The Devils

Director: Ken Russell
Writer: Ken Russell
Released: 1971
Cast: Oliver Reed, Vanessa Redgrave, Dudley Sutton, Michael Gothard

NIKKI says:
Yeah, this was just about the creepiest thing ever. Steve's been at me to watch it for a long time, but I'm just not the biggest Ken Russell fan. I think he's cool, I just don't really like his movies. I can't pinpoint why except to say they're so very 1970s-BRITISH. I know that's totally inappropriate and the wrong way to describe what I think when I think about movies like this. I get a sense of Fahrenheit 451 and Blow Up. and I just can't do it.

Even so, I did like this one. It had all those elements that bother me, but I was compelled, at last by scary Oliver Reed to put my unfounded and silly prejudices aside and enjoy. It is, though, a hard movie to enjoy. It's creepy and in your face and full of meaning and metaphor. Instead of trying to outline the complex plot, I'll let "Nizz" do it, courtesy of the Internet Movie Database:

Cardinal Richelieu and his power-hungry entourage seek to take control of seventeenth-century France, but need to destroy Father Grandier - the priest who runs the fortified town that prevents them from exerting total control. So they seek to destroy him by setting him up as a warlock in control of a devil-possessed nunnery, the mother superior of which is sexually obsessed by him. A mad witch-hunter is brought in to gather evidence against the priest, ready for the big trial

Couldn't have said it better myself. And there's a big scene with nuns having an exorcism-slash-orgy, and Oliver Reed goes around saying extremely profound things, and at the end I pretty much needed a shower. A religious experience, to say the least. And while I didn't entirely understand it, I certainly recognise its power. I think...

3/5