“Dark Sanctuary: The Story of the Church” tells the story of a counter-cultural icon visited by such celebrities as Madonna and Trent Reznor.
DALLAS — A new documentary is now available to watch on streaming highlighting the history of an iconic nightclub in Deep Ellum that’s been a home to counterculture for decades.
“Dark Sanctuary: The Story of The Church” tells the story of The Church, which started in the same venue as the Lizard Lounge, at 2424 Swiss Ave. in Dallas, in 1994.
The director of the documentary, Timothy Stevens, said the first time he went to The Church was around 2010, when he was a student at the University of North Texas. Originally from Amarillo, home to almost exclusively honky tonk-type bars, he said The Church was one of the first club experiences he had ever had.
“It was a place that was a haven for underground culture,” Stevens said about the club. “People that didn’t really fit in, that was especially important in Dallas, especially in the ’90s, when Dallas was still more thought of as big business cowboy town.”
Stevens said the idea for the documentary came to him after watching a documentary on the famous Studio 54 nightclub in New York, both being famous clubs that celebrities had visited. The Church in its time had seen Trent Reznor and The Cure hang out there. Madonna reportedly had tried to buy the club at one point.
“It provided a home and kind of became a little church, in some ways, for these people who just needed to have a family, someone who accepts them for who they are,” Stevens said.
After an Indiegogo campaign funded production of the movie, Stevens said he spent about two-and-a-half years working on it, compiling about 150 hours of footage and condensing it down to almost 90 minutes.
Stevens described The Church as a place that literally saved lives.
“There’s people that needed that sense of belonging,” Stevens said. “That really became the heart of the documentary.”
Although the building where The Church originally was is now vacant, and possibly going to be demolished, the club has since relocated to the It’ll Do Club, 4322 Elm St., where they still host Goth Nights on Sundays. At the Swiss Avenue site, it was the longest-running goth club in a single location in the U.S.
“You think most club nights hang around four years tops before they’re done for,” Stevens said. “The most legendary clubs, like Studio 54, was around for I think less (than) five years.”
“Dark Sanctuary: The Story of The Church” is now available on multiple streaming sites, including Amazon Prime and YouTube. For more information, visit the movie’s website here.