WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: The Devil Rides Out 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:15.319 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.799 Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today on 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:22.400 the show, we're gonna be talking about The Devil Rides Out, 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:27.760 a nineteen hammer horror film about the perverted terrors of 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:33.120 the Satanic cults operating throughout Interwar Britain. This movie stars 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:36.960 Christopher Lee and Charles Gray and is based on a 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:41.519 novel from the nineteen thirties by Dennis Wheatley. And I 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:44.720 will say all of the Satanic themes aside. If I 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:47.680 could only make one comment about this film, it's that 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.800 it is a jackpot for anybody who likes listening to 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.000 Christopher Lee telling people not to do things and ordering 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.080 them to go to bed. Yes, and not children, mind you, 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:01.720 grown adults. Yes, this is one of the most paternalistic 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.880 movies I've ever seen. It has. It has an authority 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:08.840 figure that's Christopher Lee. He represents order, the Sign of 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:12.680 the Cross, uh conservative values, and he's just boss and 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:18.160 everybody around constantly everyone stand back. The proper British adults 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:21.480 are here. And it's funny because I, of course I 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:25.479 love Christopher Lee, but his character in this movie is 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:31.280 so pompously self serious and bossy and paternalistic. I feel 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.440 like it's going to be nearly impossible for modern audiences 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.600 to avoid regarding this character with anything other than like 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:42.960 amusement or contempt, which I think can be extrapolated to 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:46.000 feelings about the movie in general. Because this is a 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:49.120 very competently made horror movie. But if you were to 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.560 just give me the pitch, like you know, read me 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:54.000 a description of what this is going to be. It's 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:57.120 a hammer horror movie made in nineteen sixty eight about 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:02.360 satanic cults, starring Christopher Lee as Maximum Order Daddy and 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.920 Charles Gray as a psychic Alistair Crowley who likes to 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:09.760 make people garrot themselves with necklaces. I would assume this 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:13.960 was going to be a jolly, campy frolic charged up 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:20.760 with like gratuitous sex and fangs and orange blood, but no. Uncharacteristically, 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:26.240 for its provenance, this movie is culturally conservative and deadly serious, 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.720 which in this context means it is pretty much just 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.600 inviting us to laugh at it rather than with it. Absolutely, 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:35.359 I mean not that there are a lot of built 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:38.680 in laughs in this film. Anyway. But yeah, you know, 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.640 it's it's very much one where you have you have 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.200 to find some fun in a character like Christopher Lee's character. 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.240 Really most of the adult characters in this film, because 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:50.440 they're they're very hard to root for, impossible to laugh. 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:52.880 Another thing I would say is that looking at the 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:56.720 film's marketing material would also lead the average person, I think, 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:01.399 to the wrong conclusion about its tone and content. Oh, absolutely, 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:06.280 especially concerning the poster art. Now, this was originally released 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:11.119 under the title we're discussing it as The Devil Rides Out. Uh, 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:13.200 this is the British title. This was the title of 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:15.640 the book upon which it was based. And so the 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.800 British poster had like a devil riding a horse and 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:20.760 it looks it looks pretty cool. I wouldn't shy away 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:23.480 from putting this on the wall. But then it's released 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:27.120 in the United States as The Devil's Bride, supposedly because 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:29.120 they thought The Devil Rides Out sounds too much like 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:31.960 a Western or or And I don't know, maybe this 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:33.560 is just me, but I'm thinking maybe they thought it 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.920 sounds like a motorcycle film. It does sound motorcyclely to me, 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:38.520 and they're like no, no, no no, let's call it the 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.760 Devil's Bride. But the poster for this one, oh, it's 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:46.240 one of the finest nineteen seven, nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:50.040 horror posters you could possibly go for. Right, So it 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.880 has our our goath head demon or our goat of Mendez, 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.800 which does appear in the movie. The funny thing about 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.320 him is he has the goat horns, but then he 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.080 also has floppy ears, and you would think, oh, the 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.360 floppy ears. That makes him look funny and cute, but 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.640 they add to the horror that it works. He's got 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:09.600 a big eye in his belly and then in his 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:12.720 room and then he's like holding um uh, one of 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:15.520 the main actresses in this movie in his arms, presumably 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.000 you know, to take her to hell with him. And 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:20.599 then in his robes you see reflected a lot of 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.800 the monsters and horrors that appear throughout the film. Yeah, 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:28.000 beautiful yellow background that also kind of works, and it's 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.120 just it's a beautiful poster. Also, I would say that 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.000 the the just the image of the monster man carrying 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.240 the woman, the unconscious woman. This is, of course, uh 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:41.520 an iconic theme you find in various poster art from 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:46.200 Yester Year not entirely unproblematic, but still very iconic. So 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:48.760 this one, this post is really hitting a number of buttons, 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:51.160 really coming out with guns of blazing and makes you 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.760 think this is going to be the the psychedelic satanic 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:59.680 film par excellence. And uh, I have to say, if 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:03.160 that what you're expecting, be prepared to be maybe a 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:05.640 little bit disappointed and find yourself going in a slightly 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:08.320 different direction. Is still this film is still a lot 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.240 of fun. It has some great satanic stuff in it, 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:15.080 some great black masts and magic sequences. But this is 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:17.360 a scene depicted on the poster that does not actually 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.680 occur in the film. It's kind of constructed from elements 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.040 of the film. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that we must 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:26.799 stress is that this is a film that that has 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.880 not just one, but two Bond villain actors in it. 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:34.479 So of course chrispher Lee, uh you know, we we 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:36.840 know chrispher Lee on this show. He plays the assassin 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:41.000 Scaramonga in The Man with the Golden Gun, a Roger 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:43.880 Moore Bond movie from the seventies I think widely regarded 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:48.279 as one of the worst spawned movies. Um. And then 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.400 you have Charles Gray as the villain in this movie, 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.039 who plays Blowfeld and Diamonds Are Forever, the ladder of 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:58.240 which is, without a doubt, the funniest Bond villain portrayal 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.640 in the entire history of the franchise. Have you seen 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.479 Diamonds Are Forever? Okay, I've seen both of these, but 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:05.280 both of them I last saw them when I was 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.320 a child. So the man with the Golden Gun I 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:13.480 remember is being amazing because he had that golden gun. Yeah, 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:15.719 that's the only thing I remember, though. The golden gun 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:17.680 is very cool, and Christopher Lee is very cool. But 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.400 Charles Gray and Diamonds Are Forever. He he plays Blowfeld 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:23.440 with this I don't know what you you called the 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:29.520 style of vocal delivery, but it's the Charles Grays And yes, yes, 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:34.520 Is that the one that takes place in Vegas a 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:37.000 little bit? Yeah? Yeah, they go to Last veg. That 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.280 one's not good either. Okay, yeah, I barely remember that one, 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.080 but you know, you you you brought up blow Feld. 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.280 This reminds me of something. So one of the things 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:47.200 I kept thinking about in this film was like, oh, 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.080 we got to two Bond villains. We got a Bond 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:52.599 villain actor, famous Bond villain actor playing the the hero 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:56.520 and a famous Bond villain actor playing the villain, and 0:06:57.080 --> 0:06:59.920 um though this movie was before both of those, right, right, 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.560 But it made me wonder, especially with Christopher Lee's Christopher 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.680 Lee just not good at playing like how much of 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:08.680 it is is like he just needs to play villains. 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.440 This is an actor who excels at playing villains, and 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:13.760 maybe he shouldn't play the heroes. And then how much 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:14.920 of it is just like this is kind of a 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:17.560 crummy hero role. I don't know. Yeah, I think it 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.480 might be more the latter because Okay, so he's a 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:22.520 villain in this other movie, but you might think, well, 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:25.200 maybe the problem is he's just too imperious and he 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.320 can't be a a kind of he can't have that likable, 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.080 jolly protagonist energy that you would need to really get 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:33.160 people on your side. But I would say he has 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:37.040 that as the villain in The Wickerman when I should 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:39.480 So when Rachel and I watched The Devil Rides Out, 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.720 Rachel observed that this movie is kind of inverse Wickerman. 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:47.400 It's with Christopher Lee playing the Sergeant Howie character in 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:51.440 The Wickerman just like a very uptight conservative person in 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:53.960 the face of all of this depravity and devil worship. 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.080 That's a good point, I guess in the Wickerman it's 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:01.320 not explicitly devil it's you know, just pay Anism. Though 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:04.000 of course, I would say the mindset that makes a 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:06.640 lot of these Satanism movies and uh and stuff like 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:10.320 Dennis Wheatley's novel would probably mostly conflate the two. Right. 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:12.480 If it is not Christian, then there's a good chance 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:15.600 that it is devil worship according to this mindset. Yes, 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.600 And and that's the other thing is that this movie, 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.520 I would say is Satanic Panic before the Satanic Panic. 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.840 It's like a progenitor of Satanic Panic. Even going back 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:28.520 to the novel which came out it did come out 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.120 in the nineteen thirties, right, Yeah, this was a nineteen 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:35.760 thirties novel. And I've actually read that like this the 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:38.079 books of Dennis Wheatley, because there's more than one that 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:39.920 that ends up concerning the ac cult. And we'll get 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:41.880 into that in a bed um. I've read that like 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.560 that these helped sort of influence the uh, you know 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:49.000 that what would become proper Satanic Panic in the decades 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:53.240 to follow believe. Historian Philip but Jenkins has has particularly 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.840 pointed to a N seven novel by Herbert Gorman titled 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.559 The Place Called Dagon and pointed this is a key 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.760 influence on the Satanic Panic themes to come, and the 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:07.720 book apparently influenced such occult authors as din As Sweetly 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.959 as HP Lovecraft and Robert Block. Now, I noticed that 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:16.400 right before you picked this movie for Weirdhouse, you sent 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:20.000 me a you sent me a link to a news 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:24.000 segment produced sometime in the eighties that was pure Satanic panic. 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:26.800 It was just it's unreal the kind of stuff that 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.200 used to run on like mainstream media in the American 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:32.360 press and on TV in the eighties. I think was 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:38.160 what was this or the Satanic panic um making just 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:42.960 like on on its face, absolutely absurd claims about devil 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.520 ritual you know, Satanic rituals and stuff like that going 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:51.240 on in America, but presented completely seriously as if this 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:56.000 is one fact interviewing these experts who are obviously like 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:58.920 have no idea what they're talking about. Uh, you know, 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:03.079 finding devil worship in everything every movie and music. One 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:05.760 thing that was weird is it even singled out a 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:09.600 movie like The Exorcist, which I would say is a 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.160 movie that is about as faithfully Catholic as a movie 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:15.640 could be. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's it's 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:20.280 ultimately the demons are there, but God is there. Maybe 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:22.679 it's i mean, the Exorcist, especially at the time, was 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.040 regarded as a pretty extreme film and you know, very 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.000 shocking and was very much the talk of the town. 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:29.280 Maybe part of that is, like it is not necessarily 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:31.480 about having watched The Exorcists, is about the idea that 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:35.960 the Exorcist exists. You know, it's popularizing satanic themes, I guess. 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:38.360 But so anyway, so so you got interested, I guess, 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.640 in in these like satanic panic movies through that or 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.600 is that a coincidence? Oh, I mean I'm always interested 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:49.280 in satanic themes and things. You know. Um, it's you know, 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:50.960 it's it's part of it's become such a part of 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:52.640 our pop culture, so many that there are in so 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.439 many movies on our our list of potential episodes that 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:59.199 concern Satan worshippers in one way or another. The Weirdly enough, 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.040 I think the first Satan worship movie that I saw 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.600 as a child was the Dragnet movie that Dana Kroyd did. 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:08.760 Do you remember this one? Yeah, Tom Hanks, Yeah, well 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.200 d yeah, Dan Akroyd and Tom Hanks and I forget 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:13.120 who plays like the high priest of Satan. But it's 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:17.200 like Hollywood and Jackie Wallens. Maybe Jack Palance is in there. 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:20.960 There's some older actor, but yeah, it's that's I don't 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:22.720 really remember that movie is good or not, but it 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:26.760 has a lot of Satanic cult in Hollywood of kind 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:31.840 of imagery, you know, the robes, the goats, um drugs, 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:34.120 every kind of filth. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, if 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:36.280 you're into if you're into horror films, if you're into 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:39.559 into like metal music or anything like that, you know, 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:46.320 the various themes of like movie Satanism are kind of unavoidable. Okay, well, 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:53.920 should we hear some trailer audio, let's do it. Do 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.839 you believe in evil? That's an idea. Do you believe 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.280 in the power of darkness? That's a perstition? Are there? 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:04.319 You were wrong? The power of darkness is more than 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:10.200 justice superstition. It is a living force which can be 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:16.400 tapped at any given moment of the night. Why on 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:21.920 one night, but one year, should these people live in 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:32.360 mortal fear, my God. The goat of mentis the devil himself. 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.520 Christopher Lee as Doritia, who knows he must fight the 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:46.480 devil's power to the death. O, my God, don't look 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:52.960 at the eyes Rex eyes, eyes once filled with love, 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:57.559 are consumed with fear. What Tanneth is now promised to 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:04.720 the double Catholic of this is Makata, the Devil's chief disciple. 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:14.600 You're real is leaving you, slipping away. The Double rides 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:17.800 out from best seller or to Dennis Weekly's famous novel, 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:21.120 fills the screen with a special kind of visual terror. 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:31.280 Wire me quickly. You will hear his evil, you will 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:44.520 feel his evil, you will see his evil. All right, 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:47.000 So before we get into the people here, we should 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:48.480 probably I don't know if we stressed. Yeah, I think 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.679 you mentioned it briefly. But this is, of course a 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.520 Hammer horror film. Have we discussed a Hammer film on 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:56.920 the show before? Oh, I mean, I know it's come 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.280 up in passing. I don't know if we've featured one. 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.439 We we've talked about them with Seth a lot are 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.679 regular producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. I think sometime in the 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:08.200 past couple of years got like the Ultimate Box set 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:10.520 of Hammer films and was just going through them and 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:13.680 we were talking about them. So if you're not familiar, 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.960 Hammer put out a lot of British horror films and 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.240 the I don't know when their their full run was. 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:22.440 I associate them with the sixties and the seventies, and 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:24.840 you know a lot of films starring Peter Cushing and 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:29.920 Christopher Lee and various Dracula van Helsing Mummy kinds of roles. 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.720 But then also they branched out into just more general 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:37.800 kind of sexy vampire movies, right right, Yeah, definitely there's 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.360 a shift that occurs as things get more into the 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.200 late sixties seventies vibe. And one of the interesting things 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:46.840 about this film that that has been pointed out in 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:50.480 particular horror historian Kim Newman discusses this a little bit 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:53.400 in a in a little short extra on the Splendid 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:56.720 Blu Ray for this movie that this is ultimately more 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.560 of a nineteen thirties movie. It has nineteen thirties horror 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.160 since the bill at ease or at least nineteen fifties, 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:04.040 I believe, and more and more like a nineteen fifties 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:07.360 horror movie as opposed to a nineteen eighth, you know, 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:09.800 early seventies film, which would have been you know, more 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:12.880 in line with the cultural changes that are happening. This 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.359 is a film, but it's more for the older generation 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:19.040 that's terrified by what's occurring, but it's not ready to 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:22.360 quite embrace it or exploited. Right, it came out in 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:24.840 nineteen sixty eight, but it is it seems to be 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:28.040 wagging a finger at the audience and cautioning them against 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:33.080 any stranger or unorthodox beliefs or practices. Alright, well, let's 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:35.360 let's start at the top. The director on this baby 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.040 was Terence Fisher, who of nineteen o four through nineteen 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:43.760 eighty um British film director best remembered for his Hammer films. 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.520 Either directed a slew of them, beginning in I Believe 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:50.160 nineteen fifty one with The Last Page, but really kicking 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:53.600 into high horror gear in nineteen fifty seven with the 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:57.600 Curse of Frankenstein starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. He 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.000 was already an established TV and film director by the 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.160 is time, though, but he ended up directing a lot 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:04.800 of the big Hammer films, including but not limited to, 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:09.200 Horror of Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Monster from Hell, Frankenstein 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:13.560 must be Destroyed, Dracula, Prince of Darkness and others. I 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:17.600 have a big poster for Terence Fisher's production of the 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:19.800 Mummy right next to me on the wall here is 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:24.320 from nine and uh, I have the Belgian poster for it. 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.760 I believe because the title on it isla Maledicttion de 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:32.320 Ferran and the Curse of the Pharaohs. I guess. But 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:34.960 the poster is great because there's like the Mummy which 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.280 is played by Christopher Lee in the Terence Fisher movie, 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.920 but like it's approaching and then there's a lady screaming 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:43.560 in the foreground, and then behind the mummy people are 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.320 shining a flashlight and the beam of light is just 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.000 like piercing right through it. Oh yes, yeah, I have 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:51.080 seen this poster. This is a beauty because there's kind 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:54.200 of like a cosmic sense to the Mummy in it. Alright, 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.440 we minute we mentioned Dennis Wheatley already. Dennis Wheetlely wrote 0:16:57.480 --> 0:16:59.880 the novel The Devil Rides Out upon which this is base. 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:04.840 Wheatly lived seven through nineteen seventy seven, British author of 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.159 popular thriller novels, often with the cult themes. And one 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.840 of the things that uh the Kim Newman points out 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:13.359 is like this guy was a very popular author at 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:14.800 the time. He says, like, if you went to the 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:18.080 horror section of your British bookstore, half the books would 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.400 be Dennis Wheetly novels. So he was a big deal. 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:23.320 He was a popular author. He's said to have influenced 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:25.879 the likes of Ian Fleming because a lot of his 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.640 his books were, especially his earlier stuff. You know, it's 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:33.480 it's sleuth centered, uh you know, it's about espionage and spies, 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.000 but also very much around based around the sort of 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.720 you know, classic British machismo, you know, heroes going out 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.679 and risking their lives, punching somebody in the face and 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.000 saving a woman, that sort of thing. But then things 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:49.880 begin to get a little more. He ends up throwing 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.919 in more occult themes as he goes. Now, I'm certainly 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.280 no Whekly expert. I tried reading one of his books 0:17:56.480 --> 0:18:00.240 once and it didn't grab me. But my understanding is that, yeah, 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:02.560 a lot of his series, and he has multiple series 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:05.359 with recurring characters, start out more traditional and then end 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.680 up latching onto occult themes, and we definitely see this 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:13.960 in his Duke de Richelieu series, which of of which 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:17.520 this book is a part right. Christopher Lee's character in 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:19.879 the movie is the Duke de Richelo. I think his 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:22.679 actual given name is Nicholas. They only say that like 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:24.800 once or twice in the movie. Usually he's just Duke 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:30.919 or the Duke. Yeah. So the first book in that series, however, 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.280 is just pure espionage adventure. Um. And then the second 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:36.960 book that comes later is The Devil's Right. The Devil 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:39.680 rides out full of not only a cultist in satanist, 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.160 but actual supernatural forces. So it's like, imagine you had 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:45.760 like a couple of James Bond movies and yeah, they've 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.840 got giant squids and whatnot. But then um, in super 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:50.560 science a little bit. But then you get to the 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:53.520 point where it's like, oh, yes, the Devil has shown up. Okay, 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:57.159 so it's James Bond versus Baha met Yeah, sort of 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.159 or a kind of like a proto James Bond, you know, 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.560 because very much came first. But he has another series, 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:05.040 the Gregory Salas series, that I think does much the 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:09.000 same thing. The first book in that Black August from 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:13.000 nineteen thirty four imagines a few futuristic nineteen sixty and 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:15.919 economic collapse so very much, you know, a different beast. 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.560 But then by nineteen sixty four he returns to that 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:22.400 character in They Use Dark Forces, which has the hero 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:26.160 battling Nazi occultists and I think teaming up with another 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:28.399 occultists to take them on. This is the one that 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:30.800 I actually tried to read once and just could not 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:33.760 get into it. Um your mileage may vary, but I 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.639 I could not get into Wheely. When you paste it 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:40.400 in a paragraph from the opening page of The Devil 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.520 Rides Out, I gotta say I was not attracted to 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:47.159 the prose style. No, I don't think. I don't think. 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:49.320 There are a lot of certainly modern critics that are 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:52.640 praising his prose. Now, one of the interesting things, since 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:55.800 this is the this is not the first book to 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.520 have these characters in it, you could consider this movie 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.720 a sequel to the nineteenth four all Spy Zero Satan's 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:07.359 thriller Forbidden Territory, directed by Phil Rosen and based on 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:10.840 the first Duke novel. Uh though the protagonist name and 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:12.679 I think all the main characters names are changed for 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:16.800 some reason. Alfred Hitchcock originally optioned the book. Speaking of 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.199 film adaptation, so Wheatley's occult novel to the Devil A 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:23.600 Daughter was adopted in nineteen seventy six, starring Christopher Lee, 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:28.600 Richard Winmark Denholm, Elliott, and Natasha Kinsky, and other films 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:32.040 based on his work include The Secret of Stambol and 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:36.320 The Lost Continent. He allegedly invited Alistair Crawley to dinner 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:39.480 to research The Devil Rides out ran across that tidbit. 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:41.879 I don't know if actually had dinner, maybe just invited him. 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:45.199 But anybody, anybody could invite Alistair Crawley to dinner, So 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:47.679 I don't know, well I would. I would say again, 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.439 one thing to stress about this is that this is 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.320 different than a lot of the other devil worship movies 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:57.879 horror movies that you might see from the early seventies, 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:02.120 because I would say this is it is in itself 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:06.800 and is based on material that is genuinely contemptuous of 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:11.919 any alternative religious practice or devil worship or anything perceived 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:15.200 as devil worship. It's it's like believes that is real, 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:18.439 that people actually do it, and it is evil and 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:22.159 will destroy you. So it this is I think that 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:24.959 the author here is not It's not just like exploitation. 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:29.080 It is genuine belief in the danger of the Satanic 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:33.920 forces massing against good society, right, yeah. They The original 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.399 intro by the author is is kind of funny to 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:39.800 read because he's like, uh, this is all fiction, but 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.439 I did research it, and I am convinced Satanists are 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.160 in London doing their thing. Don't try this at home, 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:47.760 because your soul is in danger, which is a weird 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:51.480 line to walk. It's like, I'm gonna exploit this. I'm 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:54.720 comfortable exploiting this, but don't look into this any further 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:57.880 than what I have presented here. It kind of reminds 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:00.280 me of like the Da Vinci Code, you know Dan 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:02.520 Brown books, where he's like, Okay, so this is a 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:05.720 work of fiction, but all of the historical claims and 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:10.440 the the situation of this story are one real and true, 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:15.200 which in the Dan Brown's case, they are not right alright, 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:18.840 so yes to my taste. Uh. Wheatley's work is kind 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:21.320 of insufferable and there are a lot of problems with it, 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:26.440 But the gentleman who adapted the screenplay is a writer 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:29.119 that I think holds up exceptionally well, and that is 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:33.720 the American novelist and screenwriter Richard Matheson, who lived nineteen 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:37.920 six through two thousand. American writer who is best remembered 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:40.359 as the author of the excellent nineteen fifty four novel 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:43.359 I Am a Legend, upon which three films have been based. 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:46.399 Sixty four is The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price, 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:50.679 The Omega Man starring Chuck Heston, and two thousand sevens 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:53.520 I Am Legend starring Will Smith. He also wrote the 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:57.359 excellent Haunted House novel Hell House, the Thriller Duel, and 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:00.600