THE PYX

Starring:Pyx
Studio: Trinity Home Enterta
Product Type: DVD

Description

Featuring a deft blend of sci-fi, horror and suspense, this thriller centers on a Montreal police detective's attempts to solve the strange and grisly murder of a young woman. His investigation leads him into a mysterious terrifying world of Satanic ritual.

Customer Reviews:

Very Unusual, Excellent Film.......2006-03-28

I must disagree with the prior review; I saw the film theatrically in 1973 when it first opened theatrically and was a bit put off; then I saw it again about a year later and saw plot points I had missed the first time and found the film to actually be quite intricate with fascinating characters. Karen Black turns in one of her best performances as Elizabeth Lucy, the heroin-addicted prostitute (and she also wrote and performs several effective songs on the soundtrack). Far more intellectual and riveting than many "thrillers", I highly recommend this film to anyone who likes intelligent screenplays and also a film that makes them think a bit. Recommended.

DEVILISHLY DULL.......2006-01-17

What were Karen Black and Christopher Plummer thinking when they agreed to star in this movie? Obviously they needed jobs, as this dull and muddled film lacks any true artistic merit. While director Harvey Hart tried to be original in his dual flashback style, it doesn't help when the script overloads itself with confusion and awful dialogue. The movie opens with Karen Black hurtling from a high apartment building, and Plummer is the detective out to solve the death. Black was a prostitute, and somehow gets mixed up with a wealthy patron, who obviously has more than sex on his mind. That's about it..and the climax which reveals the reason behind Black's death is as muddled as the rest of the film. Not recommended.

Average customer rating:

The Pyx
Starring: Karen Black; Christopher Plummer
Director: Harvey Hart
Manufacturer: Miracle Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Horror | Genres | DVD | Video

Product Description

A detective investigating the death of a heroin-addicted prostitute uncovers evidence pointing to the existence of a murderous devil cult.

Average customer rating:

Slappy, slow and dreadful
CLASSIC PULP- CULT- THRILLER- CRIME-NOIR
aka The Pyx
Post-hippy Satanic Creeper
HORRIBLE DVD release of obscure Canadian occult mystery

The Pyx (AKA The Hooker Cult Murders)
Starring: Karen Black , Christopher Plummer , Donald Pilon , Jean-Louis Roux , and Yvette Brind'amour
Director: Harvey Hart
Manufacturer: Beverly Wilshire
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Horror | Genres | DVD | Video

Thrillers | Mystery & Suspense | Genres | DVD | Video

Detectives | Mystery & Suspense | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Mystery & Suspense | Genres | DVD | Video

( P ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Graveyard Tramps
Sisters of Death
Nightmare Castle
Fangs of the Living Dead
The Devil's Nightmare / Messiah of Evil

ASIN: B00008G5C8
Release Date: 2002-01-01

Customer Reviews:

Slappy, slow and dreadful.......2007-05-29

Why does this exist?
I'll tell you.
It exists as a Canadian take on the huge hit, "Klute", which starred Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda.
That flick was bad enough. This one tells you where it's headed right off the bat with a screechy, decades out-of-fashion, theme song sung by the star, Karen Black against someone providing acoustic guitar.
She does 3 different soundtrack numbers in this film, one worse than the next.
Christopher Plummer, supposedly a world-weary, jaded police detective (we know this because the villain tells us so at the end of the movie. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had a clue), sleepwalks throughout.
He has very little actual dialogue. Very few of the actors have anything meaningful to say and yet, the film feels talky.
It drags and drags and drags.
Director Harvey Hart switches the timeline back and forth with abandon. No devices are used to let you know you're either in the past or in the future. One second someone is dead, the next, they're in a bar having a drink. This was, I suppose, made like that to be suspenseful, but the pacing just wore me out.
And I must say, the "Carefully Re-Mastered For Best Possible Picture Quality" claim on the back of the case, is a bunch of crap, too.
I have no idea what this looked like in the theater on opening day, but the dark, grainy, choppily edited, murky mess St. Clair Vision has produced here, has not been touched by a living soul.
It is quite obviously a sloppy dub from an old public domain VHS tape. Shame on them, even at the cheap price they're charging.
It's possible that this would have been a completely different experience if I'd actually seen a watchable print. Nothing can help the sluggish, silly script, dull acting and anti-climactic ending, though.
Junk is junk.
Watch it only if you're interested in movies from the 70's on an anthropological level, because as entertainment, this clearly misses the mark.

CLASSIC PULP- CULT- THRILLER- CRIME-NOIR.......2005-08-18

This 1970 gem is somewhat of a reworking of LAURA but with a satanic twist. Filmed in Montreal, it stars Christopher Plummer as a detective discovering an elusive satanic cult while investigating the suspicious death of a beautiful prostitute. Based on the novel of the same name by John Buell, the film is a well edited adaptation by director Harvey Hart. Not too many films have dealt too seriously with the uccult, asside from the EXORCIST and THE WICKER MAN, to which this film can take its place allongside. Its Provocative, original and has a powerful ironic climax from which I think SEVEN's climax was influenced from; giving into wrath. Great book... Great movie...

aka The Pyx.......2005-03-07

A prostitute (Karen Black) dies after falling off a tall building and a Montreal policeman (Christopher Plummer) investigates what he believes is a murder.
HOOKER CULT MURDERS is a little more substantial than its title would lead one to believe. It begins with Black's character's death and follows to different threads - the story of the hooker leading up to her death and the story of the police investigation. So Black and Plummer never share a scene, but both are pretty good - Black as a drugged out prostitute dragged into something beyond her understanding, Plummer as an obsessed investigator. The movie was filmed in Montreal, and it has a nice naturalistic feel to it.
Still it's pretty long and winding, and interest flags sooner than the explanatory scenes at the end which tie up the mysteries. In fact, I thought the ending was kind of silly. The transfer print was in okay to good condition, watchable but not something you're going to savor.
An okay cappuccino movie (a cappuccino movie being one that costs less than a cup of gourmet coffee.) Recommended without reservations for Karen Black and/or Christopher Plummer fans.

Post-hippy Satanic Creeper.......2004-07-09

The underbelly of a drugged-out, early 70s Montreal is laid out in the cold light of dawn in this eerie occult mystery. What happened to Ms. Black? That's what Christopher Plummer is trying to find out. Fans of Argento would enjoy this gritty, tough, and street-level film. If you're into 70s Black Sabbath one could see Ozzy, Tony, Geezer & Bill smoked out of their minds watching this in a dark, grimy Montreal grindhouse circa 1973. Cut the chatter and find this.

HORRIBLE DVD release of obscure Canadian occult mystery.......2004-03-06

This DVD is of a little-known film made in Montreal in the early 1970s, starring a very young and beautiful Karen Black, Christopher Plummer and Quebec actor Donald Pilon. This film was often shown on TV in Canada throughout the 70s, and although I cannot call it a great movie, it does have a certain atmospheric quality to it which has stuck in my mind all these years.

This movie is one of a host of films that came out at around this time (see also: "The Devil's Rain", "Race With the Devil", "The Omen", "The Sentinel", etc.) which, influenced by the success of such films as Rosemary's Baby and especially The Exorcist, dealt with the theme of Satanism.

Police detective Plummer and his partner Pilon are called to the murder case of prostitute Black. We flash back to Black's final days, as clues gradually lead the detectives to a Satanic cult.

Plummer is good as the detective but the real star here is Black, who has never been more radiant, and who also sings the movie's hauntingly etherial theme song.

It's a pity that the DVD transfer of this film is so bad, because I really do like this film and would otherwise have given it 3 stars.

But unfortunately the money-grubbing DVD-making people at Beverly Wilshire were so cheap they did not even bother to do what most el-cheapo DVD release companies do when releasing a movie with a picture screen ratio wider than a conventional TV screen, which is to pan and scan. Instead, they merely went and squeezed the entire wider image into the smaller screen, thus giving us a movie of long, thin "stick people". Such lazyness is absolutely INEXCUSABLE, and I wish there were some way to punish these people who are obviously out to cheat the unsuspecting public.

I guess the only real method to punish them we have at our disposal is to withhold our hard-earned money, so I would strongly advise you NOT to buy this DVD.

--Which is a real pity, because this film does deserve to be seen, and if you've viewed and enjoyed the other films I've mentioned above, chances are you will probably like this one too. I can only hope that someone will someday rerelease this again in a proper DVD version, giving the film the respect it deserves. In the meantime, this film was also previously released on video, so if you scrounge around you may be able to find yourself a copy. This is what I will now have to do.

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