Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today on
Speaker 1: the show, we're gonna be talking about The Devil Rides Out,
Speaker 1: a nineteen hammer horror film about the perverted terrors of
Speaker 1: the Satanic cults operating throughout Interwar Britain. This movie stars
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee and Charles Gray and is based on a
Speaker 1: novel from the nineteen thirties by Dennis Wheatley. And I
Speaker 1: will say all of the Satanic themes aside. If I
Speaker 1: could only make one comment about this film, it's that
Speaker 1: it is a jackpot for anybody who likes listening to
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee telling people not to do things and ordering
Speaker 1: them to go to bed. Yes, and not children, mind you,
Speaker 1: grown adults. Yes, this is one of the most paternalistic
Speaker 1: movies I've ever seen. It has. It has an authority
Speaker 1: figure that's Christopher Lee. He represents order, the Sign of
Speaker 1: the Cross, uh conservative values, and he's just boss and
Speaker 1: everybody around constantly everyone stand back. The proper British adults
Speaker 1: are here. And it's funny because I, of course I
Speaker 1: love Christopher Lee, but his character in this movie is
Speaker 1: so pompously self serious and bossy and paternalistic. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's going to be nearly impossible for modern audiences
Speaker 1: to avoid regarding this character with anything other than like
Speaker 1: amusement or contempt, which I think can be extrapolated to
Speaker 1: feelings about the movie in general. Because this is a
Speaker 1: very competently made horror movie. But if you were to
Speaker 1: just give me the pitch, like you know, read me
Speaker 1: a description of what this is going to be. It's
Speaker 1: a hammer horror movie made in nineteen sixty eight about
Speaker 1: satanic cults, starring Christopher Lee as Maximum Order Daddy and
Speaker 1: Charles Gray as a psychic Alistair Crowley who likes to
Speaker 1: make people garrot themselves with necklaces. I would assume this
Speaker 1: was going to be a jolly, campy frolic charged up
Speaker 1: with like gratuitous sex and fangs and orange blood, but no. Uncharacteristically,
Speaker 1: for its provenance, this movie is culturally conservative and deadly serious,
Speaker 1: which in this context means it is pretty much just
Speaker 1: inviting us to laugh at it rather than with it. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean not that there are a lot of built
Speaker 1: in laughs in this film. Anyway. But yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's very much one where you have you have
Speaker 1: to find some fun in a character like Christopher Lee's character.
Speaker 1: Really most of the adult characters in this film, because
Speaker 1: they're they're very hard to root for, impossible to laugh.
Speaker 1: Another thing I would say is that looking at the
Speaker 1: film's marketing material would also lead the average person, I think,
Speaker 1: to the wrong conclusion about its tone and content. Oh, absolutely,
Speaker 1: especially concerning the poster art. Now, this was originally released
Speaker 1: under the title we're discussing it as The Devil Rides Out. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is the British title. This was the title of
Speaker 1: the book upon which it was based. And so the
Speaker 1: British poster had like a devil riding a horse and
Speaker 1: it looks it looks pretty cool. I wouldn't shy away
Speaker 1: from putting this on the wall. But then it's released
Speaker 1: in the United States as The Devil's Bride, supposedly because
Speaker 1: they thought The Devil Rides Out sounds too much like
Speaker 1: a Western or or And I don't know, maybe this
Speaker 1: is just me, but I'm thinking maybe they thought it
Speaker 1: sounds like a motorcycle film. It does sound motorcyclely to me,
Speaker 1: and they're like no, no, no no, let's call it the
Speaker 1: Devil's Bride. But the poster for this one, oh, it's
Speaker 1: one of the finest nineteen seven, nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: horror posters you could possibly go for. Right, So it
Speaker 1: has our our goath head demon or our goat of Mendez,
Speaker 1: which does appear in the movie. The funny thing about
Speaker 1: him is he has the goat horns, but then he
Speaker 1: also has floppy ears, and you would think, oh, the
Speaker 1: floppy ears. That makes him look funny and cute, but
Speaker 1: they add to the horror that it works. He's got
Speaker 1: a big eye in his belly and then in his
Speaker 1: room and then he's like holding um uh, one of
Speaker 1: the main actresses in this movie in his arms, presumably
Speaker 1: you know, to take her to hell with him. And
Speaker 1: then in his robes you see reflected a lot of
Speaker 1: the monsters and horrors that appear throughout the film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: beautiful yellow background that also kind of works, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's a beautiful poster. Also, I would say that
Speaker 1: the the just the image of the monster man carrying
Speaker 1: the woman, the unconscious woman. This is, of course, uh
Speaker 1: an iconic theme you find in various poster art from
Speaker 1: Yester Year not entirely unproblematic, but still very iconic. So
Speaker 1: this one, this post is really hitting a number of buttons,
Speaker 1: really coming out with guns of blazing and makes you
Speaker 1: think this is going to be the the psychedelic satanic
Speaker 1: film par excellence. And uh, I have to say, if
Speaker 1: that what you're expecting, be prepared to be maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit disappointed and find yourself going in a slightly
Speaker 1: different direction. Is still this film is still a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. It has some great satanic stuff in it,
Speaker 1: some great black masts and magic sequences. But this is
Speaker 1: a scene depicted on the poster that does not actually
Speaker 1: occur in the film. It's kind of constructed from elements
Speaker 1: of the film. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that we must
Speaker 1: stress is that this is a film that that has
Speaker 1: not just one, but two Bond villain actors in it.
Speaker 1: So of course chrispher Lee, uh you know, we we
Speaker 1: know chrispher Lee on this show. He plays the assassin
Speaker 1: Scaramonga in The Man with the Golden Gun, a Roger
Speaker 1: Moore Bond movie from the seventies I think widely regarded
Speaker 1: as one of the worst spawned movies. Um. And then
Speaker 1: you have Charles Gray as the villain in this movie,
Speaker 1: who plays Blowfeld and Diamonds Are Forever, the ladder of
Speaker 1: which is, without a doubt, the funniest Bond villain portrayal
Speaker 1: in the entire history of the franchise. Have you seen
Speaker 1: Diamonds Are Forever? Okay, I've seen both of these, but
Speaker 1: both of them I last saw them when I was
Speaker 1: a child. So the man with the Golden Gun I
Speaker 1: remember is being amazing because he had that golden gun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the only thing I remember, though. The golden gun
Speaker 1: is very cool, and Christopher Lee is very cool. But
Speaker 1: Charles Gray and Diamonds Are Forever. He he plays Blowfeld
Speaker 1: with this I don't know what you you called the
Speaker 1: style of vocal delivery, but it's the Charles Grays And yes, yes,
Speaker 1: Is that the one that takes place in Vegas a
Speaker 1: little bit? Yeah? Yeah, they go to Last veg. That
Speaker 1: one's not good either. Okay, yeah, I barely remember that one,
Speaker 1: but you know, you you you brought up blow Feld.
Speaker 1: This reminds me of something. So one of the things
Speaker 1: I kept thinking about in this film was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we got to two Bond villains. We got a Bond
Speaker 1: villain actor, famous Bond villain actor playing the the hero
Speaker 1: and a famous Bond villain actor playing the villain, and
Speaker 1: um though this movie was before both of those, right, right,
Speaker 1: But it made me wonder, especially with Christopher Lee's Christopher
Speaker 1: Lee just not good at playing like how much of
Speaker 1: it is is like he just needs to play villains.
Speaker 1: This is an actor who excels at playing villains, and
Speaker 1: maybe he shouldn't play the heroes. And then how much
Speaker 1: of it is just like this is kind of a
Speaker 1: crummy hero role. I don't know. Yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: might be more the latter because Okay, so he's a
Speaker 1: villain in this other movie, but you might think, well,
Speaker 1: maybe the problem is he's just too imperious and he
Speaker 1: can't be a a kind of he can't have that likable,
Speaker 1: jolly protagonist energy that you would need to really get
Speaker 1: people on your side. But I would say he has
Speaker 1: that as the villain in The Wickerman when I should
Speaker 1: So when Rachel and I watched The Devil Rides Out,
Speaker 1: Rachel observed that this movie is kind of inverse Wickerman.
Speaker 1: It's with Christopher Lee playing the Sergeant Howie character in
Speaker 1: The Wickerman just like a very uptight conservative person in
Speaker 1: the face of all of this depravity and devil worship.
Speaker 1: That's a good point, I guess in the Wickerman it's
Speaker 1: not explicitly devil it's you know, just pay Anism. Though
Speaker 1: of course, I would say the mindset that makes a
Speaker 1: lot of these Satanism movies and uh and stuff like
Speaker 1: Dennis Wheatley's novel would probably mostly conflate the two. Right.
Speaker 1: If it is not Christian, then there's a good chance
Speaker 1: that it is devil worship according to this mindset. Yes,
Speaker 1: And and that's the other thing is that this movie,
Speaker 1: I would say is Satanic Panic before the Satanic Panic.
Speaker 1: It's like a progenitor of Satanic Panic. Even going back
Speaker 1: to the novel which came out it did come out
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties, right, Yeah, this was a nineteen
Speaker 1: thirties novel. And I've actually read that like this the
Speaker 1: books of Dennis Wheatley, because there's more than one that
Speaker 1: that ends up concerning the ac cult. And we'll get
Speaker 1: into that in a bed um. I've read that like
Speaker 1: that these helped sort of influence the uh, you know
Speaker 1: that what would become proper Satanic Panic in the decades
Speaker 1: to follow believe. Historian Philip but Jenkins has has particularly
Speaker 1: pointed to a N seven novel by Herbert Gorman titled
Speaker 1: The Place Called Dagon and pointed this is a key
Speaker 1: influence on the Satanic Panic themes to come, and the
Speaker 1: book apparently influenced such occult authors as din As Sweetly
Speaker 1: as HP Lovecraft and Robert Block. Now, I noticed that
Speaker 1: right before you picked this movie for Weirdhouse, you sent
Speaker 1: me a you sent me a link to a news
Speaker 1: segment produced sometime in the eighties that was pure Satanic panic.
Speaker 1: It was just it's unreal the kind of stuff that
Speaker 1: used to run on like mainstream media in the American
Speaker 1: press and on TV in the eighties. I think was
Speaker 1: what was this or the Satanic panic um making just
Speaker 1: like on on its face, absolutely absurd claims about devil
Speaker 1: ritual you know, Satanic rituals and stuff like that going
Speaker 1: on in America, but presented completely seriously as if this
Speaker 1: is one fact interviewing these experts who are obviously like
Speaker 1: have no idea what they're talking about. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: finding devil worship in everything every movie and music. One
Speaker 1: thing that was weird is it even singled out a
Speaker 1: movie like The Exorcist, which I would say is a
Speaker 1: movie that is about as faithfully Catholic as a movie
Speaker 1: could be. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's it's
Speaker 1: ultimately the demons are there, but God is there. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's i mean, the Exorcist, especially at the time, was
Speaker 1: regarded as a pretty extreme film and you know, very
Speaker 1: shocking and was very much the talk of the town.
Speaker 1: Maybe part of that is, like it is not necessarily
Speaker 1: about having watched The Exorcists, is about the idea that
Speaker 1: the Exorcist exists. You know, it's popularizing satanic themes, I guess.
Speaker 1: But so anyway, so so you got interested, I guess,
Speaker 1: in in these like satanic panic movies through that or
Speaker 1: is that a coincidence? Oh, I mean I'm always interested
Speaker 1: in satanic themes and things. You know. Um, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's part of it's become such a part of
Speaker 1: our pop culture, so many that there are in so
Speaker 1: many movies on our our list of potential episodes that
Speaker 1: concern Satan worshippers in one way or another. The Weirdly enough,
Speaker 1: I think the first Satan worship movie that I saw
Speaker 1: as a child was the Dragnet movie that Dana Kroyd did.
Speaker 1: Do you remember this one? Yeah, Tom Hanks, Yeah, well
Speaker 1: d yeah, Dan Akroyd and Tom Hanks and I forget
Speaker 1: who plays like the high priest of Satan. But it's
Speaker 1: like Hollywood and Jackie Wallens. Maybe Jack Palance is in there.
Speaker 1: There's some older actor, but yeah, it's that's I don't
Speaker 1: really remember that movie is good or not, but it
Speaker 1: has a lot of Satanic cult in Hollywood of kind
Speaker 1: of imagery, you know, the robes, the goats, um drugs,
Speaker 1: every kind of filth. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're into if you're into horror films, if you're into
Speaker 1: into like metal music or anything like that, you know,
Speaker 1: the various themes of like movie Satanism are kind of unavoidable. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: should we hear some trailer audio, let's do it. Do
Speaker 1: you believe in evil? That's an idea. Do you believe
Speaker 1: in the power of darkness? That's a perstition? Are there?
Speaker 1: You were wrong? The power of darkness is more than
Speaker 1: justice superstition. It is a living force which can be
Speaker 1: tapped at any given moment of the night. Why on
Speaker 1: one night, but one year, should these people live in
Speaker 1: mortal fear, my God. The goat of mentis the devil himself.
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee as Doritia, who knows he must fight the
Speaker 1: devil's power to the death. O, my God, don't look
Speaker 1: at the eyes Rex eyes, eyes once filled with love,
Speaker 1: are consumed with fear. What Tanneth is now promised to
Speaker 1: the double Catholic of this is Makata, the Devil's chief disciple.
Speaker 1: You're real is leaving you, slipping away. The Double rides
Speaker 1: out from best seller or to Dennis Weekly's famous novel,
Speaker 1: fills the screen with a special kind of visual terror.
Speaker 1: Wire me quickly. You will hear his evil, you will
Speaker 1: feel his evil, you will see his evil. All right,
Speaker 1: So before we get into the people here, we should
Speaker 1: probably I don't know if we stressed. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: you mentioned it briefly. But this is, of course a
Speaker 1: Hammer horror film. Have we discussed a Hammer film on
Speaker 1: the show before? Oh, I mean, I know it's come
Speaker 1: up in passing. I don't know if we've featured one.
Speaker 1: We we've talked about them with Seth a lot are
Speaker 1: regular producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. I think sometime in the
Speaker 1: past couple of years got like the Ultimate Box set
Speaker 1: of Hammer films and was just going through them and
Speaker 1: we were talking about them. So if you're not familiar,
Speaker 1: Hammer put out a lot of British horror films and
Speaker 1: the I don't know when their their full run was.
Speaker 1: I associate them with the sixties and the seventies, and
Speaker 1: you know a lot of films starring Peter Cushing and
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee and various Dracula van Helsing Mummy kinds of roles.
Speaker 1: But then also they branched out into just more general
Speaker 1: kind of sexy vampire movies, right right, Yeah, definitely there's
Speaker 1: a shift that occurs as things get more into the
Speaker 1: late sixties seventies vibe. And one of the interesting things
Speaker 1: about this film that that has been pointed out in
Speaker 1: particular horror historian Kim Newman discusses this a little bit
Speaker 1: in a in a little short extra on the Splendid
Speaker 1: Blu Ray for this movie that this is ultimately more
Speaker 1: of a nineteen thirties movie. It has nineteen thirties horror
Speaker 1: since the bill at ease or at least nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: I believe, and more and more like a nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: horror movie as opposed to a nineteen eighth, you know,
Speaker 1: early seventies film, which would have been you know, more
Speaker 1: in line with the cultural changes that are happening. This
Speaker 1: is a film, but it's more for the older generation
Speaker 1: that's terrified by what's occurring, but it's not ready to
Speaker 1: quite embrace it or exploited. Right, it came out in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, but it is it seems to be
Speaker 1: wagging a finger at the audience and cautioning them against
Speaker 1: any stranger or unorthodox beliefs or practices. Alright, well, let's
Speaker 1: let's start at the top. The director on this baby
Speaker 1: was Terence Fisher, who of nineteen o four through nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty um British film director best remembered for his Hammer films.
Speaker 1: Either directed a slew of them, beginning in I Believe
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one with The Last Page, but really kicking
Speaker 1: into high horror gear in nineteen fifty seven with the
Speaker 1: Curse of Frankenstein starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. He
Speaker 1: was already an established TV and film director by the
Speaker 1: is time, though, but he ended up directing a lot
Speaker 1: of the big Hammer films, including but not limited to,
Speaker 1: Horror of Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Monster from Hell, Frankenstein
Speaker 1: must be Destroyed, Dracula, Prince of Darkness and others. I
Speaker 1: have a big poster for Terence Fisher's production of the
Speaker 1: Mummy right next to me on the wall here is
Speaker 1: from nine and uh, I have the Belgian poster for it.
Speaker 1: I believe because the title on it isla Maledicttion de
Speaker 1: Ferran and the Curse of the Pharaohs. I guess. But
Speaker 1: the poster is great because there's like the Mummy which
Speaker 1: is played by Christopher Lee in the Terence Fisher movie,
Speaker 1: but like it's approaching and then there's a lady screaming
Speaker 1: in the foreground, and then behind the mummy people are
Speaker 1: shining a flashlight and the beam of light is just
Speaker 1: like piercing right through it. Oh yes, yeah, I have
Speaker 1: seen this poster. This is a beauty because there's kind
Speaker 1: of like a cosmic sense to the Mummy in it. Alright,
Speaker 1: we minute we mentioned Dennis Wheatley already. Dennis Wheetlely wrote
Speaker 1: the novel The Devil Rides Out upon which this is base.
Speaker 1: Wheatly lived seven through nineteen seventy seven, British author of
Speaker 1: popular thriller novels, often with the cult themes. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that uh the Kim Newman points out
Speaker 1: is like this guy was a very popular author at
Speaker 1: the time. He says, like, if you went to the
Speaker 1: horror section of your British bookstore, half the books would
Speaker 1: be Dennis Wheetly novels. So he was a big deal.
Speaker 1: He was a popular author. He's said to have influenced
Speaker 1: the likes of Ian Fleming because a lot of his
Speaker 1: his books were, especially his earlier stuff. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's sleuth centered, uh you know, it's about espionage and spies,
Speaker 1: but also very much around based around the sort of
Speaker 1: you know, classic British machismo, you know, heroes going out
Speaker 1: and risking their lives, punching somebody in the face and
Speaker 1: saving a woman, that sort of thing. But then things
Speaker 1: begin to get a little more. He ends up throwing
Speaker 1: in more occult themes as he goes. Now, I'm certainly
Speaker 1: no Whekly expert. I tried reading one of his books
Speaker 1: once and it didn't grab me. But my understanding is that, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of his series, and he has multiple series
Speaker 1: with recurring characters, start out more traditional and then end
Speaker 1: up latching onto occult themes, and we definitely see this
Speaker 1: in his Duke de Richelieu series, which of of which
Speaker 1: this book is a part right. Christopher Lee's character in
Speaker 1: the movie is the Duke de Richelo. I think his
Speaker 1: actual given name is Nicholas. They only say that like
Speaker 1: once or twice in the movie. Usually he's just Duke
Speaker 1: or the Duke. Yeah. So the first book in that series, however,
Speaker 1: is just pure espionage adventure. Um. And then the second
Speaker 1: book that comes later is The Devil's Right. The Devil
Speaker 1: rides out full of not only a cultist in satanist,
Speaker 1: but actual supernatural forces. So it's like, imagine you had
Speaker 1: like a couple of James Bond movies and yeah, they've
Speaker 1: got giant squids and whatnot. But then um, in super
Speaker 1: science a little bit. But then you get to the
Speaker 1: point where it's like, oh, yes, the Devil has shown up. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's James Bond versus Baha met Yeah, sort of
Speaker 1: or a kind of like a proto James Bond, you know,
Speaker 1: because very much came first. But he has another series,
Speaker 1: the Gregory Salas series, that I think does much the
Speaker 1: same thing. The first book in that Black August from
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four imagines a few futuristic nineteen sixty and
Speaker 1: economic collapse so very much, you know, a different beast.
Speaker 1: But then by nineteen sixty four he returns to that
Speaker 1: character in They Use Dark Forces, which has the hero
Speaker 1: battling Nazi occultists and I think teaming up with another
Speaker 1: occultists to take them on. This is the one that
Speaker 1: I actually tried to read once and just could not
Speaker 1: get into it. Um your mileage may vary, but I
Speaker 1: I could not get into Wheely. When you paste it
Speaker 1: in a paragraph from the opening page of The Devil
Speaker 1: Rides Out, I gotta say I was not attracted to
Speaker 1: the prose style. No, I don't think. I don't think.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of certainly modern critics that are
Speaker 1: praising his prose. Now, one of the interesting things, since
Speaker 1: this is the this is not the first book to
Speaker 1: have these characters in it, you could consider this movie
Speaker 1: a sequel to the nineteenth four all Spy Zero Satan's
Speaker 1: thriller Forbidden Territory, directed by Phil Rosen and based on
Speaker 1: the first Duke novel. Uh though the protagonist name and
Speaker 1: I think all the main characters names are changed for
Speaker 1: some reason. Alfred Hitchcock originally optioned the book. Speaking of
Speaker 1: film adaptation, so Wheatley's occult novel to the Devil A
Speaker 1: Daughter was adopted in nineteen seventy six, starring Christopher Lee,
Speaker 1: Richard Winmark Denholm, Elliott, and Natasha Kinsky, and other films
Speaker 1: based on his work include The Secret of Stambol and
Speaker 1: The Lost Continent. He allegedly invited Alistair Crawley to dinner
Speaker 1: to research The Devil Rides out ran across that tidbit.
Speaker 1: I don't know if actually had dinner, maybe just invited him.
Speaker 1: But anybody, anybody could invite Alistair Crawley to dinner, So
Speaker 1: I don't know, well I would. I would say again,
Speaker 1: one thing to stress about this is that this is
Speaker 1: different than a lot of the other devil worship movies
Speaker 1: horror movies that you might see from the early seventies,
Speaker 1: because I would say this is it is in itself
Speaker 1: and is based on material that is genuinely contemptuous of
Speaker 1: any alternative religious practice or devil worship or anything perceived
Speaker 1: as devil worship. It's it's like believes that is real,
Speaker 1: that people actually do it, and it is evil and
Speaker 1: will destroy you. So it this is I think that
Speaker 1: the author here is not It's not just like exploitation.
Speaker 1: It is genuine belief in the danger of the Satanic
Speaker 1: forces massing against good society, right, yeah. They The original
Speaker 1: intro by the author is is kind of funny to
Speaker 1: read because he's like, uh, this is all fiction, but
Speaker 1: I did research it, and I am convinced Satanists are
Speaker 1: in London doing their thing. Don't try this at home,
Speaker 1: because your soul is in danger, which is a weird
Speaker 1: line to walk. It's like, I'm gonna exploit this. I'm
Speaker 1: comfortable exploiting this, but don't look into this any further
Speaker 1: than what I have presented here. It kind of reminds
Speaker 1: me of like the Da Vinci Code, you know Dan
Speaker 1: Brown books, where he's like, Okay, so this is a
Speaker 1: work of fiction, but all of the historical claims and
Speaker 1: the the situation of this story are one real and true,
Speaker 1: which in the Dan Brown's case, they are not right alright,
Speaker 1: so yes to my taste. Uh. Wheatley's work is kind
Speaker 1: of insufferable and there are a lot of problems with it,
Speaker 1: But the gentleman who adapted the screenplay is a writer
Speaker 1: that I think holds up exceptionally well, and that is
Speaker 1: the American novelist and screenwriter Richard Matheson, who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: six through two thousand. American writer who is best remembered
Speaker 1: as the author of the excellent nineteen fifty four novel
Speaker 1: I Am a Legend, upon which three films have been based.
Speaker 1: Sixty four is The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price,
Speaker 1: The Omega Man starring Chuck Heston, and two thousand sevens
Speaker 1: I Am Legend starring Will Smith. He also wrote the
Speaker 1: excellent Haunted House novel Hell House, the Thriller Duel, and
Speaker 1: The Shrinking Man. All these were adapted into films Duel
Speaker 1: by a young Steven Spielberg as well as such. Other
Speaker 1: adaptations include What Dreams May Come, A Stir of Echoes,
Speaker 1: and others. He also wrote a lot of TV, including
Speaker 1: sixteen episodes of the original Twilight Zone, including the iconic
Speaker 1: Nightmare at twenty Thousand Feet episode, and he also wrote
Speaker 1: for such shows as Night Gallery, Original Star Trek, The
Speaker 1: Alfred Hitchcock Our Thriller Um and as far as films go,
Speaker 1: his screenplays include Trilogy of Terror, uh Corman's House of Usher,
Speaker 1: and of course Jaws three D Jaws three D. That
Speaker 1: was Matheson. Yeah. I mean. One of the things about Matheson,
Speaker 1: and this is something that Kim Newman points out, is
Speaker 1: like Matheson was great. Matheson's we know work certainly holds
Speaker 1: up to a modern readers so much better than Wheatley.
Speaker 1: But also he worked with Corman a bit, so he
Speaker 1: could also work very fast and and presumably he says,
Speaker 1: you could probably work at a on a reasonable budget
Speaker 1: if you were working for Corman. So okaye, so is
Speaker 1: the Corman principle. It's like, you know, coming to Charles B.
Speaker 1: Griffith and saying, I need a movie called Attack of
Speaker 1: the Giant Crabs. It needs to be done in four days. Yeah, presumably.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I mean written mathis is great and and
Speaker 1: has has created so much wonderful work over the years.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting though that in a very British film
Speaker 1: we have this very American writing force that is adapting
Speaker 1: it and tweaking it a little bit, and and also
Speaker 1: and ultimately removing many things that probably didn't work all
Speaker 1: that well in the Wheely novel. One last thing, I
Speaker 1: didn't know that Matheson had written one of the Corman
Speaker 1: Poe movies, and I've been thinking we need to do
Speaker 1: one of the Corman Poe movies. Oh well, stay tuned,
Speaker 1: we may just do that, all right. No, let's get
Speaker 1: into the cast here. Uh so kind of like last
Speaker 1: last episode last the last new episode we did. I mean,
Speaker 1: what can you say about Christopher Lee who played the
Speaker 1: duke here? Uh you know, we we He's been in
Speaker 1: so many things I lived nineteen through. He has one
Speaker 1: of those careers that had like multiple you know, you
Speaker 1: had some sort of dips here and there, but also
Speaker 1: you know, especially later in life, he was in so
Speaker 1: many great films and you know, memorable films at least.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, he's known for playing so many villains. Dracula, Sorrowman, Uh, Scottamana,
Speaker 1: Count Dooku, Lord Uh, Summer Isle, Frankenstein's Monster, Carris The Mummy.
Speaker 1: He also voiced the villain King Hadrid in two is
Speaker 1: the Last Unicorn, which I just watched more than half
Speaker 1: of with um with my family last night, and I
Speaker 1: was really enjoying that so and that also reminded I
Speaker 1: was looking up some stuff about Last Unicorn on Last
Speaker 1: Unicorn is one of these where they hired Christopher Lee
Speaker 1: for it, and he was very enthusiastic about it, apparently
Speaker 1: a big reader, and he showed up with the original
Speaker 1: novel with things that earmarked, uh, saying these absolutely cannot
Speaker 1: be cut. These lines have to stay in the in
Speaker 1: the picture. And he apparently did this with Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings as well, and and probably with this film,
Speaker 1: because I understand that The Devil Rides Out was also
Speaker 1: a film where he liked the book, and he was
Speaker 1: really excited for the film and probably showed up with
Speaker 1: the book and was like, no, Sorr, I'm sorry, Matheson,
Speaker 1: this goes in, This stays in the picture. That's funny
Speaker 1: because I actually watched part of an interview or I
Speaker 1: think it was an audience Q and A with some
Speaker 1: event that that he was doing, and a member of
Speaker 1: the audience asks him, you know, it's been rumored that
Speaker 1: you have a large occult library. Is that true? And
Speaker 1: how did you get interested in that? And he says, no,
Speaker 1: it is not true. I have maybe four or five
Speaker 1: books on the occult and one of them, he says,
Speaker 1: is an original copy of The Devil Rides Out, signed
Speaker 1: by the author. So he's clearly a fan. But then
Speaker 1: he also cautions the audience not to experiment with devil worship.
Speaker 1: He's basically the dick Um. But I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 1: gotta love Christopher Lee. Um, it's hard pick a favorite role.
Speaker 1: I'm tempted to go. I mean, he he is saw Rouman.
Speaker 1: To me, it's one of those performances that is so
Speaker 1: thoroughly the character that it replaces whatever imagination you might
Speaker 1: have had from the book before you saw the movie.
Speaker 1: He just embodies it perfectly. But then the other thing
Speaker 1: I would say, maybe even more than that, is Lord Sumerle.
Speaker 1: I mean he is he is the gentleman pagan from
Speaker 1: The wicker Man. It's it's it just can't be beat. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: these these are all great roles. I love all the
Speaker 1: roles that I mentioned already, And and there are plenty
Speaker 1: of Christopher Rely performances out there I haven't seen, so
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's some other gems. I know. One thing
Speaker 1: I've said on the show before, I'm I'm not a
Speaker 1: huge fan of the the Star Wars prequels, but there's
Speaker 1: always that moment when Christopher Lee shows up in them
Speaker 1: where I think, the way I've put it before, and
Speaker 1: I would stand by this is that it's like in
Speaker 1: a movie that is kind of stuffy and suffocating, Christopher
Speaker 1: Lee walks on screen and suddenly it's like someone has
Speaker 1: opened a window and let fresh air in and now
Speaker 1: everything's oh, oh, things feel great now. Yeah. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: love his betrayal of Douku in in those two Star
Speaker 1: Wars films, and I especially love in the opening of
Speaker 1: the Revenge of the Seth where you have that that's
Speaker 1: that duel between Anakin and Douku, and then of course
Speaker 1: you have Palpatine watching on and ultimately deciding its fate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it's a great sequence, and and Lee's great in
Speaker 1: it because he's you know, he's he's very much. He's great.
Speaker 1: He was always great at playing this kind of grandiose
Speaker 1: and egotistical villain. And then we get to see like
Speaker 1: the vulnerability briefly as he's betrayed by his master. So yeah,
Speaker 1: literally always brought brought something great to the to the table.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it's an interesting casting choice for this character
Speaker 1: of the Duke de Richelow that the protagonist of the movie,
Speaker 1: who who represents order in the side of good against
Speaker 1: against the chaos and evil of of Charles Gray. As
Speaker 1: as Mr Mocatta. But yeah, it's I'm kind of wondering, like,
Speaker 1: could you have cast somebody else in this role and
Speaker 1: how would the movie be different if you have? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like part of me was thinking, well, maybe, like maybe Lee,
Speaker 1: especially at this point, wasn't as good at like portraying
Speaker 1: like likable and vulnerable characteristics, like whereas someone like Peter
Speaker 1: Cushing his close friend and you know in Frequent co Star,
Speaker 1: maybe he would have been able to deliver that better.
Speaker 1: But then again, I come back to the way this
Speaker 1: characters are written, and maybe anybody would have been stuffy
Speaker 1: and unlikable in this role. One thing I gotta say
Speaker 1: is the the bizarre choice and and maybe this reflects
Speaker 1: how the esthetics of of Satanism have changed over time.
Speaker 1: But they give Christopher Lee devil worship or facial here.
Speaker 1: They give him the classic Satanist goatee when he's when
Speaker 1: he's playing the guy who's against the Satanists. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then it is interesting when we look at who's playing
Speaker 1: his adversary, Mokata, the the the high priest of the
Speaker 1: like the London chapter of the Church, it's not actually
Speaker 1: the Church of Satan but this whatever the satanic cult
Speaker 1: is called in itself. Um, this is played by Charles Gray,
Speaker 1: who lived through the year two thousand. I think they're
Speaker 1: called the Friends of the Goat Friends of the Goat. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Gray not as legendary as Christopher Lee perhaps, but
Speaker 1: certainly I celebrated British character actor in his own right,
Speaker 1: often remembered for playing aristocratic and villainous roles, you know,
Speaker 1: very sort of tight lip to the clinch Jarard villains,
Speaker 1: very British. Uh. But he played some big ones. We
Speaker 1: already mentioned his his run as Blowfeld and Diamonds Are Forever.
Speaker 1: But he also he also played a good guy in
Speaker 1: sixty seven's You Only Live Twice. So he's actually in
Speaker 1: two Bond films. Oh that's right. He's like another spy
Speaker 1: who Bond meets somewhere. And I remember he gets a
Speaker 1: knife in the back through a paper wall, don't I
Speaker 1: don't remember that. But um, he isn't fun. He played
Speaker 1: Microft Holmes. This is Sherlock Holmes brother, both in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies six film The Seven Percent Solution and also
Speaker 1: in the Jeremy Brett Excellent Jeremy Brett Granada television series
Speaker 1: of Sherlock Holmes. Oh, I've got to see those. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's a lot of fun. And wait was the
Speaker 1: seven percent solution? Is that? Um? Nicholas Meyer? It is, yes,
Speaker 1: that this was his novel. Yes, I bet that's great.
Speaker 1: But of course, for many of you out there, Charles
Speaker 1: Gray is best remembered as the criminologist, an expert in
Speaker 1: the Rocky Horror Picture Show It's just to jump to
Speaker 1: the left, yeah, but even a lot of other things too.
Speaker 1: For instance, he was in Richard O'Brien's follow up musical
Speaker 1: film Shock Treatment, which I have not been able to
Speaker 1: get into yet. Um. I keep thinking, oh, I love
Speaker 1: Rocky Horror. I'll give Shock Treatment to try, and I'll
Speaker 1: listen to the music a little bit. And it just
Speaker 1: hasn't happened. He's also in the The Wonderful, really Fun
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four Werewolf Who Done It? The Beast Must Die?
Speaker 1: This is the film that has a werewolf break. As
Speaker 1: you'll remember, Jeremy, so you can collect your thoughts about
Speaker 1: who the werewolf is. He also dubbed for Ac Hawkins
Speaker 1: in the film Theater of Blood and others. After Hawkins
Speaker 1: learn X was removed to combat throat cancer. Theater of
Speaker 1: Blood is the other movie we talked about in the
Speaker 1: episode with about Dr Fibes. It was the other movie
Speaker 1: where Vincent Price must return from the grave or after
Speaker 1: being assumed dead, to get revenge on nine specific people
Speaker 1: who he believed wronged him. So Gray, it's fun in this,
Speaker 1: but he's he's very much playing a kind of stern
Speaker 1: and serious Alistair Crowley with hair, but also as uh,
Speaker 1: this is I thought. Another fun tid that that Kim
Speaker 1: Newman points out is he's kind of playing Alistair Crowley's
Speaker 1: idea of what Alistair Crowley seemed like to everybody else,
Speaker 1: you know, like like Crowley himself was you know, you know,
Speaker 1: a bit of a con man in his own right,
Speaker 1: you know, and was many other things. But but he
Speaker 1: may have thought that he came off like this to
Speaker 1: other people, this highly charismatic British occultist with hypnotic eyes
Speaker 1: that just instantly has power over everyone when he walks
Speaker 1: into a room. And then the other interesting thing is
Speaker 1: that you have this character that this is a film
Speaker 1: again where Satan evert anything that's not British and Christian
Speaker 1: is potentially Satan. Satanist in nature, um is potentially Satanism.
Speaker 1: And you have his character with his name Mokata that
Speaker 1: I'm to understand maybe has more of an international flair
Speaker 1: in the novel, but here we have him played by
Speaker 1: a very British actor with a very British performance. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much we've emphasized that the xenophobic
Speaker 1: themes of this movie already, but yeah, there is very
Speaker 1: much a sense that like that which is foreign is
Speaker 1: very likely associated with the devil. Uh, though, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a little confused. I don't know. I know there's a
Speaker 1: always some cultural crossover between between Britain and France. But
Speaker 1: as Richelow supposed to be British or French, his name
Speaker 1: is French, and he mentions, um, I think he mentions
Speaker 1: that he and another character that their fathers had worked
Speaker 1: together in some kind of French organization. But he also
Speaker 1: just in every other way, appears to be British. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very confusing because it's a very French name, but
Speaker 1: in the film at least, it's a very British portrayal. Likewise, um,
Speaker 1: you know, Makata seems to have been played up in
Speaker 1: the novel for being something kind of you know, international
Speaker 1: and and the foreign and threatening. But of course, uh
Speaker 1: Mokatta's The name Okada has been has been very British
Speaker 1: for a long time. I mean, I believe it's tied
Speaker 1: to some important banking families and so forth. So I'm
Speaker 1: a little confused on that. All right, should we go
Speaker 1: to the next actor? Um yeah. I was trying to
Speaker 1: find how to pronounce her name, and I was sorry
Speaker 1: that I could not find a good example of it
Speaker 1: being said out loud. But it is. Her name is
Speaker 1: I think nick A Regie. Her first name is spelled
Speaker 1: like the brand Nike in I K E. But I
Speaker 1: guess that's Nika. Yeah. She plays Tenneth carlyle Um in
Speaker 1: this film, which is probably one of the more likable characters.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a very low bar in this film,
Speaker 1: but um yeah. She's born seven French visual artist and
Speaker 1: former actor. As an actor, she was only actor from
Speaker 1: I believe nineteen sixties six through nineteen seventy four, appearing
Speaker 1: in various European horror and art house films. She had
Speaker 1: a small part in Kin Russell's nineteen sixty nine film
Speaker 1: Women in Love. Nineteen seventy one's Countess Dracula. Other films
Speaker 1: include parts in Sunday Bloody Sunday playing a nun and
Speaker 1: Kin Russell's The Devil's Uh Season in Hell The Perfume
Speaker 1: of the Lady in Black. That was her last picture,
Speaker 1: but then she went on to focus on her art,
Speaker 1: and she has a website and you can look at
Speaker 1: examples of her art there. Some of these look like
Speaker 1: surrealistic oil and watercolor pieces. Yeah. I was looking through
Speaker 1: her paintings and I really like some of them. They're
Speaker 1: they're interesting. So some are just like like watercolor landscapes
Speaker 1: showing on a waterfall or a city skyline or something,
Speaker 1: and then others are really surreal. There's one of these
Speaker 1: women in I don't know, having like a big it
Speaker 1: might be one of those like things they put on
Speaker 1: your I don't know what these are called, these things
Speaker 1: they put on your head at the hairdresser that like
Speaker 1: do a perm on you or something. Um, it's like
Speaker 1: a big glass helmet, but it's absurdly large in the painting,
Speaker 1: making it look more like a science fiction device, like
Speaker 1: it's scanning this this lady's brain while she's sitting there
Speaker 1: with rollers in her hair, holding a baby it's a
Speaker 1: very i don't know, weird interesting painting, and I like
Speaker 1: it at any rate. She's good in this. She's acting
Speaker 1: opposite a whole lot of stiff, unlikable male characters. Uh so,
Speaker 1: but it's easily the character that seems to have like
Speaker 1: the most inner conflict. Uh you know, she's she's not
Speaker 1: ultimately not given a tremendous amount of agency in this,
Speaker 1: So it's not you know, it's not one of like,
Speaker 1: you know, the great roles one might hope for, but
Speaker 1: you know, she she breathes a lot of life into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are several parts where she just has to gaze
Speaker 1: into the camera with like with hypnotized or possessed eyes,
Speaker 1: and her eyelids go super wide, and she she has
Speaker 1: some kind of quality to her irises that makes them
Speaker 1: really good for this kind of shot. That looks intense alright.
Speaker 1: The next actor of note is Leon Green playing Rex
Speaker 1: Van Ryan, though the character is dubbed by Patrick Allen.
Speaker 1: Green live British actor who appeared in such films as
Speaker 1: a Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Speaker 1: and Flash Gordon. In this he is the ultimate square
Speaker 1: jaw British man who is ready to punch Satanists, punch windshields,
Speaker 1: whatever it takes, if you mean saving a pretty lady
Speaker 1: from non British ideas. He is our turbo lug. You
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned when we were chatting about it,
Speaker 1: you said Rex is ready to punch and kiss, and
Speaker 1: that that's about it. Yeah. Somehow I kept thinking, well,
Speaker 1: this doesn't quite communicate his physical genre, which is sort
Speaker 1: of hunky lug. But he reminded me of a cross
Speaker 1: between Chris Cooper and Buddy Hackett. Yeah, I can see
Speaker 1: that he's also our our skeptic for like three minutes
Speaker 1: anyway in the film, because he's because the Duke is like,
Speaker 1: Satanism is real and it's a major threat to everything
Speaker 1: we know and love and that at all. But then
Speaker 1: but then the Duke is like look at this, and
Speaker 1: then Rex is like, I'm convinced the famous the power
Speaker 1: of Darkness is a living force. Speech. Yeah. So a
Speaker 1: lot of this film is going to concern another character
Speaker 1: who they're very concerned about um, and that is the
Speaker 1: character Simon Aaron played by Patrick mower Bor, still active
Speaker 1: as he was just on a British series called Emmerdale Farm.
Speaker 1: He's done a bunch of TV work, as well as
Speaker 1: such films as the nineteen seventy vincent Price movie Cry
Speaker 1: of the Banshee and es in Since for the Damned. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's pretty good in this in part because again his
Speaker 1: character is one of the few that seems to be
Speaker 1: in genuine conflict and gets to act a little bit
Speaker 1: more and ultimately, ultimately maybe it's a little more relatable.
Speaker 1: I kept thinking he looks like Toby maguire. He kind
Speaker 1: of does. Yeah, he does. Quick note that we have
Speaker 1: we have we have that goat monster, the Goat of
Speaker 1: Mendies that shows up later on. Uh. This is uncredited
Speaker 1: played by Eddie Powell, who of seven through the year
Speaker 1: two thousand and six five British stunt man who also
Speaker 1: wound up in costumes such creatures as the Zena morph
Speaker 1: in Alien for stunt purposes, The Mummy and the Mummy
Speaker 1: Shroud and Yeah, and this film he plays the goat himself.
Speaker 1: Powell also did stunts on such films as Willow Legend, Batman,
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, Krull and various Bond movies.
Speaker 1: On that note, speaking of monsters, I'm just gonna briefly
Speaker 1: mention the makeup effects artists responsible for many of Hammer's
Speaker 1: best monsters. Roy Ashton was the monster maker on this
Speaker 1: and then the music U This is James Bernard two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, a classmate of Christopher Lee's at Wellington College.
Speaker 1: He composed the scores of a whole bunch of Hammer
Speaker 1: horror films, and later in life he wrote an original
Speaker 1: score for Nosferatu. Alright, are you ready to talk about
Speaker 1: the plot a little bit? Let's do it. Okay, So
Speaker 1: the movie starts with a reunion of old friends. We
Speaker 1: get Rex van Wren again. This is played by Leon Green,
Speaker 1: arriving by aeroplane which he pilots himself and landing in
Speaker 1: some kind of I don't know field. It's just like
Speaker 1: a landing strip in somewhere in rural England, it looks like.
Speaker 1: And he meets with Christopher Lee, playing the Duke de Richlow,
Speaker 1: who is watching with binoculars as he lands. And I
Speaker 1: assume Rex is arriving from overseas, but I'm not positive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think in the books he's actually American, even which
Speaker 1: is interesting. Just englished him right up. Anyway, they appear
Speaker 1: to be old friends reunited after some time apart, and uh,
Speaker 1: and so we learned that they have a mutual friend
Speaker 1: named Simon. And Rex is curious, where is he? Why
Speaker 1: is it he here to greet me at the airfield
Speaker 1: like you, And the Duke says, well, he hasn't heard
Speaker 1: from Simon in three months. He doesn't go to his
Speaker 1: club in London anymore, which that's a horrible sign. And
Speaker 1: he's moved into a large house in the country. And
Speaker 1: Rex is worried that Simon might be in some kind
Speaker 1: of trouble. But I immediately that this should be an
Speaker 1: alarm belve or how this character is going to go.
Speaker 1: The Duke is like, now, that's preposterous. He would have
Speaker 1: told me if he was in trouble. But they decided
Speaker 1: to go pay him a visit. Oh and when they do,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you notice the same detail. It
Speaker 1: involves the duke. They get into the back of a
Speaker 1: car and the Duke talks through some kind of hose
Speaker 1: lined with red velvet to tell the driver where to go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think I remember seeing this in
Speaker 1: a film before, but I guess this must have been
Speaker 1: a thing because it's supposed to take place in the thirties,
Speaker 1: I believe. Yeah, So he talks into the velvet hose
Speaker 1: and then yeah, they get there. So they head out
Speaker 1: to Simon's mansion, and as soon as they're at his
Speaker 1: doorstep ringing the bell, twilight has fallen. There's creepy music playing.
Speaker 1: A butler answers the door, and Christopher Lee is immediately
Speaker 1: highly suspicious. You see him squinting and furrowing his brows
Speaker 1: at everything in the house. He just like looks at
Speaker 1: a vase suspiciously, and he gazes into an open doorway
Speaker 1: like that's trouble. And then they get led into the
Speaker 1: next room, where it looks like Simon must be hosting
Speaker 1: a nice party. And again it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where you look at the party, it looks like there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with it at all. It looks nice. But
Speaker 1: the Duke immediately appears to have some kind of internal
Speaker 1: alarm sirens screaming in his brain. But I would say
Speaker 1: the only thing that looks unusual about the party is
Speaker 1: that like you walk through and you like hear people talking,
Speaker 1: and you see people's clothes and stuff, and it appears
Speaker 1: that not everyone here is from England, Like there appear
Speaker 1: to be people from all throughout continental Europe and West
Speaker 1: Africa and South Asia, and then they're like, dear God. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's nothing in this saying that would make
Speaker 1: you think it's anything other than maybe a you know,
Speaker 1: various academics from around the world have gathered to discuss uh,
Speaker 1: you know, policy or something. Yeah, you know, un meeting
Speaker 1: or something. But yeah, but they're just they're just immediately horrified.
Speaker 1: This is no good. Simon is in the deep so yeah, again,
Speaker 1: I think this is showing these weird xenophobic assumptions of
Speaker 1: the movie. Is just like, oh, there's tons of people
Speaker 1: from other countries here. This must be devil worship. So
Speaker 1: they see Simon, they come up and talk to him.
Speaker 1: Rex is like, sorry for interrupting your party, and Simon
Speaker 1: is like, oh, it's just a meeting of a little
Speaker 1: astronomical society I've joined. So because they looked outside when
Speaker 1: they were when they were outside earlier, they looked up
Speaker 1: and there appears to be some kind of like observatory
Speaker 1: dome at the top of his new house. And then
Speaker 1: we meet some major characters. We meet Mr Mokatta played
Speaker 1: by Charles Gray. He's not scary yet in this scene.
Speaker 1: In this scene, he's more in Blowfeld mode. He just
Speaker 1: has to say, you know, well, well, excuse me, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: there's something I must say to Simon and he takes
Speaker 1: him aside, and then they get a moment to speak
Speaker 1: with Tanneth played by Nika Rigi, and she's confused about
Speaker 1: their presence. I think she assumes that they are part
Speaker 1: of the coven. But then she says, surely we're not
Speaker 1: meant to be more than thirteen. And as soon as
Speaker 1: she says thirteen, this gets a dramatic wheel about from
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee. You know, he whips his head with his
Speaker 1: eyes wide and you know that like he's really sure
Speaker 1: that there's trouble now. So they're asked to leave, but
Speaker 1: first the Duke asks, uh, you know, before we depart,
Speaker 1: may I see your observatory because he says he's recently
Speaker 1: become interested in astronomy. He would like a peek through
Speaker 1: the telescope and Simon tries to object, but as always
Speaker 1: in this movie, Christopher Lee just gives him the do
Speaker 1: as I command, you I and then they head on up.
Speaker 1: Now we'll see this observatory room in a couple of scenes,
Speaker 1: but there there is a giant goathead baff mat on
Speaker 1: the floor tiles, and another one I think on the wall.
Speaker 1: And when they come in there like this is interesting
Speaker 1: or these astronomical charts, Simon's just like, oh, it's just
Speaker 1: a decoration. But then the real, the real thing that
Speaker 1: that seals the deal is there's some noises in the
Speaker 1: closet and we get the chicken reveal. Rob, do you
Speaker 1: want to describe this moment? Oh? Well, this is this
Speaker 1: is great. So in just like pure inquisitor mode um,
Speaker 1: the duke goes over to the closet, pulls it open,
Speaker 1: and you know, we we see this, you know, view
Speaker 1: the shot. It's shot from the closet, horrified look on
Speaker 1: his face because he opens his basket and there are
Speaker 1: a couple of chickens in there. Uh, and these are
Speaker 1: the hallmarks of black magic. You can't practice black magic
Speaker 1: unless you've got some chickens around to sacrifice. I guess, yeah,
Speaker 1: But it was the pair of chickens that that clinched
Speaker 1: it that this is definitely black magic, and not the
Speaker 1: Bafomet circle on the floor right right. The Bafomet circle
Speaker 1: is certainly like there are other reasons to have chickens around. Uh,
Speaker 1: there would even be other reasons to have, say, a
Speaker 1: black cat and a chicken around, but to have the
Speaker 1: like the full baffo met floor. Yeah, that's that suggests
Speaker 1: something else. Oh but then we get the so he
Speaker 1: sees the chickens and Lee knows for sure what's going on,
Speaker 1: And then we get I would say the line of
Speaker 1: the film that stands out more than any other, which
Speaker 1: is he turns to Simon, he says, you fool, I'd
Speaker 1: rather see you dead than practicing black magic. It's such
Speaker 1: a it's such a great in telling line like this.
Speaker 1: It maybe it just adds extra unlikeability to this character,
Speaker 1: you know, um, like I would I would rather you
Speaker 1: be dead than adhere to some ideology that doesn't perfectly
Speaker 1: line up with Bion. So the Duke exhorts Simon to
Speaker 1: leave the house. He's like, come with us, you know,
Speaker 1: we we will get you out of this, and Simon
Speaker 1: doesn't want to go, so he just punches him out,
Speaker 1: just knocks him out. They repeatedly do this to Simon.
Speaker 1: By the way, by the end of this movie, he
Speaker 1: will have had major head trauma. Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: have to admit, I mean, I know that you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to punch people in the face and try and
Speaker 1: knock them out. You're not supposed to hit people over
Speaker 1: the head with with bottles and so forth, which these
Speaker 1: things happen in films all the time. But a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago I I sustained a very mild concussion and
Speaker 1: it was not fun. And ever since I've been maybe
Speaker 1: a little like heightened sensitivity to these moments in films.
Speaker 1: So like something like this happens and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a concussion for sure, And then I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: he just had a concussion earlier in the picture. This
Speaker 1: is so dangerous. Stop punching, Simon. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: In movies they just treat hitting people on the head
Speaker 1: as like general anesthesia. Well, it just renders the harmlessly,
Speaker 1: renders them unconscious for some short period of time. How
Speaker 1: are you supposed to end a scene and have somebody
Speaker 1: you need to get them to another location and have
Speaker 1: them wake up and observe things, so you need you
Speaker 1: need some head trauma in between. So anyway, they go
Speaker 1: back to the Duke's house and there is a great
Speaker 1: hypnotism scene. This is one of the first scenes indicating
Speaker 1: that Christopher Lee's character not only knows what the the
Speaker 1: rituals of darkness are, but he can practice them himself. Apparently.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this, this of course ties in so perfectly
Speaker 1: with a lot of the satanic panic energies that the
Speaker 1: decades to come, and even some of the you know,
Speaker 1: the scare tactics you see in other social panics, and
Speaker 1: you know, fundamentalist and conservative mindsets where the individual's warning
Speaker 1: you about the evil. Whatever the evil happens to be,
Speaker 1: they know all about it. They've got all the grizzly details,
Speaker 1: and they will list it for you. They know all
Speaker 1: the terminology, they have seen the stuff. Um. But but
Speaker 1: they're safe. They're concerned about your safety. And so, like
Speaker 1: the Duke is already coming off. It's such a hypocrite here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he there's this hypnotism scene where he like puts
Speaker 1: a mirror in front of Simon and he's he's like
Speaker 1: looking to the mirror Simon and he brainwashed it, like
Speaker 1: he sees is his mind somehow, and he's like, you
Speaker 1: must go to bed now. Is one of the many
Speaker 1: greats sending people to bed scenes. He sends him up
Speaker 1: to his bedroom, he puts a crucifix necklace on him.
Speaker 1: He says it's a symbol of protection. And then they
Speaker 1: break out the sniff rs of brown liquor. I love
Speaker 1: that they're just like numerous unlabeled jars of brown liquor
Speaker 1: for them to drink from. And Christopher Lee and Rex
Speaker 1: they sit down and to have the talk about devil worship,
Speaker 1: and he asks Rex, do you believe in evil? And
Speaker 1: you know, Rex is like magic and all that. I
Speaker 1: think it's hocus pocus. But then the Duke gives a
Speaker 1: speech about how the power of darkness is not just
Speaker 1: an idea but a living, breathing thing. And it's clear
Speaker 1: now that they're up against something big and they may
Speaker 1: have to do battle with it throughout the rest of
Speaker 1: the film. Meanwhile, Simon upstairs in the Duke's bed, his
Speaker 1: eyes snap open. Uh. He seems to be under the
Speaker 1: influence of something, and he starts gathering up the chain
Speaker 1: of his crucifix necklace and starts garrotting himself with it,
Speaker 1: and it seemed for a minute like he was going
Speaker 1: to die. I assume this character he's goner. But then
Speaker 1: the butler comes in and helpfully removes the crucifix from
Speaker 1: his neck and then Simon just bolts out the window.
Speaker 1: So at this point the caper is on. For the
Speaker 1: rest of the movie, the Duke and Rex will be
Speaker 1: in pursuit of their friends Simon and eventually also of
Speaker 1: Tannith to free them from the cult and from the
Speaker 1: jaws of Satan himself. And so maybe at this point
Speaker 1: we can just sort of zero in on several scenes
Speaker 1: and sequences throughout the rest of the movie that that
Speaker 1: struck us. One of which I think we've got to
Speaker 1: talk about is the return to the house, because the
Speaker 1: first thing the Duke and Rex do when Simon gets
Speaker 1: out of the Duke's place is like, well, maybe he
Speaker 1: went back home. So they go break in through a
Speaker 1: window and uh, and look around to see if he's
Speaker 1: there or if Mocatta's coven is still there. That's right.
Speaker 1: They go up to the observatory and then what starts
Speaker 1: happening to the floor, Well, out of that goat head
Speaker 1: on the floor, Um, you have this sinister smoke begins
Speaker 1: to rise, and we essentially have our first proper summoning
Speaker 1: of the film. They're like, I think three different summonings
Speaker 1: of note, and uh, it seems to summon you know,
Speaker 1: it's like smokes bringing in some sort of form. What's
Speaker 1: it gonna be. It's gonna be a monster, a monster,
Speaker 1: you know, the demon. Maybe it'll be the goat guy
Speaker 1: from the poster, but no, it's just a dude that
Speaker 1: looks slightly stoned. Yeah, when we first saw him. So
Speaker 1: there are some good monsters later on, but I was
Speaker 1: just like, this is just a guy. But he's got
Speaker 1: bloodshot eyes. But it's just a dude. I've seen that this,
Speaker 1: this uh, this summoned being described as a gin or
Speaker 1: a demon, but it's just Nigerian born actor Willie Payne
Speaker 1: in red pants with a with a legitimately kind of
Speaker 1: creepy smile and very stoned looking eyes. Um, they're able
Speaker 1: to play it up a bit. So it's not like
Speaker 1: it doesn't work. But it also seems to lean really
Speaker 1: hard that this idea of non white equals possibly satanic thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because this scene didn't feel great it was. It seems
Speaker 1: to lean more on those kind of xenophobic assumptions that
Speaker 1: the movie has. Yeah, because the only other non white
Speaker 1: act characters in the film, including Nigerian born actor playwright
Speaker 1: Jimmy Goodman, um A Jibati are all seen as members
Speaker 1: of the cult. None of our cult. The cult is international.
Speaker 1: It's got rubbers from all over, right, So yeah, this
Speaker 1: this feels a little it's a little weird to watch this,
Speaker 1: and it's also a little weird that Hammer picked this
Speaker 1: scene out put it on their YouTube like it is.
Speaker 1: But if you lean into the sort of like here's
Speaker 1: a really stone dude um summoned to combat your heroes,
Speaker 1: and I kind of like that, it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: don't look at his eyes. He's really stoned. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and he's like hypnotizing them, I guess with his
Speaker 1: eyes to like get them to come into the circle
Speaker 1: of beff Matt. But I think they defeat him by
Speaker 1: throwing a crucifix. Yeah, the first of severn All crucifix
Speaker 1: lobbings in the film. Yeah. The goosefix are like the
Speaker 1: Holy hand grenade. They make demons just explode ye one
Speaker 1: to five and then they blow him up and then
Speaker 1: they run out of the house. Now, I think the
Speaker 1: next big thing is that the Duke is like, you
Speaker 1: must you must find Tannith because I must go to
Speaker 1: the British Library. And what's he gonna He's like gonna
Speaker 1: look into several occult tomes that are kept under lock
Speaker 1: and key. Fortunately, the person who runs the Occult Tomes
Speaker 1: section is a friend of his. Yes, again, it's safe
Speaker 1: for the Duke to be interested in these things and
Speaker 1: be knowledgeable these things. But but not not you, Simon. Simon.
Speaker 1: I'd rather you be dead than read some of the
Speaker 1: books that I've read. So Rex. Uh. The next thing
Speaker 1: we see with Rex, he's just got Tannith in the
Speaker 1: car and they're out driving in the country somewhere, and
Speaker 1: it's one of those weird scenes where somebody's already in
Speaker 1: the car with somebody and then she's like, so why
Speaker 1: am I here? Where are we going? And then I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: why did she get in the car? What did they
Speaker 1: say before she got in the car? I don't know.
Speaker 1: But then it becomes clear. He's like, I'm here to
Speaker 1: rescue you from Satanism, and she's like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to be rescued, and uh, and then yeah, it ultimately
Speaker 1: ends up being a whole chase sequence. Yes. Well, but
Speaker 1: also before that, he's like, I'm here to rescue you
Speaker 1: from satan and take you out to lunch. Do you
Speaker 1: want to go on a date? Yeah? And Uh, so
Speaker 1: they're they're planning on going to lunch at a friend's house.
Speaker 1: This is the house of Richard and Marie and their
Speaker 1: daughter Peggy, who will become bigger characters in the third act.
Speaker 1: A lot of the second half of the movie takes
Speaker 1: place at their house. But I was also wondering about
Speaker 1: they're not sure who he's bringing. So it's like, hello,
Speaker 1: old friend, I brought a bride of Satan to your
Speaker 1: house for lunch. I've kidnapped somebody. This is the other thing.
Speaker 1: This film has a lot of kidnappings, and Simon has
Speaker 1: already been kidnapped, and now Tanneth has been kidnapped, and
Speaker 1: there'll be more kidnappings to come. Yeah, she lured away
Speaker 1: on false pretenses, all right, And we don't know what
Speaker 1: they said before she got in the car, but at
Speaker 1: least continuing along the journey after she has said no,
Speaker 1: I would rather go back to my Sitan worship please,
Speaker 1: and uh. Then this leads to a complex series of
Speaker 1: chases where she steals a car from somewhere and drives
Speaker 1: away and then Rex has to chase after her, and
Speaker 1: there's you didn't expect a car chase in this movie,
Speaker 1: did you? But the car chase does involve Rex punching
Speaker 1: through his own windshield and uh they eventually, oh, they
Speaker 1: use magic to make him wreck his car, but he
Speaker 1: stuck unconscious. Another another concussion and right, yes, and then
Speaker 1: she so she eventually makes her way back to Moccata
Speaker 1: because Macada was like hypnotizing her through the rear view
Speaker 1: mirror in the car. Well. Mirrors are magic, we know that. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's right. So eventually Rex stumbles upon a satanic mass
Speaker 1: that Macada is conducting in the woods. Actually it looks
Speaker 1: pretty tame. It's just a lot of people in like
Speaker 1: white robes, the bosses like Macada. He's wearing a purple robe,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people in white robes just drinking
Speaker 1: wine and dancing like it is not as debauched as
Speaker 1: some of the the devil worship scenes in later movies
Speaker 1: would be, right, but it does have the ultimate. They
Speaker 1: sacrifice a goat and then uh, here comes the goat himself.
Speaker 1: Um uh, we we have this, this wonderful appearance by
Speaker 1: the goat of of of Mendes. Uh it's the goat
Speaker 1: headed humanoid form and it looks very good. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: legitimately creepy. I think this was a scene that they
Speaker 1: pulled off rather well because he just kind of appears,
Speaker 1: uh you know, it's like he's come out of the woods.
Speaker 1: You've thrown a Satanic party that is fun enough that
Speaker 1: he is making an appearance, and everyone gets very excited. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and one thing I noted was like when they when
Speaker 1: they cut the goat's throat in the sacrifice, it's like
Speaker 1: dropping the beat in the club. I think everybody goes wild. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have. They get very excited about it, and yeah,
Speaker 1: this the goat looks great. It's not I should stress
Speaker 1: it's not the ago you see on the poster. They
Speaker 1: took the head of the goat creature here and they
Speaker 1: put it on one of the like probably the Charles
Speaker 1: Gray character Mocata's robed body, and sort of built themselves
Speaker 1: a poster out of an images from the film. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: this mass it's worse. Simon and Tanneth are going to
Speaker 1: be baptized in the name of Satan. So Rex goes
Speaker 1: to a nearby pay phone and summons the Duke, and
Speaker 1: so the Duke comes and joins him, and then they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: we've got to stop this. We've got to stop this
Speaker 1: before they are baptized to the evil One. So they
Speaker 1: decide they're going to how do they The duke is like,
Speaker 1: I wish there were some light, and then he's like,
Speaker 1: what has light? The headlights of a car. So they're like,
Speaker 1: we can defeat them with car. So they get into
Speaker 1: a car and then they drive up on the on
Speaker 1: the ceremony, blasting the headlights. I guess they turned the
Speaker 1: brights on, and that seems to I don't know, it
Speaker 1: does something. Everybody's like, oh. And then they lob a
Speaker 1: second holy hand grenade. They throw a crucifix at the
Speaker 1: goat and the explodes. Yeah. Yeah, And then Rex is
Speaker 1: in there punch and Satanists grabbing Tanneth, carrying her off,
Speaker 1: And I was struck by the It's kind of ironic
Speaker 1: that we don't see the goat creature. We don't see
Speaker 1: the Great Goat, the Devil himself carrying an unconscious woman,
Speaker 1: but we do see Rex grabbing our female character and
Speaker 1: running off into the night with her. Yes, And they
Speaker 1: also they rescue Tanneth and Simon and they take them
Speaker 1: back to Richard and Marie's house, where where Christopher Lee
Speaker 1: promptly starts managing everybody's sleeping arrangements. He's like, you will
Speaker 1: go to bed, and you will sit beside the person
Speaker 1: who goes to bed, and commanding, So commanding people what
Speaker 1: to do, I think. So he gives them all these
Speaker 1: instructions while he goes out to fetch some magical implements.
Speaker 1: And then there's another big set piece, which is and
Speaker 1: this scene I actually thought was pretty effective in the
Speaker 1: way it was meant to be, uh, the visit by Mocada.
Speaker 1: So like Charles Gray just shows up at the door.
Speaker 1: Mocada arrives at the house and he, I guess it's
Speaker 1: proper courtesy to invite someone in, even if they are
Speaker 1: the priest of the High Priest of Satan. So you
Speaker 1: know he's invited him by by Marie. And then Mokatta
Speaker 1: and Marie sit down in the study to have a
Speaker 1: conversation where he will ask her to hand Simon and
Speaker 1: Tanneth over to him. He says, I'm not actually evil
Speaker 1: in magic, there is no good or evil, and then
Speaker 1: he tries to hypnotize her and bind her will to
Speaker 1: his by the power of darkness. And I gotta say
Speaker 1: props to Charles Gray in this scene, while he is
Speaker 1: often funny in this movie. In this scene, he is
Speaker 1: extremely good, I think, actually rather scary. Yeah, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: great in this scene. There's also another sequence where it's
Speaker 1: just the cult is marching out of the observatory house
Speaker 1: with some kind of thunderous music and he's up front
Speaker 1: with a very stern look on his face, where he
Speaker 1: also feels very powerful and a little bit scary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he so he's hypnotized Marie and he's like, where
Speaker 1: is Simon and she says upstairs, which I mean he
Speaker 1: probably could have guessed that. But anyway, so he's trying to,
Speaker 1: I guess, get get them out of the house. But
Speaker 1: then he fails because the kid living in the house, Peggy,
Speaker 1: she runs in asking for a snack or something or
Speaker 1: she's like, where's my ball? And then Maria is snapped
Speaker 1: out of her trance and asks Macada to leave. And
Speaker 1: I thought that was funny, especially because Rachel was like,
Speaker 1: it's the kid that's going to defeat the devil. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's also kind of it reminded me, of course, of
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones, like next time, Dr Jones, It'll take more
Speaker 1: than children to save you. Oh yeah, yeah. But so
Speaker 1: Makata has asked to leave. He does, but then there's
Speaker 1: a great line he says, I will not be back,
Speaker 1: but something will. Oh and that's that's something. Should we
Speaker 1: talk about that something? Well? Yeah, I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: this leads into the main thing that's left in the movie,
Speaker 1: which is the siege of the magic Circle. So the
Speaker 1: Duke returns with his magical implements and he draws a
Speaker 1: protective circle on the floor of the library in the house. Uh,
Speaker 1: It's got symbols all around it, and inside the circle,
Speaker 1: the Uke, Simon, Marie, and Richard have to wait out
Speaker 1: the night while being besieged by the forces of evil
Speaker 1: that are sent by Mocada and I think conjured through
Speaker 1: the medium of Tanneth. This got kind of complicated, but
Speaker 1: I think the idea is that Mokata somehow uses Tanneth
Speaker 1: to like make himself more powerful. He like manifests power
Speaker 1: through her, and for that reason, Tanneth is like, I
Speaker 1: can't be in the house. So meanwhile, while they're in
Speaker 1: the library, Rex and Tanneth run off to a barn somewhere.
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly how all that works, but that's
Speaker 1: where they go. Uh. And the other thing. I was wondering,
Speaker 1: why don't Peggy and the butler have to be inside
Speaker 1: the magic circle. The other four people in the house
Speaker 1: are in the circle. Peggy and Butler just up in
Speaker 1: a room somewhere. Yeah, I would. I mean, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: want my child to see the forces of darkness that
Speaker 1: have been marshal against me. But if they're going to
Speaker 1: be in the house with the forces of darkness, I
Speaker 1: think I would rather than be like in the circle.
Speaker 1: I guess today, if this were to happen, I could
Speaker 1: give my son an iPad and he would be fine.
Speaker 1: He just watched Pokemon, and you could have the forces
Speaker 1: of darkness doing their thing outside the circle and he
Speaker 1: wouldn't even look up. But how are you going to
Speaker 1: keep a kid this age distracted during the thirties, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Well anyway, So we get the siege here
Speaker 1: and Rob, do you want to describe the attacks that
Speaker 1: befalled them while they're they're waiting out the night in
Speaker 1: the circle? Alright? So? Uh yeah? So the first attack
Speaker 1: was stone dude, second attack was the great he Goat,
Speaker 1: third attack here, third summoning is going to be none
Speaker 1: other than the Angel of Death and It is pretty
Speaker 1: alarming when this one summoned, because suddenly the door opens,
Speaker 1: white light spilling out, and a perhaps semi transparent it
Speaker 1: is hard to hard to see. Winged horse rides in,
Speaker 1: and the rider on the horses this individual and armor.
Speaker 1: You can't see his face. But then eventually he rides
Speaker 1: up close enough and we get this close up like
Speaker 1: blue flames behind his head. The mask opens and it's
Speaker 1: a skull. Yeah, the Angel of Death is here to
Speaker 1: claim a human soul. Robert. One thing. I agree with
Speaker 1: everything you said, but I think we're out of order
Speaker 1: here because I think the spider attacks before the angels death. Okay, well, okay,
Speaker 1: in that case, we get a lackluster giant spider attack, right,
Speaker 1: So that comes tricks them with all these illusions like
Speaker 1: the the the devil keeps simulating people they know, asking
Speaker 1: for help or trying to get them to step outside
Speaker 1: the circle. That pretends to be Peggy being attacked by
Speaker 1: the spider, but it's not really her. And of course
Speaker 1: the Duke is like, control yourself, man, stand there and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, and then but then we get the Angel
Speaker 1: of Death. I have to say the spider again. The
Speaker 1: spider does not look very good. No, it's just a
Speaker 1: tarantulo with force, perspective and stuff. But then, so how
Speaker 1: do they defeat the Angel of Death? Christopher Lee has
Speaker 1: introduced this idea earlier that the only thing he can
Speaker 1: do to to fight back against these forces is to
Speaker 1: say this spell the most dangerous magic spell in the world,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I I dare not say it unless
Speaker 1: our very souls are at pair role because it could
Speaker 1: destroy the entire universe. But I did memorize it just
Speaker 1: in case. Yeah, but he does say it. He says
Speaker 1: it at the Angel of Death and that that banishes it.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the night, so they've made
Speaker 1: it through, but things look bad because Rex comes back
Speaker 1: and he's holding the body of Tanneth. Tanneth has died
Speaker 1: and also Peggy has disappeared, so so they're in dire
Speaker 1: straits now. But where have they gone? Well, the Duke
Speaker 1: has to figure this out by conjuring the ghost of
Speaker 1: Tanneth in the body of Marie and then again commanding
Speaker 1: and yelling at her, saying tell me where have they gone?
Speaker 1: I command you? But this leads to a final confrontation
Speaker 1: at the Mansion Moccada, where he has an on site
Speaker 1: temple for human sacrifice. I think he's going to sacrifice
Speaker 1: Peggy for some reason. What was it? He says, it's
Speaker 1: the transference of souls. I think it's like, if he
Speaker 1: sacrifices Peggy, then Tanneth will be brought back to him.
Speaker 1: Maybe Yeah. And they need Tanneth for satanic reasons for
Speaker 1: something yeah. And then in the end, the ghost of Tanneth,
Speaker 1: speaking through Marie, says the same dangerous spell that Christopher
Speaker 1: Lee said earlier, gets the child to say it, and
Speaker 1: this destroys the cult, destroys Mokada, and then we get oh,
Speaker 1: this ending, it's it is a causally justified. It was
Speaker 1: all a dream ending where they wake up back at
Speaker 1: Richard and Marie's house in the Magic Circle. Everyone who
Speaker 1: is dead is now alive except Mokata, who has been
Speaker 1: killed in the in exchange, and uh, and the Duke
Speaker 1: explains time has been reversed. Everything that happened happened, but
Speaker 1: now it has not happened. And then the movie just
Speaker 1: ends with a very stern insistence that God is in charge. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Nothing like a time travel out of nowhere, ending with
Speaker 1: the off screen death of the villain, which also seems
Speaker 1: an awful lot like speculation on the Duke's part. He's
Speaker 1: just like, what happened to Okada? He's like, oh, well
Speaker 1: he died. Now in this new version of things that happened.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna show it to you or tell you
Speaker 1: what would it looked like, but trust me, it happened. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then and then one of the characters, maybe it's
Speaker 1: Rex or Simon's like thank God and uh. And the
Speaker 1: Duke is like, yes, all thanks to God. So they
Speaker 1: it is he we must thank yes, yes, so all
Speaker 1: thanks go to God for intervening wiping out all the villains. Um.
Speaker 1: But unlike say Raiders of the Lost Arc, we're pretty
Speaker 1: much a similar thing happens like God enters the picture
Speaker 1: and just and fixes everything. Uh. And we get to
Speaker 1: see it and Nazis explode and melt and so forth. Uh.
Speaker 1: Instead we're just told it happened, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: Everybody can go to bed. Yeah. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: Dais x marchia. Uh. And for some reason, why does
Speaker 1: the Dais x machina work in Raiders of the Lost
Speaker 1: Ark where it almost never works otherwise because we get
Speaker 1: to watch the daist that's the thing, Like, we we
Speaker 1: get to see the forces of heaven come down from above. Uh.
Speaker 1: We get to see the Hebrew God avenge himself and
Speaker 1: his people against the Nazis and just utterly destonate them
Speaker 1: with splendid special effects. Uh. You know. So obviously this
Speaker 1: film didn't have the budget for that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: But I think that's one of the reasons it works
Speaker 1: so well in uh, in the in Raiders of the
Speaker 1: Lost Arc. Yeah, I guess it's also the fact that
Speaker 1: at the end of Raiders that the that Indian Marian there,
Speaker 1: their insight that they have to survive at the end
Speaker 1: is humility, and that they must humble themselves and close
Speaker 1: their eyes. Yeah. But I could imagine something like that
Speaker 1: happening in this film, and I wouldn't have bought it
Speaker 1: with the Duke, because the Duke would be like, I
Speaker 1: know exactly what's happening. Everyone close your eyes, Simon, shut
Speaker 1: your eyes. Shut your eyes. I will keep my eyes
Speaker 1: open for the rest of you. I can peak. It's okay,
Speaker 1: I know what I'm doing. Well. That brings up a
Speaker 1: really good question about I'm curious about the religious sensibilities
Speaker 1: of this movie, which are clearly mostly you know, their
Speaker 1: anti devil and their conservative But what exactly is the
Speaker 1: religious affiliation of the Duke's supposed to be? He he
Speaker 1: seems to be nominally Christian, at least insofar as Christianity
Speaker 1: is opposed to the devil, which is the bad guy.
Speaker 1: And there is one line where Christopher Lee like grills
Speaker 1: the ghost of Tanneth with that question. He says, like,
Speaker 1: do you acknowledge Jesus Christ? But then Lee is just
Speaker 1: straight up doing occult magic and defeating the enemy with
Speaker 1: esoteric spells. So is he supposed to be a down
Speaker 1: the line conservative Christian or is he supposed to be
Speaker 1: an occult wizard? And at least all the environments I'm
Speaker 1: familiar with these things are supposed to be mutually exclusive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, they don't really play up the idea
Speaker 1: that there's like good magic and bad magic like that
Speaker 1: would have I think that would have been kind of
Speaker 1: ultimately maybe a more modern telling of this, and maybe
Speaker 1: it would have been more fun if it was like
Speaker 1: we have just dueling occultists here. Uh. One occultist is
Speaker 1: leaning hard into the black magic and the other one
Speaker 1: is a little more sensible about how he's using everything.
Speaker 1: But yeah, ultimately I think we get more of that.
Speaker 1: It's it's more like them, it's more of the satanic
Speaker 1: panic energy. It's ultimately kind of more like the like
Speaker 1: the Hinrich Kramer or Hammer the Witches kind of energy
Speaker 1: where it's like, I'm I can be super knowledgeable about
Speaker 1: all of this stuff and like weirdly super into it.
Speaker 1: But it's okay because I'm here to stamp it out,
Speaker 1: you know. But yeah, we don't see Christopher Lee's character
Speaker 1: the Duke go into church or anything. Uh. He just
Speaker 1: name drives Jesus and uh and God, you know twice
Speaker 1: in the whole picture, and throws the crucifix grenades. Yeah
Speaker 1: he'll throw He'll heave some some crosses around for sure.
Speaker 1: So yeah, ultimately, uh, it's it's a very fun picture.
Speaker 1: There's a lot lot to think about if you approach
Speaker 1: it from the right direction. Um, so I recommend it.
Speaker 1: You can. You can pick this one up in a
Speaker 1: few different places. There are some different Hammer like DVD
Speaker 1: packs and so forth. But in twenty nineteen, Shout Factory
Speaker 1: put out an absolutely amazing Blu Ray edition. Uh, this
Speaker 1: is the one that we rented from Video Drone for
Speaker 1: this episode. And yeah, this one would make the great
Speaker 1: Heat proud lots of extras, wonderful bright yellow he goat
Speaker 1: um menu screen that I was very impressed with, and
Speaker 1: just more more extras and special features then you could
Speaker 1: conceivably even want. Like Christopher Lee has his own commentary
Speaker 1: track on this one, so um, I recommend picking that
Speaker 1: up or renting it if you have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: do so. You might find it streaming somewhere as well.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the exact streaming options might be
Speaker 1: for this picture. We'd love to hear from everyone out
Speaker 1: there though, if you have thoughts on this picture or others,
Speaker 1: you know, what, what are your favorite Hammer horror films?
Speaker 1: We know we have some some Hammer fans out there
Speaker 1: right in let us know. We'd love to hear from you. Uh.
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema comes out every Friday and the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind podcast feed were primarily a science podcast,
Speaker 1: but on Fridays we set most of the serious matters
Speaker 1: aside and we just talked about a weird film such
Speaker 1: as this one. UM. I also go ahead mentioned that
Speaker 1: I maintain a blog Samuda Music dot com s E
Speaker 1: M U T A M U S I C. And
Speaker 1: that's just a blog where I'll list the episodes that
Speaker 1: we have done on Weirdhouse Cinema. So if you want
Speaker 1: a complete list of the films we've looked at, as
Speaker 1: well as some embedded media here and there with you know,
Speaker 1: trailers that we discuss, bits of music that we discuss,
Speaker 1: I will host them there. Big thanks as always to
Speaker 1: our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson, but he is
Speaker 1: out this week, so huge thanks as well to our
Speaker 1: guest producer Paul Decant. Really appreciate you stepping in. Paul.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
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