The Devil Rides Out (1968)

Some rich dude (Christopher Lee) and his buddy Rex discover that a young friend has joined a satanic cult. Our hero uses every method illegal to save him from a fate worse than freedom of religion. He calls up all sorts of arcane knowledge and artifacts to rescue him. And some chick.

Seldom did Lee play the hero (although I’d argue he was the hero of The Wicker Man) and here I could argue he was the villain playing a confidence game convincing his dim-witted friends and relatives of a non-existent danger. He asserts with authority how every action and object is part of satanic activity without providing much evidence, and bullies the doubters. Of course Satan IS at work. Hammer isn’t that deep, but for a while I was tempted to doubt the premise.

Renamed “The Devil’s Bride” for American audiences so we wouldn’t think it was a Western. Here as the lead satanist is Charles Gray who also played Blofeld in Diamonds are Forever (1971) and a Criminologist in some other film.

The Devil Rides Out was released at the start of a satanic panic that spanned the 1970’s and 80’s. Fanatical Christians went crazy seeing the work of the devil behind every activity, starting baseless lawsuits and ruining reputations. Mediocre films like this fed into the nonsense that sometimes rears its ugly head today.

But to be fair, it’s not a terrible film. It had a larger budget than most Hammers and Lee’s favorite of his films. But it is very two dimensional story-wise. Bad guy is bad, good guy is good, and the action is moved forward by the other characters being stupid. Also, they are menaced by a spider that is translucent in the wide shots. In the tight shots they did a close up of a tarantula crawling on a miniature set, which looked exactly like a close up of a tarantula crawling on a miniature set. Sometimes it’s better to forgo the effect if it doesn’t work.

Not scary, not terribly interesting. Just passable by my standards. AMRU 3.