropriate clothing and the late hour of the night, only for her to get past him. The Bishop finds the parchment that Evan had previously stolen, and begins studying it closely. Later that night, searching the cellar, Evan uncovers the stone in a hidden crypt; a seal embedded into the ground above a cross. Evan manages to pry open the seal, revealing a vast, seemingly endless black void. A blue light radiates from the hole and reveals a sack. Evan opens the sack, and is grabbed by hands from the inside before he blacks out. When he regains consciousness, the sack and hands are gone, and his wrists are bleeding. Evan closes the hole and the Sacristan enters, looking for Lotte, who often sneaks out of the church through the catacombs at night. Evan knocks him out and then leaves the church, stopping at a gas station convenience store to call Lisa by payphone, but all he can do is make bizarre noises at her. He is violently ill, but Lisa seems to believe the noises are a prank. Losing control of his hands, Evan tears out his own still-beating heart and holds it up over the cityscape, after which he speeds crazily in his car all through the streets, appearing as if he is flying.

At home, Lisa experiences dreams of the unsealed hole in the church and a vast, candle-filled atrium. Awake and waiting for Evan's return, she is attacked by a goat-headed demon and flees in terror. She is confronted by police officers, whereupon she bites their hands in a panic; although they are understanding, they are unsure how to help her, seeing as the demon is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, returning home from the catacombs, the Sacristan begins experiencing the same symptoms as Evan.

The next day, Lisa goes to Evan's office, where he is acting strangely. He tries to sexually assault her and she flees, shocked and horrified. Evan likewise menaces the Sacristan's daughter Lotte, threatening to open her stomach with a knife, sending her screaming and running upstairs. Evan and the Sacristan both become increasingly disheveled and violent. Lotte comes sobbing to the Sacristan, accusing Even of trying to kill her, but the Sacristan violently doubts her, declaring that Evan is a good man; he then proceeds to hold his daughter's head over the kitchen sink and wash her mouth out with Irish Spring deodorant soap, leaving a green residue all over her face. She screams after looking up and discovering that the Sacristan has a bright red ape-like demon face, and she flees her family's apartment. Lotte's mother, oblivious, asks the Sacristan to bring her some cooking onions. Lotte runs face-first into the white wedding dress of a fashion model getting photographs taken outside the church, getting the green soap on the dress; the model is visibly upset and tells her off, but Lotte continues to run.

The Sacristan is surprised by Lotte's fear. Having a moment of clarity, he rushes to the confession booth, and tells Father Gus that he has become demonically possessed and fears losing control. To Gus's horror, the Sacristan then runs into a crowd of visitors in the main part of the church building, including the vain fashion model from earlier, and the male model posing as her bridegroom; the Sacristan scratches the male model's face, then goes to the cellar and eviscerates himself with a jackhammer, begging for forgiveness before he dies.

His death seemingly triggers security mechanisms that cause the church to seal shut, trapping everyone inside. Among the visitors are a class of schoolchildren on a field trip with their nerdy teacher, the fashion models from earlier, a bickering elderly couple, and a teenager biker gang couple whose transport broke down outside the church. The occupants begin experiencing increasingly elaborate and deadly visions. The vain fashion model sees her reflection rapidly age, and in a fit of madness, she tears the skin off her own face. One of the schoolchildren sees his friend turn into his doppelganger before being killed. The teenage biker sees his girlfriend in the embrace of a gargoyle. The other schoolchildren busy themselves with games and mischief, hiding the nerdy teacher's spectacles, and pretending to ride horses up and down the pews. Father Gus is horrified to discover that the Sacristan has committed suicide; he orders the Reverend to call the police, and then proceeds to confront the aloof old Bishop. He discovers him on the rooftop with a stash of occult parchments and schematics for the church. He reveals that he intends to let the evil inside kill the occupants before being unleashed on what he sees as a sinful and corrupt world, before committing suicide. This repulses Father Gus, who sees it as cruel and sacrilegious. He attempts to take the parchments from the Bishop, who accidentally slips and falls, impaling himself on a spiked steeple. Father Gus is devastated, and screams into the night.

Those inside the church start dying in droves; the biker couple manage to dig through a thin section of the floor and rappel down beneath the church, but the girlfriend slips through the ground and falls. She is saved by her boyfriend, who manages to grab onto her arm, where she dangles and screams, only to notice two approaching yellow lights - this turns out to be an oncoming subway train in what is revealed to be an underground tunnel that she fell into; the train strikes her, causing her head to explode and killing her instantly. The Sacristan reanimates, now completely possessed, and kills the nerdy schoolteacher. At a disco floor in town, Lotte senses something wrong and rushes back to the church, using a secret passageway in the aqueduct to get inside. Meanwhile, Lisa enters into a trance and wanders into the cellar, finding herself in the same candlelit atrium of her dreams. Surrounded by the reanimated specters of the church's victims, she lies atop an altar and is raped by Evan, who is now fully transformed into the same goat-like demon from earlier.

Lotte bumps into Father Gus, who assures her that he won't hurt her, and the two team up to find a way to stop the evil happenings going on in the church. Searching the Bishop's office, Father Gus finds the ancient records recounting the church's creation. Lotte enters, and upon sees someone who looks like her in a woodcut depicting the centuries-old massacre of the devil-worshipers who'd been buried beneath the church; the person, the little peasant girl from the start of the film, is implied to have been Lotte in a past life. Suddenly flooded with memories from centuries prior, Lotte reveals that the church's architect was tortured brutally and left to die in the church he had built, accused of being an alchemist sorcerer (the architect bears a strong resemblance to the Sacristan). Lotte further reveals that his body contains a self-destruct mechanism for the entire building. Father Gus tells Lotte to flee, promising that he will reunite with her later on outside the church, and he makes his way through the cellar and to the chapel hall as the dead bodies of the massacre victims from centuries earlier begin to rise. Father Gus reaches the altar, and finds a massive pile of reanimating corpses rising out of the ground. He finds the architect's body hidden beneath the floor, and activates the self-destruct mechanism. The building collapses, killing everyone inside, including himself, Lisa and Evan. Only Lotte escapes.

Some time later, Lotte returns to the ruins of the church with flowers for Father Gus, her parents, and all of the other lives lost. A passing truck uncovers the stone seal and blows it open. As Lotte hears the sounds of horses running, blue light emits from within, just like when Evan first opened it, and she smiles enigmatically.