WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: The Devil's Rain 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.080 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:15.760 Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:19.520 Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:21.840 House Cinema, we are going to be talking about the 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:27.920 nineteen seventy five satanic cult melt movie The Devil's Rain, 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:32.280 a movie that I first saw, oh, I'd say, somewhere 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:37.120 between thirteen and fifteen years ago, and I didn't remember 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:41.680 much about it except there is a famous melting sequence 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.360 at the end of this movie, and my memory was 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:48.280 that it goes on and on and on and on, 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:52.880 and wow, was that impression ever validated by rewatching this. 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:57.720 This is like the godfather of melt movies. It is 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:00.240 quite a melt movie. If you are into film homes 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:06.880 that depict the generally unrealistic liquefacation of the flesh. The 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:09.920 most I guess famous mainstream example of this being either 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:13.560 The Wicked Witch of the West melting or All the 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:15.920 Nazis melting at the end of Raiders of the Lost Art, 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:19.480 both fine examples in their own right, but you can 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.360 definitely get deeper into the weeds. I do greatly enjoy 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.240 the Nazi melting in Raiders. But one difference I want 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.640 to point out is that in Raiders, it seems that 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.039 when like the SS agent melts and it melts like 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:37.560 a candle, they attempted to do that in some biologically 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:41.320 accurate color schemes, so he basically melts in like blood 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.320 and viscera kind of colors. The melting in this movie 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:47.240 is the full box of crayons. It's just whatever color 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.600 you want where you know, we're green, blue, purple, pink. 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:54.520 Everything's in there in this movie. And we may we'll 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.120 probably discuss this a bit more. We made to some 0:01:57.200 --> 0:01:59.240 degree try to make sense of it, but I don't 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:01.280 think any real sense can be made of it. But 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:05.240 in this movie, if you are a devout Satan worshiper, 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.959 you get to exchange your fleshly body for a body 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.440 that is made of multi colored wax. Yeah, and like, 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:16.240 not only does solid wax veltle liquid wax, So if 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.880 you were shot with a gun, you will bleed multicolored wax. 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:23.200 If you were melted by rain of either divine or 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.880 infernal origin, I'm not sure which direction it actually is 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.960 going in. At any rate, it will melt you like 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:35.280 multi colored candles, and it's so yeah, they're not even 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.680 trying to make it seem like this is an actual 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:43.200 organic process. This is something psychedelic and weird and just 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:47.480 straight up nineteen seventies. You know, most movies that depict 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:53.560 people making a covenant with Satan depict more enticements. So 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:56.040 you know, you make a deal with the devil, you 0:02:56.080 --> 0:03:01.080 get fame, power, pleasure, riches, all that stuff. In this movie, 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:04.520 the cultists don't really seem to get much of anything 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.320 in the way of power and riches and pleasure. It 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:09.640 seems like, well, you get to become made of wax. 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.080 Doesn't that sound great? Well, I think Corbus are our 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.280 cult leader. He he does in the flashback to three 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:20.520 hundred years ago. He's telling the other cultists in this 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.400 kind of, you know, very pilgrimy setting. He's like, well, 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:26.440 you've gotten to taste the pleasures of the flash you 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.000 got you got your earthly pleasures out of this, and 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.200 now I will take you to the hell. And that's 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.160 the arrangement. So it's implied they got to have some 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.880 sort of earthly pleasures, but I don't know they were. 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.000 There's a pretty stuffy looking lot, so it might have 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:42.400 been rather mundane by you know, three hundred years ago status. 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.680 These were not pleasures of the flash by nineteen seventy standards. No, 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.760 what what were the pleasures and power that enjoyed by 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:54.560 like Pilgrim William Shatner that that really earned him the 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:57.640 wax Hell of the future got to wear shorts or 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:02.640 something probably. Also, I wanted to point out, so this 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:08.760 movie is notable for being a seventies cheeseball satanic cult movie, 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.640 but also for the melting sequences, but also for having 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:15.840 a rather interesting cast. So we'll get into that in 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.840 a moment. But one of the cast members is Tom Skarrett. 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.599 He's sort of one of the heroes of the film. 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:25.240 And I have to point out the Amazon Prime landing 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.000 page for the streaming version of this movie is a 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:30.760 picture of Tom Skarrett sort of gazing off into the 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:34.520 distance where he looks so much like a perfect cross 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:39.640 between Leonard Nimoy and Josh Brolin. Do you see it? Yeah, 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.000 it's a weird it's a weird image to try and 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:45.000 sell this movie on. It's kind of like anybody else. 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:48.119 Anybody who wanted to see this because of the movie 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:50.240 satanism or the melting they've seen it. Now we just 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:54.679 want to sell people on like mid seventies Tom Scarett handsomeness. Okay, 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.280 Tom Scarrett is handsome, Michelle, I'll give him that. But 0:04:57.360 --> 0:04:59.960 also I don't know if that's going to get people 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.320 to watch. But okay, so maybe the image doesn't get 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.320 you in, you'll hook him with the plot description. Right, 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.119 that's that's you're in. The plot description of the movie. 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:11.520 Here is a man tries to save his family from 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:18.520 a Satanic cult ruled by a powerful preacher. Somebody didn't 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:20.599 copy at it that and it makes me wonder, what 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.320 was the descriptor that started with a vowel before they 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:27.760 changed it out too powerful? Was it originally ruled by 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:30.600 an evil preacher? And then they're like, now that's two 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.040 on the nose, let's change evil to powerful. But then 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:37.200 they didn't change the article. Maybe it was all powerful ah, 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:39.640 and then they're like, well that doesn't hold up. He's 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:44.520 not quite all powerful, that's right, but reasonably powerful, intimidatingly powerful. 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:47.560 So it seems to me like The Devil's Reign did 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:49.880 not get very good reviews when it came out. It 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:55.560 has since garnered some kind of retrospective appreciation, though a 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.720 lot of reviewers have said it's kind of boring or dull. 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:00.800 I'm not going to say this is a good movie, 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.000 because it's not. But I did not find it boring. 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:05.880 I was I was highly entertained. Yeah, I found that 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:10.239 it really sucked me in. It has. It's never dull 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:12.400 on the screen. I mean, there's always some sort of 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:18.240 interesting desert setting or strange satanic chapel, or somebody's making 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:21.480 a strange facial expression or has been reduced to an 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.720 eyeless cult member, or of course for large stretches of 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.920 the movie are actively melting. There's there's a lot to 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:33.720 keep your attention. Yeah, it's it's you look back at 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:35.520 the reviews, and you know, nobody seemed to like it 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.880 when it came out. It arguably had a very devastating 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.800 effect on the career of the of the director, and 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:46.080 we'll get into that. Um, but yeah, it's It's also 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:50.279 unlike just about anything else, so it definitely got stuck 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:55.080 in people's heads. It developed a cult following for my money, 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:56.600 and part of this may have been from sort of 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:58.800 I think I may have caught parts of it for 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:00.760 the first time on the Sci Fi Channel back in 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:04.000 the day. But this film feels like an episode of 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.640 Night Gallery that was stretched out to feature length and 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:11.760 then also had its plot surgically removed. It. Yeah, it 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:16.160 really has the feel of an anthology TV series, Like 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:20.800 it feels like an episode of one of those shows 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:23.920 that doesn't have consistent characters. It's like a self contained 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.480 plot every time. And I wonder if that might have 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:29.920 to do with the fact that it feels in some 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:32.680 ways like the plot is really rushed, like it throws 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.200 you right into the middle of the story without any 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:38.280 explanation or introduction. So for the first I don't know, 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.040 ten fifteen minutes, you're really like, what is going on? 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:44.120 It's really confusing, But then other parts of it feel 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:48.080 totally padded out. There's so much just driving and looking 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:52.000 around at things. The sense of confusion, though, is sustained 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:56.000 throughout the entire picture, given that most of the picture 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:58.760 you spend time. If you're giving it even a halfway 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:02.440 dedicated viewing like we did here, you're just going to 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.960 find yourself continually asking questions that cannot be answered. And 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.240 on one level, I feel like that's kind of accidentally 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:14.640 fitting for a film about normal human mortals and encountering 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:17.720 some strange cult from beyond the pale. You know, you're 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:20.600 never you're never supposed to completely make sense of what 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:26.000 evil wizards are up to. And and the movie itself 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.840 has this strange dream like quality like it makes it does. 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.880 It has dream logic. So when you try and ask 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.280 like why are people made out of wax? And why 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:38.840 or what's this about the Devil's Reign? And is this 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:40.920 the Devil's Reign? Or is that the Devil's Rain, Like 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:43.719 none of it really makes logical sense, and it's very 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.280 difficult to even attempt to stitch it together into such 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:50.679 a sensible construction. But it has that kind of dream 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.880 logic where if you were to explain this as a dream, 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:59.040 people wouldn't doubt that you had this experience with you, 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:02.480 you know, your rain in pure dream mode. That being said, 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.680 I don't feel like that that is an intentional result 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:09.679 of the filmmaking here. I think I think we we 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:13.280 wound up here maybe due to some um some errors 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.679 and adequacies some what have you. I totally agree it 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:20.760 has that feeling of each scene you're in there are 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.560 suddenly kind of mechanisms in play that you're like, what 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:28.360 what what what's this about an amulet? Now, where did 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:30.600 that come from? And why are they calling it the 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.520 Devil's Rain? And I don't know, but it just plows 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:37.880 forward relentlessly. So yeah, it has that that dreamlike quality. Uh, 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.160 should we do an elevator pitch? Go for it if 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:45.280 you can summon one? Okay, okay? For generations, the Preston 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.840 family has been pursued by an ancient evil in the 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:53.439 form of Ernest Borg nine. Finally, the satanic Borg has 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:57.720 captured several family members in his grip. Will Borg ninety 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.960 and wickedness prevail? Or will the Preston's be able to 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:05.760 liquefy the hooded minions of Beelzebub? Sounds pretty good? All right, 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.160 Let's go ahead and listen to the trailer, Audios. It's 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:15.520 a pretty good trailer. There have been films about earthquakes, 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:21.120 airplane disasters, and blazing infernos, but there has never been 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:31.640 anything like The Devil's Reign. Yes, that wasn't your father? 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:44.640 Was his face? Mother? Mark Commas? Damn? They had no 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:50.240 faces the Devil's Reign. The three hundred year search for 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:54.720 the power to damn mankind is over, and the towering 0:10:55.000 --> 0:11:00.640 terror of the Devil on Earth is now unleashed. Burn Burn, 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:11.200 Burn Burn. The Devil's Reign. Hundreds of souls held captives 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:16.520 in an eternity of hell si possessed by the Devil. You, 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:21.439 my son, have defiled all that is holy. Oh my god, 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:26.160 Oh my god. They become his worshippers and his two 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:59.319 months all right, before we go into the rest of 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:01.640 the episode, if you want to watch The Devil's Rain 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:04.599 before you listen to us discuss it more, well, you 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.080 can find it a number of places. Several films put 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.760 out a great restored blu ray of the movie, and 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:12.240 you'll find that wherever you get your films, as loads 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:14.760 of extras on it. This movie is also widely available 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:20.600 streaming in nice quality, nice quality, but with questionable metadata. Yeah, 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.280 all right, let's get into the people who brought this 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.000 film to us, starting at the top here with the 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:32.800 director Robert Fuest, who lived nineteen twenty seven through twenty twelve, 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:38.000 British director noted for his stylish seventies approach to genre cinema. 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.439 In nineteen seventy he had two films out, an adaptation 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:43.800 of Worthering Heights with Timothy Dalton in it, and a 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:48.080 thriller called and Soon the Darkness. We previously discussed him 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.800 as director of nineteen seventy ones The Abominable Doctor Fibes, 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:55.840 which was just a delightful horror film with style for Miles. 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:58.600 I did not realize this was the same director as 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:03.240 Doctor Fibes. But that's interesting because Doctor five again. I mean, 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.679 I greatly enjoyed the campiness of the Devil's Reign, but 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:10.319 Doctor Fibes is leagues ahead in terms of like creativity 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:15.120 and confidence and all that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, But he 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:19.000 followed that up with seventy two sequel, Doctor Fibes Rises 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:22.439 again in nineteen seventy three is The Final Program, which 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:24.920 was based on a Michael moorecock novel and the star 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:29.640 John Finch. And then came this film, which critics universally panned, 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:31.840 and it may be the reason he mostly did TV 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:36.559 after The Devil's Reign, But you know, sometimes it goes 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:40.920 that way, all right. The writers on this a mysterious lot, 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:46.600 as if shrouded in cultest hooding. Here we have Gabe 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:51.760 Eso writer dates unknown, though I believe he's still alive 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:55.680 based on just some some poking around. Screenwriter with limited 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.120 credits mostly TV, and the most notable credits being for 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:01.559 an episode of Star Trek Deep Space nine and three 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:07.000 episodes of Policewoman. On Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:11.760 and general database. It mentions that he's also a film historian, 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:13.880 and indeed I looked it up. He wrote nineteen sixty 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.440 eight Tarzan of the Movies, a pictorial history of more 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:20.680 than fifty years of Edgar Rice Burrough's legendary hero, as 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:24.080 well as some old Hollywood biographies. The other writers are 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.640 James Ashton, dates unknown. This is their only credit, and 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.960 Gerald Hoptman also dates unknown. This is also their only 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:36.720 credit for writing, but it was also an associate producer 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.600 on this film and associate producer on nineteen eighty one's 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.560 Evil Speak. Okay, but it's time to talk about the cast, 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.880 because that is one of the real reasons people are 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:48.080 going to tune into this movie, apart from the melting 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.920 that's right and Riya. Starring in this bad Boy is 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:58.360 Ernest borg Nine playing Jonathan Corbus. Borg Nine lived nineteen 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:02.720 seventeen through twenty twelve. Academy Award winning actor known for 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.400 such films as nineteen fifty five's Marty, nineteen eighty ones 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:09.320 Escape from New York in nineteen seventy two is the 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:12.920 Poseidon Adventure. You might also remember him from nineteen seventy 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.280 nines The Black Hole or nineteen sixty nins The Wild Bunch. 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:18.480 I mean really, he's one of those actors who pops 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:22.680 up in every genre, every level of budget. And interestingly enough, 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:25.520 he claimed that this movie was financed by the mob 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:30.680 and that he was never actually paid WHOA. And I 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:33.360 was curious, like this was something he made at a 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:35.680 like a panel late in life, So I did look 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.360 it up and well in interestingly enough, The Devil's Reign 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:43.240 was a Bryanston distributing Company film. This is a company 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.680 that existed from seventy two through seventy six, which I 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:51.040 believe was allegedly connected to the Colombo crime family. Other 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:55.880 films include seventy four's Dark Star and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.120 Oh wow, Dark Star, So that's John Carpenter Texas Chainsaw 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:03.160 Massacer is who So this is like horror Royalty stems 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:07.640 from at least alleged mob financing. I didn't really know 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:11.640 laundering at all. Yeah, maybe somebody who's more informed on 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:15.200 the history of organized crime in Cinema can write in 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:17.760 with details or a link or something about this, but 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.640 at any rate, there's no denying borg nine though. Yeah, 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:23.920 great great career. Later in life he did a number 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:27.360 of voiceover roles as well. He had that with that wonderful, 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:30.960 memorable Simpsons guest role where he played a fictionalized version 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.800 of himself. This was the Friday the Thirteenth parody. As 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.560 I recall m Okay, one of the things about Bourg 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.000 nine is I think a lot of us that came 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.400 along either later in his career or more familiar with 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.360 those later day pictures. We often think of him for 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:51.200 his post Marty roles as likable every man, or his 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.480 role as the lead character on the sixties television show 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:56.920 like McHale's Navy. We think of him as like kind 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:01.680 of a friendly, weird grandpa. As his villainous turn in 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:05.120 this film may feel like an outlier, but you start 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:08.960 looking around in his older films, especially his pre Marty stuff, 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.960 he did play a lot of heavies. So key examples 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:15.920 of this are fifty threes from Here to Eternity, where 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.080 he gets in like a knife fight with Frank Sinatra, 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.280 and then there's nineteen fifty five Bad Day at Black Rock. 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:22.879 But yeah, this is a guy who played a lot 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:26.320 of heavies back in the day. I don't remember exactly 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:28.600 what his character does in The Wild Bunch, but basically 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:35.119 everybody in the Wild Bunch is bad. But yeah, So 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:38.760 nobody's going to accuse The Devil's Reign of being a 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:43.040 serious acting showcase. But I think sometimes it takes the 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:47.440 context of a fairly bad movie to make you realize 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.840 the raw charisma of a standout number of the cast. 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:55.399 And for me, that's exactly what's going on with Ernest Borgnine. Here. 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:59.080 Borg Nine carries this movie on his shoulders. I think 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:03.440 it probably doesn't work at all without him. And even 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:05.359 though you know, I'm sure when he did it he 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:09.159 saw this film as ephemeral silliness. He does not phone 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:11.080 it in. He does not pull a Michael Rennie and 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.600 assignment terror and phone in a performance. He shows up, 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.160 and he brings several friends, and they're all his goat familiars. 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:21.920 Without Ernest borg Nine, I think The Devil's Reign wouldn't 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:25.840 be ten percent as entertaining as it is. Yeah, I agree, 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:28.919 he's great in this. I'd read that filmmakers had at 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.399 one point some interest in Vincent Price playing this role. Oh, 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:34.159 that could have been fun too, But he could have 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:37.080 been fun and a Price is great and and would 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:39.639 have made this role his own. But borg nine is 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:43.280 just an entirely different energy, you know. Yeah, And I 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:45.359 don't know, there's something too about And I don't know 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.840 how much of this is them leaning into it once 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:50.280 they knew borg nine was their guy. But like when 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:54.800 we encounter Corbus and like cowboy mode, kind of like 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.680 mortal mode, before we really know that he's an evil 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:01.399 cult leader, you know, like that's there's a there's a 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:07.080 physicality there, there's a certain um uh like rugged almost 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.399 swagger that you're only going to get from somebody like 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:14.760 borg nine. I agree, Actually, I mean I always love 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:16.800 Vincent Price, but I think this would be a lesser 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:18.720 movie if it were Vincent Price, because it would be 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:21.480 more on the nose, and I think Price would have 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:27.640 played the role more conventionally evil. Borg Nine's cult leader 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:33.200 is very fun to watch because he is so he's 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:37.359 just beaming that huge grin and the you know, the 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:39.760 twinkle in his eye, and most of the time he's 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:46.760 sounding very friendly until he edges over into absolute menace. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:50.200 Now he does famously turn into a goat man a 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:52.760 bit in this film, and I think one of the 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:56.879 interesting things about it is it's good looking effects. I 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:58.560 don't want to it's not. This is not a situation 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:00.320 where oh yeah, he turns into a goat, but it 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:04.320 looks crappy. Now it looks really good, but it but 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:11.040 it limits his ability to portray this natural level of unhinged. 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:16.800 Cult leader of charisma, Ernest borgnine is biologically a cartoon character, 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:23.240 and counterintuitively, by putting him in in devilish he goat makeup, 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:29.639 they actually tone down his visual charisma and his his weirdness. 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:33.960 Like he looks less exciting and less weird in the 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:38.320 goat makeup than he does with his just normal human face. Yeah. 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:41.480 Great eyebrows in this picture too, just crazy eyebrows. I 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:52.879 love it to a certain extent. Our main hero is 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.920 this character Eddie Albert, who plays doctor Sam Richards. He's 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.840 kind of our I guess he represents fringe science, the 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.080 enemy of Satanism. I think it's interesting because this guy, 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:08.359 like at the very end, he sort of becomes the 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:12.159 hero who defeats the cult. But up until the very end, 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:15.000 I kept being like, Oh, yeah, this guy, what's his deal? 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:18.520 Like he does not read for ninety five percent of 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:21.359 the movie. As the hero. He reads as like, I 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:23.159 don't know, he's a side guy who's hanging out with 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:27.000 Tom Skarrett and then suddenly he's the guy who beats 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:30.639 the bad guys at the end. Yeah yeah, and doesn't 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.320 seem to really risk much personally himself. Yeah, Like he's 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:36.240 not the one whose family is at the center of this. 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:40.040 But anyway. Eddie Albert though Live nineteen oh six or 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:42.879 two thousand and five Academy Award nominated actor, best known 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:45.760 for such films as fifty three's Roman, Holiday, sixty two 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:48.639 Is The Longest Day, seventy two is The Heartbreak Kid, 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.320 and of course TV's Green Acres, on which he starred. 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:55.400 So this is another case of a notable actor who 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.000 hit He'd only just been nominated for Best Actor in 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:01.040 seventy two, and he was in Disney's Escape to Which 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:05.280 Mountain the same year seventy five. So you keep asking 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:07.520 yourself with this movie, like, what are all these these 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:09.600 these actors doing out in the middle of the Mexican 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:13.760 desert filming? This sets satanant cult movie on perhaps mob money, 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:17.760 maybe the money was good. I don't know, Yeah, all right. 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:22.360 And then another case of this we have Ida Lupino 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:26.360 in this playing Emma Preston, the matriarch of the Preston 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:31.080 family that is so cursed in this. She lived nineteen 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:34.800 eighteen through nineteen ninety five British American actress, director, writer, 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:38.040 and producer. She acted from the early thirties into the 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:42.520 late seventies, perhaps most notably in such pictures from the 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:45.720 forties as High Sierra, Ladies in Retirement, The Hard Way, 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:48.600 and Pillowed to Post. But she's also notable as a 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:51.239 director and writer. I've seen her described as the most 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:54.760 prominent female filmmaker of fifties so the fifties Hollywood system, 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:57.440 and she was the first woman, apparently to direct a 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:01.360 noir film, nineteen fifty three's The Hitch High. She directed 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:04.119 and starred in nineteen fifty ones on Dangerous Ground, and 0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:08.920 other directorial credits include fifty Threes, The Bigmist, nineteen fifties Outage, 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:11.720 and she also directed a lot of TV, including two 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:15.560 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, nine episodes of Thriller, and 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:19.119 one episode of the original Twilight Zone that episode being 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:23.480 nineteen sixty four's The Masks. So I was very excited 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:27.320 about Lupino going into this, but unfortunately I just can't 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:30.320 say much about her acting performance because for ninety percent 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:32.800 in the movie, she's just a rubber mask. Like, yeah, 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:35.680 she's the rubber mask, but that we will talk more 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:39.000 about what the cultists look like. But she's the mask 0:23:39.119 --> 0:23:42.320 with the black eyes in a black hood, just going ah, 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:46.119 you know, join us son. But I will say she 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:48.159 does a very good job of melting, and if I 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:54.600 remember correctly that she melts multiple times. Yeah, all right. 0:23:54.680 --> 0:23:59.879 This is also a Shatner movie because William Shatner himself 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:03.800 plays Mark Preston born nineteen thirty one. I mean what 0:24:03.880 --> 0:24:05.600 you can just quickly you say. This is, of course 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:08.720 Captain James T. Kirk from the sixties Track series and 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:12.480 the various film adaptations of Track. This movie is from 0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:14.920 the space between the TV show and his return to 0:24:14.960 --> 0:24:18.240 the character on screen in seventy nine. His other notable 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:21.119 TV series include T. J. Hooker from eighty two to 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:23.920 eighty six. Of course we have Tech War, both the 0:24:24.080 --> 0:24:26.280 novel series that has his name on and end the 0:24:26.359 --> 0:24:30.159 TV adaptation with the music by warrens Yvon. He have 0:24:30.280 --> 0:24:32.480 to learn about tech war sooner or later. Yeah, they do. 0:24:34.240 --> 0:24:37.760 He's also in two very notable Twilight Zone episodes, Nick 0:24:37.800 --> 0:24:40.280 of Time from nineteen sixty and of course, Nightmare at 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:43.720 twenty thousand Feet from sixty three. Other pure genre film 0:24:43.760 --> 0:24:46.800 credits for Shatner include The Horror at thirty seven thousand 0:24:46.880 --> 0:24:49.399 Feet as the TV movie that I know you and 0:24:49.480 --> 0:24:51.600 I have talked about before and you may have seen 0:24:51.680 --> 0:24:54.720 in full. Is this the one where he has to 0:24:54.840 --> 0:24:58.400 go battle an ancient druid curse in part of an airplane, 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:02.720