Also known as The Hooker Cult Murders, The Pyx is based on the novel by John Buell. The pyx is a container used by Catholics to hold the Eucharist, literally the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the form of blessed unleavened bread.

While directed by Harvey Hart and written by Robert Schlitt, this was a movie that Curtis Harrington had wanted to make for some time.

Elizabeth Lucy (Karen Black) is a barely dressed sex worker who fell out a window, a bloodstream filled with heroin, clutching a crucifix and a pyx. Sergeant Jim Henderson (Christopher Plummer) wants to figure out why she died, which takes us back through the last few months of her life.

As he grows closer to the truth, meeting the people in her life, each of them dies in different ways. That’s because Elizabeth was the victim of a cult who had desecrated a piece of communion and were offering it to her as part of a Black Mass, presided over by a Catholic priest. As she was trying to save her soul, she jumps out a window to her death.

That priest, Keerson (Jean-Louis Roux) claims to be possessed by the devil and only the bullets of Henderson’s gun set him free.

The end of this is strange from a Catholic perspective. Suicide is one of the biggest sins of the church and it keeps the soul in limbo or sends it to Hell, depending on which of the teachers you believe. Would Elizabeth be forgiven for this death as she did it to remain free of Satanic power? I wonder.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Here’s a drink.

Black Mass (thanks to this recipe)

• 1.5 oz. white rum
• .5 oz. Malibu
• .5 oz. blue curacao
• .5 oz. Campari
• 3 oz. pineapple juice
• .25 oz. simple syrup
• .25 oz. lime juice

1. Put all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice.
2. Pour over crushed ice and drink up.