The Eighteenth Angel 1997

An ancient Etruscan prophecy holds that Satan’s return will be precipitated by the arrival of eighteen physically perfect beings. To bring this prophecy to life, a secret sect of monks teams up with an obsessed geneticist to create the perfect specimens artificially.

Music scholar Hugh Stanton lives in America with his wife Norah Stanton and their teenage daughter Lucy Stanton. Lucy’s striking looks are beginning to attract attention, and she dreams of becoming a professional model, but Norah is opposed to this.

Norah dies in an unexplained fall from the roof of a tall building, seemingly a suicide, after a brief meeting with a mysterious Etruscan priest, Father Simeon. In the aftermath of her death, Hugh receives an invitation to visit a Roman church which allegedly contains “the world’s oldest church organ.” He and Lucy move to Italy, where they settle down in the former Etruscan areas north of the Eternal City.

With little to do while her father is at work, Lucy begins to explore her surroundings—in particular an old monastery—despite warnings from locals. A scientist (who was fired after performing unethical experiments on corpses) now works in the old building. As it transpires, he has been hired by the Etruscan priest who, it is insinuated, may have arranged the death of the girl’s mother, in order to trick Hugh and Lucy into visiting the ancient land of the Etruscans.

In the old building, seventeen young girls are clinically brain dead, but kept alive by the scientist. The scientist, unaware of his employer’s true intentions, is just glad to be able to continue his questionable experiments, regardless.

According to the Etruscan prophecy, the number of eighteen special girls are required for it to be fulfilled. Could Lucy be number eighteen?