October Horror Movie Challenge: The Pyx (1973)

 There is something about horror films, especially occult horror, from right before the Exorcist. 

They seem to have a completely different tenor to them, as I showed a couple of years back. Some horror movies get under your skin through shock and spectacle. Others take the long road; quiet, methodical, and drenched in atmosphere. 

The Pyx (1973) is definitely one of the latter. It’s a film that demands patience… and then tests it.

The Pyx (1973)

Along with the Exorcist, The Conjuring movies and more this falls under the umbrella I like to call Catholic-Horror. These movies are created with the point of view that the battle between Good and Evil is held on a cosmic scale and the Catholic are the foot soldiers in that battle. Nothing wrong with this point of view really, it gave us some good films.

Is the Pyx a good film? Well. It has been on my IMDB list forever and my Tubi list nearly as long. I remember seeing it in the video stores on VHS and thinking I really should rent sometime. I thought at the time (the 1980s) it was closer in nature to the Exorcist. Plus I do like Christopher Plummer.  So there was no way this movie was going to live up to what I thought it was. I also seem to recall some kids in school being afraid of it. I have already detailed how my local town had its own Satanic Panic moment, so I guess I should not have been surprised. 

Plus it is just so damn slow, even by 70s standards.

Set in Montreal, the story opens with the death of a young prostitute, Elizabeth Lucy (Karen Black), who falls, or maybe jumps, from a high-rise balcony. The detective investigating, Sgt. Jim Henderson (Christopher Plummer), slowly uncovers her connection to a shadowy occult circle. The deeper he digs, the more the film begins to oscillate between murder mystery and religious horror. The film is interspersed with Henderson's investigation and Lucy's actual events leading up to her death.

The title itself refers to the small container used to hold the consecrated Host (I had to look that up) already a hint that this isn’t your standard thriller. There’s a sense of ritual to everything here: the pacing, the imagery, even the editing. The story unfolds in a slow, deliberate rhythm that mirrors a liturgy more than a narrative. Honestly it was too slow in many places. 

Karen Black is the soul of the film (no pun). She brings both fragility and quiet strength to Elizabeth, primarily through the flashbacks that slowly reveal her descent into the occult underworld. Her performance is the anchor that keeps the movie from drifting into abstraction. Christopher Plummer, meanwhile, gives one of his early “world-weary detective” roles the kind of gravitas that makes you wish the script had given him more to do. I could not help but think that Jason Issacs (Lorca from Star Trek Discovery) would do well in a remake of this.

Visually, The Pyx is haunting. It’s all dark gray skies, dark stairwells, and cold city streets. The Catholic symbolism hangs heavy, crucifixes, chalices, and sacred music twisting into something sinister. 

But like I said it is slow. Painfully slow at times. The editing lingers on every moment, and the flashback structure (jumping between Elizabeth’s story and the investigation) makes it feel like it’s constantly restarting. It’s not a bad movie, but it’s one of those films that feels like it’s daring you to stay awake long enough to find the meaning.

I am not 100% sure the ending justifies my patience here. But it does at least turn this from a murder investigation into something a little more worthy of my October Challenge.

Occult D&D and NIGHT SHIFT

If you’re building a NIGHT SHIFT or Ravenloft-style scenario, The Pyx is a great reminder that horror doesn’t need to be loud. It’s about the mood, religious overtones, guilt, temptation, and the slow corruption of innocence.

Tone: Low magic, high dread. Think more investigation than exorcism. This isn't even Supernatural (the TV Show) level. These are Survivors with no magic in a world where the fear of the unknown is very strong.

Structure: The dual-timeline approach (the detective’s investigation and the victim’s flashbacks) would work beautifully for a horror one-shot, each clue in the present triggers a playable memory from the past. Something along the line of what I did with Ravenloft ages ago. 

The Cult: Small, personal, and ritualistic. No robed masses here, just a handful of true believers who think they’ve found salvation through blasphemy.

The Pyx itself: Treat it as a cursed relic. A holy vessel that’s been defiled, perhaps housing a fragment of something unholy pretending to be divine.

The key here (and with the sub-genre of Catholic Horror) is the characters have to be believers of some sort. Either part of the religion (say like the Warrens) or lapsed from it, like Henderson in this movie. But the belief has to be there. That's where the horror grows. Not because of their faith, but the dark shadows where their faith can't reach.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
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