Montréal Police Detective Sergeant Jim Henderson is the lead investigator into the death of a scantily-clad young woman found outside an apartment building, the initial belief being that she was pushed from the unoccupied twentieth floor penthouse balcony. Henderson's partner, Detective Sergeant Pierre Paquette, recognizes her as a prostitute, who they eventually will learn has the working name Elizabeth Lucy, a junkie and one of Meg Latimer's girls. In questioning Meg and another one of her girls, Laura, Henderson and Paquette will also learn that Elizabeth was a non-practicing Catholic, much like Henderson himself, despite the fact that a crucifix on a chain was around her neck and pyx tightly clutched in her hand when she was discovered. The story of Henderson and Paquette investigating the murder, which gets them and their associates into mortal danger the further they get into the investigation, is interwoven with the story of how Elizabeth ended up dead outside that apartment building. If Henderson and Paquette are able to discover the truth, Henderson may further question his own already tenuous Catholic faith. Synopsis by IMDb
Title check: A pyx is a container used by Catholic priests to hold communion wafers. As a title, it's obscure, but appropriate to a movie with a Catholic backdrop such as this, especially as it is one of the items discovered on the body of the hooker.
Filmed entirely on location in Montreal, The Pyx (1973) is not easily categorized. Chiefly a policier/mystery-thriller, toward the end it incorporates horror film elements.But at a time when the horror genre was spiraling downward into cheap, crass exploitation, The Pyx is intelligent, well acted, and though graphically violent and sexually frank, it's anything but exploitative.
Montreal hooker falls to her death from a high rise, clutching a pyx and wearing an inverted cross around her neck. Investigating her death, a detective uncovers a strange underworld where drugs, prostitution and religious perversion go hand in hand. Directed by Harvey Hart, the occult mystery's treatment of the diabolic makes a intriguing horror fantasy, though its inversion of religious symbols is disturbing and at times repulsive.
It's definitely a seventies movie, and it doesn't shy from the sleazy aspects of the story, but it comes off better than you might ex |
