Tuesday 21 April 2015

The Devils (1971)


In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu, but hysteria occurs within the city when he is accused of witchcraft by a sexually repressed nun.

Over-the-top blasphemous and deliberately in bad taste, this infamous movie seems likewise as possessed and fevered as the hysteria it depicts.

Halliwell**: "Despite undeniable technical proficiency this is its writer-director's most outrageously sick film to date, campy, idiosyncratic and in howling bad taste from beginning to end, full of worm-eaten skulls, masturbating nuns, gibbering courtiers, plague sores, rats and a burning to death before our very eyes...plus a sacrilegious dream of Jesus."

Maltin**1/2: "Fine performances save confused mixture of history, comedy, and surrealism...A mad movie, with fiery finale not for the squeamish."

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