Rent The Devils (1971)

Holy Terror - The Devils review by Count Otto Black

Ken Russell's films got steadily more and more nuts until his career was in ruins, but in 1971 he was still being given pretty large budgets to play with, and although the content of his movies was already extreme, it wasn't totally out of control, and they still made sense. This was the first and best of the full-blown crazy Ken Russell films, and it's almost a masterpiece.

Of course, like all movies claiming to portray real historical events, it's a wee bit exaggerated. For instance, Louis XIII, though he was probably gay, certainly wasn't an outrageously camp screaming queen, and he was a competent ruler, not a spaghetti western villain who used political prisoners dressed as birds for target practice! And like all Ken Russell films, at times it's badly compromised by overacting. Vanessa Redgrave can be forgiven, since it's hard to be subtle when you're playing a mad sex-crazed hunchbacked nun who thinks she's possessed by the devil, and all things considered, she's actually very good, but the two evil apothecaries (one of them played by Brian Murphy, an actor more usually associated with sitcoms - he was the male half of "George and Mildred") really ham it up as bizarrely ill-advised comic relief. And Michael Gothard somehow manages to overact even by the standards of Ken Russell films in the rôle of an exorcist who makes his unfortunate clients seem almost sane by comparison.

However, it looks magnificent, if sometimes repulsive, with graphic scenes of torture, death by fire, and much else that isn't very nice. And holding it all together is Oliver Reed giving the performance of a lifetime as Father Grandier, the flawed and hopelessly uncelibate priest who makes far too many enemies both personal and political, and has to be disposed of through a grotesquely absurd show-trial presided over by hypocrites and madmen. Reed, not yet beginning to bloat from the industrial amounts he was drinking, is superb as an imperfect man trying to be as good as he can be, and ultimately becoming heroic, and in the latter part of the film he totally dominates every scene by being the only believable character on screen. By the way, what his torturers do to him really did happen to the real Father Grandier, and isn't exaggerated at all.

If you can cope with some genuine nastiness and a great deal of astonishingly bad taste, this weird hybrid of "The Exorcist" and Terry Gilliam's "Jabberwocky" is absolutely unique, and makes you wish Ken Russell had made a lot more high-budget horror and fantasy films than he did. I hope one day they get around to releasing a Director's Cut restoring all the scenes the censor removed that went even further than what's on show here. Yes, really!

Dizzyingly daring - The Devils review by VG

A jagged, delirious and ferocious dance macabre through religious perversion, group hysteria and ruthless political expediency.

Bold & Daring Historical Drama - The Devils review by GI

The Devils is a powerful, bold and flamboyant piece of filmmaking. It's often considered director Ken Russell's finest work and it has many admirers. It's certainly his most political and daring film and it retains the power to shock today so it's quite understandable how much it affected audiences and the studio in 1971. Warner Brothers still refuse to release a directors cut version where controversial scenes are allegedly restored. But championed by renowned film critic Mark Kermode it maybe that Russell's version could one day be released. In any event this is a remarkable film and it's almost beyond comparison with it's futuristic set designs of 17th century France and a story of political corruption to destroy the priest who stands in the way of the ambitions of the power hungry Richelieu (Christopher Logue). Oliver Reed plays Grandier, the handsome priest in the town of Loudun. He's charismatic and a philanderer but dedicated to protecting the town and defies the attempts by the Government to pull down its fortifications which would expose it to enemies. To defeat him false charges of devil worship are levied forcing confessions by torture from his friends and the local head nun, Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave), who secretly lusts after him. With it's scenes of sexual abandon and deviant orgies, torture and death the film is a boundary pusher. In many ways it's quite restrained by today's standards but the mix of religious corruption, sex and critique of christianity as the cauldron of disillusionment and selfishness it's a film bound to offend and it still causes great angst in the USA. However it's an important film from the very British of directors and one that all film lovers should see.