Despite the many negative reviews here, I enjoyed this film.The film mixes Catholic themes of good and evil, God and the devil with contemporary scientific developments, particularly cloning. There are some gaps in the plot, but if you can put it aside, you have a very exciting thriller into the game. The setting in Italy contributes to a dark atmosphere. The film is particularly beautiful shot, especially for a TV movie and the acting is sufficient enough to keep it completely believable. More, the characters are interesting, which helps to feel sorrow for some very sad things happening to them.The overall style of this film released in 1997, is very similar to the style of the Monster of the Week episodes of The X Files. Therefore, I would recommend The Eiteenth Angel especially to fans of the X Files.9*

"The Eighteenth Angel" is a mediocre film that does a poor job of telling the story about the meaning behind a quote from the "Etruscan Book of the Dead". Something about when Satan comes back he'll walk as beauty. The plot is based around a secret society of Etruscan Priests who have chosen the side of Satan over that of God- they think Christianity really sucks- and as such, plan to enact the necessary steps to fulfill the aforementioned prophecy- to bring Satan back in a beautiful (as opposed to beastial) form. To do this they need to get 18 good looking, innocent children, kill them, and cut off their faces...in an apparent process whose reasons go largely unexplained.Anyways, it stars a sexy as hell 19 year old Rachael Leigh Cook, who plays a young model that is being lured in by the cult- as they recognize her as "the eighteenth angel" needed to complete the necessary required steps in order to bring back Satan...or something like that. First they kill her mom (well kinda...I think...no explanation is given), then somehow get her to come to Italy with her dad, before having some grimy ginos from the cult seduce her via her fat ass cat (which she unbelievably smuggled to Italy).The cult seems to capture her by exploiting some sort of evil divine intervention, and it is up to her dad to stop them before it's too late. Before he has lost his daughter forever to the cult, like he did his wife.The whole story is just poorly told. There is no plot development whatsoever and it just kind of ends without tying up multiple strands of the storyline. If it wasn't for the Goddess-like sexual allure of a young Rachael Leigh Cook, and the cinematography on a few nice establishing shots, then this film wouldn't be worth watching at all. 3 out of 10.

I just saw this film on Mid-day TV. It was excellent but I felt it was a little disjointed as several characters and people were not really explained.For example the long haired young man who took Rachel Leigh Cook for a ride-why did he seemingly have hypnotic power.Also I was a bit sad that the cat was made possessed. As a lover of cats this was a bit sad.The main highlight though was Rachel Leigh Cook-I would have liked to have seen more of her both in the film, and in the flesh as there was this implied feeling of lust by the various hooded figures.Ending I thought that the ending of film left possibility of a sequel-a bit like the Damian trilogy of the 70's.

The Eighteenth Angel is, at best, a very below par 'horror' film. I say this because, it's just not horrific. The storyline is essentially a standard 'evil cultists wish to summon Satan to Earth' type thing, something which has, to be honest, been done many times before. In addition, the cast, even the normally entertaining Cook, do nothing to raise the believeability level of this sad little film. The end result is that you find yourself A) Laughing at the film for it's flaws, and B) Not even giving a damn for the characters, neither of which should be results of watching a 'good' horror film (Check out Ring or Nightmare on Elm St.). So while this film does have many flaws, it's biggest letdown is that it is simply not scary, and what more should you be looking for in a horror film. In short, don't see it unless you're a big Cook fan.