Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 2: And this is Joe McCormick, and today we're going into
Speaker 2: the vault for an older episode of Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: This one originally aired on April fifteenth, twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: and it's our episode on the Devil Rides Out.
Speaker 1: That's right as we're reairing this, we're halfway through our
Speaker 1: Look at the wicker Man, and so you know we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking. We're talking about Christopher Lee a lot.
Speaker 1: So this is this is another very interesting Christopher Lee film.
Speaker 1: Plays a very dour character, but we have a lot
Speaker 1: of fun with it. So I hope you enjoy.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 2: And this is Joe McCormick. And today on the show,
Speaker 2: we're going to be talking about The Devil Rides Out,
Speaker 2: a nineteen sixty eight hammer horror film about the perverted
Speaker 2: terrors of the Satanic cults operating throughout inter War Britain.
Speaker 2: This movie stars Christopher Lee and Charles Gray and is
Speaker 2: based on a novel from the nineteen thirties by Dennis Wheatley,
Speaker 2: and I will say all of the satanic themes aside.
Speaker 2: If I could only make one comment about this film,
Speaker 2: it's that it is a jackpot for anybody who likes
Speaker 2: listening to Christopher Lee telling people not to do things
Speaker 2: and ordering them to go to bed.
Speaker 1: Yes and not Chiltern, mind you, grown adults.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is one of the most paternalistic movies I've
Speaker 2: ever seen. It has an authority figure as Christopher Lee.
Speaker 2: He represents order, the Sign of the Cross, conservative values,
Speaker 2: and he's just bosson everybody around constantly.
Speaker 1: Everyone stand back, the proper British adults are here.
Speaker 2: It's funny because I, of course I love Christopher Lee,
Speaker 2: but his character in this movie is so pompously self
Speaker 2: serious and bossy and paternalistic. I feel like it's going
Speaker 2: to be nearly impossible for modern audiences to avoid regarding
Speaker 2: this character with anything other than like amusement or contempt,
Speaker 2: which I think can be extrapolated to feelings about the
Speaker 2: movie in general, because this is a very competently made
Speaker 2: horror movie. But if you were to just give me
Speaker 2: the pitch, like you know, read me a description of
Speaker 2: what this is going to be. It's a hammer horror
Speaker 2: movie made in nineteen sixty eight about satanic cults, starring
Speaker 2: Christopher Lee as Maximum Order Daddy and Charles Gray as
Speaker 2: a psychic Aleister Crowley who likes to make people garrot
Speaker 2: themselves with necklaces. I would assume this was going to
Speaker 2: be a jolly, campy frolic charged up with like gratuitous
Speaker 2: sex and fangs and orange blood, but no uncarre. Characteristically
Speaker 2: for its provenance, this movie is culturally conservative and deadly serious,
Speaker 2: which in this context means it is pretty much just
Speaker 2: inviting us to laugh at it rather than with it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean not that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: built in laughs in this film anyway, but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: very much one where you have to find some fun
Speaker 1: in a character like Christopher Lee's character, or really most
Speaker 1: of the adult characters in this film, because they're very
Speaker 1: hard to root for, impossible to love.
Speaker 2: Another thing I would say is that looking at the
Speaker 2: film's marketing material would also lead the average person, I think,
Speaker 2: to the wrong conclusion about its tone and content.
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, especially concerning the poster art. Now, this was
Speaker 1: originally released under the title We're discussing It as the
Speaker 1: Devil Rides Out. This is the British title. This was
Speaker 1: the title of the book upon which it was based,
Speaker 1: And so the British poster had like a devil riding
Speaker 1: a horse and it looks pretty cool. I wouldn't shy
Speaker 1: away from putting this on the wall. But then it's
Speaker 1: released in the United States as The Devil's Bride, supposedly
Speaker 1: because they thought The Devil Rides Out sounds too much
Speaker 1: like a Western 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 motorcycling to me,
Speaker 1: and they're like, 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 sixties nineteen seventies horror posters
Speaker 1: you could possibly go for.
Speaker 2: Right, So it has our goat head demon, our goat
Speaker 2: of Mendez, which does appear in the movie. The funny
Speaker 2: thing about him is he has the goat horns, but
Speaker 2: then he also has floppy ears, and you would think, oh,
Speaker 2: the floppy ears. That makes him look funny and cute,
Speaker 2: But they add to the horror that it works. He's
Speaker 2: got a big eye in his belly and his row
Speaker 2: and then he's like holding one of the main actresses
Speaker 2: in this movie in his arms, presumably you know, to
Speaker 2: take her to hell with him. And then in his
Speaker 2: robes you see reflect did a lot of the monsters
Speaker 2: and horrors that appear throughout the film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, beautiful yellow background that also kind of works, And
Speaker 1: it's just it's a beautiful poster. Also, I would say
Speaker 1: that just the image of the monster man carrying the woman,
Speaker 1: the unconscious woman. This is of course an iconic theme
Speaker 1: you find in various poster art from Yester Year, not
Speaker 1: entirely unproblematic, but still very iconic. So this one, this
Speaker 1: poster is really hitting a number of buttons, really coming
Speaker 1: out with guns ablazing and makes you think this is
Speaker 1: going to be the psychedelic satanic film par excellence. And
Speaker 1: I have to say, if that is what you're expecting,
Speaker 1: be prepared to be maybe a little bit disappointed and
Speaker 1: find yourself going in a slightly different direction. It's still
Speaker 1: this film is still a lot of fun. It has
Speaker 1: some great satanic stuff in it, some great Black Master
Speaker 1: magic sequences. But this is a scene depicted on the
Speaker 1: poster that does not actually occur in the film. It's
Speaker 1: kind of constructed from elements of the film.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that we must stress is that
Speaker 2: this is a film that has not just one, but
Speaker 2: two Bond villain actors in it. So, of course Chris
Speaker 2: fer Lee. You know, we know Chris fh Lee on
Speaker 2: the show. He plays the assassin Scaramanga in The Man
Speaker 2: with the Golden Gun, a Roger Moore Bond movie from
Speaker 2: the seventies I think, widely regarded as one of the
Speaker 2: worst Bond movies. And then you have Charles Gray as
Speaker 2: the villain in this movie, who plays Blowfeld and Diamonds
Speaker 2: Are Forever, the latter of which is, without a doubt,
Speaker 2: the funniest Bond villain portrayal in the entire history of
Speaker 2: the franchise. Have you seen Diamonds Are Forever?
Speaker 1: Okay, I've seen both of these, but both of them
Speaker 1: I last saw them when I was a child. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the Man with the Golden Gun I remember is
Speaker 1: being amazing because he had that golden gun.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that's the only thing I remember.
Speaker 5: Though.
Speaker 2: The Golden Gun is very cool, and chrispher Lee is
Speaker 2: very cool, but Charles Gray and Diamonds Are Forever. He
Speaker 2: he plays Blowfeld with this. I don't know what you
Speaker 2: called the style of vocal delivery, but it's the Charles
Speaker 2: Grays and yeah, yes, yes, maybe.
Speaker 1: Is that the one that takes place in Vegas a
Speaker 1: little bit?
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, they got Las Vegas. That one's not good either.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I barely remember that one, but you know you,
Speaker 1: you'd be brought up pub Blofeld. This reminds me of something.
Speaker 1: So one of the things I kept thinking about in
Speaker 1: this film was like, oh, we got two Bond villains.
Speaker 1: We got a Bond villain actor, famous Bond villain actor
Speaker 1: playing the hero and a famous Bond villain actor playing
Speaker 1: the villain.
Speaker 2: And though this movie was before both of those.
Speaker 1: Right, right, but it made me wonder, especially with Christopher Lee,
Speaker 1: is Christopher Lee just not good at playing Like how
Speaker 1: much of it is is like he just needs to
Speaker 1: play villains. This is an actor who excels at playing villains,
Speaker 1: and maybe he shouldn't play the heroes. And then how
Speaker 1: much of it is just like this is kind of
Speaker 1: a crummy hero role.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, I think it might be more
Speaker 2: the latter because okay, so he's a villain in this
Speaker 2: other movie. But you might think, well, maybe the problem
Speaker 2: is he's just too imperious and he can't be a
Speaker 2: kind of he can't have that likable, jolly protagonist energy
Speaker 2: that you would need to really get people on your side.
Speaker 2: But I would say he has that as the villain
Speaker 2: in The wicker Man. Oh when I showed so when
Speaker 2: Rachel and I watched The Devil Rides Out, Rachel observed
Speaker 2: that this movie is kind of inverse Wickerman. It's with
Speaker 2: Christopher Lee playing the Sergeant Howie character in The wicker Man,
Speaker 2: just like a very uptight conservative person in the face
Speaker 2: of all of this depravity and devil worship.
Speaker 1: That's a good point, I guess.
Speaker 2: In The Wickerman it's not explicitly devil it's you know, paganism.
Speaker 2: Though of course, I would say the mindset that makes
Speaker 2: a lot of these Satanism movies and stuff like Denni
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 2: And that's the other thing is that this movie, I
Speaker 2: would say is Satanic Panic before the Satanic Panic. It's
Speaker 2: like a progenitor of Satanic Panic. Even going back to
Speaker 2: the novel which came out, It did come out in
Speaker 2: the nineteen thirties, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was a nineteen thirties novel. And I've actually
Speaker 1: read that like this the books of Dennis Wheatley, because
Speaker 1: there's more than one that ends up concerningly a cult,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into that in the bit. I've read
Speaker 1: that these helped sort of influence the you know what
Speaker 1: would become proper Satanic Panic in the decades to follow,
Speaker 1: believe historian Philip but Jenkins has particularly pointed to a
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven novel by Herbert Gorman titled The Place
Speaker 1: Called Dagon and pointed this out as a key influence
Speaker 1: on the Satanic Panic themes to come, and the book
Speaker 1: apparently influenced such occult authors as Dennisweetly, as HP Lovecraft,
Speaker 1: and Robert Block.
Speaker 2: Now, I noticed that right before you picked this movie
Speaker 2: for Weird House, you sent me a you sent me
Speaker 2: a link to a news segment produced sometime in the
Speaker 2: eighties that was pure Satanic Panic. It was just it's
Speaker 2: unreal the kind of stuff that used to run on
Speaker 2: like mainstream media in the American press and on TV
Speaker 2: in the eighties, I think was what was this twenty
Speaker 2: twenty or.
Speaker 1: I'd believe it was, yeah, twenty twenty satanic panic.
Speaker 2: Making, just like on his face, absolutely absurd claims about
Speaker 2: devil ritual you know, satanic rituals and stuff like that
Speaker 2: going on in America, but presented completely seriously as if
Speaker 2: this is one hundred percent fact. Interviewing these experts who
Speaker 2: are obviously like have no idea what they're talking about,
Speaker 2: you know, finding devil worship in every movie and music.
Speaker 2: One thing that was weird is it even singled out
Speaker 2: a movie like The Exorcist, which I would say is
Speaker 2: a movie that is about as faithfully Catholic as a
Speaker 2: movie could be.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's ultimately the demons
Speaker 1: are there, but God is there. Yeah, maybe it's I
Speaker 1: mean the Exorcist, especially at the time, was regarded as
Speaker 1: a pretty extreme film and you know, very shocking and
Speaker 1: was very much the talk of the town. Maybe part
Speaker 1: of that is, like it's not necessarily about having watched
Speaker 1: the Exorcists, about the idea that the Exorcist exists, you know,
Speaker 1: it's popularizing Satanic themes.
Speaker 2: I guess. But so anyway, so you got interested, I guess,
Speaker 2: in in these like satanic panic movies through that or
Speaker 2: is that a coincidence?
Speaker 1: Oh? I mean I'm always interested in Satanic themes and things.
Speaker 1: You know, it's you know, it's it's part of it's
Speaker 1: become such a part of our pop culture. So many
Speaker 1: of the move There are so many movies on our
Speaker 1: list of potential episodes that concern Satan worshippers in one
Speaker 1: way or another. Though weirdly enough, I think the first
Speaker 1: Satan worship movie that I saw as a child was
Speaker 1: the Dragnet movie that Dan Akroyd did. Do you remember
Speaker 1: this one?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tom Hanks?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well yeah, dan Akroyd and Tom Hanks and I
Speaker 1: forget who plays like the high Priest of Satan. But
Speaker 1: it's like.
Speaker 2: Hollywood and Jackie Allance.
Speaker 1: Maybe jack Punce is in there. There's some older actor,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's that's I don't really remember that movie
Speaker 1: is good or not, but it has a lot of
Speaker 1: Satanic cult in Hollywood of kind of imagery, you know,
Speaker 1: the robes, the goats, the satiric ex drugs, every kind
Speaker 1: of filth. Yeah, so I mean, yeah, if you're into
Speaker 1: if you're into horror films, if you're into into like
Speaker 1: metal music or anything like that, you know, like the
Speaker 1: various themes of like movie satanism are kind of unavoidable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well, should we hear some trailer audio.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 4: Ricks. Do you believe in evil? That's an idea. Do
Speaker 4: you believe in the power of darkness? That's a superstition?
Speaker 2: How there?
Speaker 4: You were wrong? The power of darkness is more than
Speaker 4: just a superstition. It is a living force which can
Speaker 4: be tapped at any given moment of the night.
Speaker 5: Why on one night, on one ear should these people
Speaker 5: live in mortal fear?
Speaker 4: My God? The goat of mentis.
Speaker 2: The devil himself.
Speaker 5: Christopher Leasdrishna, who knows he must fight the devil's power
Speaker 5: to the death.
Speaker 4: My God, don't BLib it.
Speaker 5: The eyes Rex eyes, eyes once filled with love, are
Speaker 5: consumed with fear for taneth is.
Speaker 4: Now promise to the devil. Listen, care to what I've said.
Speaker 5: This is Makata, the Devil's chief disciple. Your will is
Speaker 5: leaving you, slipping away. The devil rides out from bestseller
Speaker 5: author Dennis Whakley's famous novel fills the screen with a
Speaker 5: special kind of visual quickly goodness. You will hear his evil,
Speaker 5: you will feel is evil, you will see is evil.
Speaker 1: All right, So, uh, before we get into the people here,
Speaker 1: we should probably don't know if we stressed. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you mentioned it briefly. But this is, of course
Speaker 1: a Hammer horror film. Have we discussed a Hammer film
Speaker 1: on the show before?
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, I know it's come up in passing.
Speaker 2: I don't know if we've featured one. We've talked about
Speaker 2: him with Seth a lot, our regular producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 2: I think sometime in the past couple of years got
Speaker 2: like the ultimate box set of Hammer films and was
Speaker 2: just going through them and we were talking about them all.
Speaker 2: So if you're not familiar, Hammer put out a lot
Speaker 2: of British horror films in the I don't know when
Speaker 2: their their full run was. I associate than with the
Speaker 2: sixties and the seventies, and you know a lot of
Speaker 2: films starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and various Dracula
Speaker 2: van Helsing Mummy kinds of roles. But then also they
Speaker 2: branched out into just more general kind of sexy vampire movies.
Speaker 1: Right right, Definitely, there's a shift that occurs as things
Speaker 1: get more into the late sixties seventies vibe. And one
Speaker 1: of the interesting things about this film that has been
Speaker 1: pointed out in particular, horror historian Kim Newman discusses this
Speaker 1: a little bit in a little short extra on the
Speaker 1: Splendid Blu Ray for this movie that this is ultimately
Speaker 1: more of a nineteen thirties movie. It has nineteen thirties
Speaker 1: horror sensibilities, or at least nineteen fifties I believe, more
Speaker 1: like a nineteen fifties horror movie, as opposed to a
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, you know, early seventies film, which would
Speaker 1: have been, you know, more in line with the cultural
Speaker 1: changes that are happening. This is a film, but it's
Speaker 1: more for the older generation that's terrified by what's occurring,
Speaker 1: but it's not ready to quite embrace it or exploited.
Speaker 2: Right. It came out in nineteen sixty eight, but it
Speaker 2: is it seems to be wagging a finger at the
Speaker 2: audience and cautioning them against any stranger or unorthodox beliefs
Speaker 2: or practices.
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's start at the top. The director
Speaker 1: on This Baby was Terence Fisher, who have nineteen oh
Speaker 1: four through nineteen eighty yeah, British film director best remembered
Speaker 1: for his Hammer films. He directed a slew of them,
Speaker 1: beginning in I Believe nineteen fifty one with the Last Page,
Speaker 1: but really kicking into high horror gear in nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: seven with the Curse of Frankenstein starring Christopher Lee and
Speaker 1: Peter Cushing. He was already an established TV and film
Speaker 1: director by this time, though, but he ended up directing
Speaker 1: a lot of the big Hammer films, including but not
Speaker 1: limited to, Horror of Dracula, Frankenstein in The Monster from Hell,
Speaker 1: Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Dracula, Prince of Darkness, and others.
Speaker 2: I have a big poster for Terrence Fisher's production of
Speaker 2: The Mummy right next to me on the wall here
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty nine, and I have the Belgian poster for it,
Speaker 2: I believe because the title on it is La Meledicion
Speaker 2: de Feron and to the Curse of the Pharaohs, I guess.
Speaker 2: But the poster is great because there's like the Mummy,
Speaker 2: which is played by Christopher Lee in the Terrence Fisher movie,
Speaker 2: but like it's approaching, and then there's a lady screaming
Speaker 2: in the foreground, and then behind the mummy people are
Speaker 2: shining a flashlight and the beam of light is just
Speaker 2: like piercing right through it.
Speaker 1: Oh, yes see, I have seen this poster. This is
Speaker 1: a beauty because there's kind of like a cosmic sense
Speaker 1: to the mummy in it. All right, we mentioned Dennis
Speaker 1: Sweetly already. Dennis Sweetly wrote the novel The Devil Rides
Speaker 1: Out upon which this is based. Wheaty lived eighteen ninety
Speaker 1: seven through nineteen seventy seven, British author of popular thriller novels,
Speaker 1: often with the cult themes. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that the Kim Newman points out is like this guy
Speaker 1: was a very popular author at the time. He says, like,
Speaker 1: if you went to the horror section of your British bookstore,
Speaker 1: half the books would be Dennis Sweetly novels. So he
Speaker 1: was a big deal. He was a popular author. He's
Speaker 1: said to have influenced the likes of Ian Fleming because
Speaker 1: a lot of his books were, especially his earlier stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, it's sleuth centered. You know, it's about espionage
Speaker 1: and spies, but also very much around based around the
Speaker 1: sort of you know, classic British machismo, you know, heroes
Speaker 1: going out and risking their lives, punching somebody in the
Speaker 1: face and saving a woman, that sort of thing. But
Speaker 1: then things begin to get a little more. He ends
Speaker 1: up throwing in more occult themes as he goes. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm certainly no weekly expert. I tried reading one of
Speaker 1: his books once and it didn't grab me. But my
Speaker 1: understanding is that, yeah, a lot of his series, and
Speaker 1: he has multiple series with recurring characters, start out more
Speaker 1: traditional and then end up latching onto occult themes. And
Speaker 1: we definitely see this in his Duc de Richelieu series,
Speaker 1: of which this book is part right.
Speaker 2: Christopher Lee's character in the movie is the Duke de Rischloh.
Speaker 2: I think his actual given name is Nicholas. They only
Speaker 2: say that like once or twice in the movie. Usually
Speaker 2: he's just Duke or the Duke or Rishchlow.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the first book in that series, however, is
Speaker 1: just pure espionage adventure, and then the second book that
Speaker 1: comes later is The Devil's Right. The Devil rides out
Speaker 1: full of not only a cultist and satanist, but actual
Speaker 1: supernatural forces. So it's like, imagine you had like a
Speaker 1: couple of James Bond movies and yeah, they've got giant
Speaker 1: squids and whatnot. But then in Super Science a little bit,
Speaker 1: but then you get to the point where it's like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: the Devil has shown up.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's James Bond versus Baphomet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sort of or kind of like a proto James Bond,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, because it's very much came first. But
Speaker 1: he has another series, the Gregory Sallas series, that I
Speaker 1: think does much the same thing. The first book, in
Speaker 1: That Black August from nineteen thirty four, imagines a futuristic
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty and economic collapse, so very much you know,
Speaker 1: a different beast. But then by nineteen sixty four he
Speaker 1: returns to that character in Used Dark Forces, which has
Speaker 1: the hero battling Nazi occultists and I think teaming up
Speaker 1: with another occultist to take them on. This is the
Speaker 1: one that I actually tried to read once and just
Speaker 1: could not get into it. Your mileage may vary, but
Speaker 1: I could not get into Wheeley.
Speaker 2: When you pasted in a paragraph from the opening page
Speaker 2: of The Devil Rides Out, I got to say I
Speaker 2: was not attracted to the prose style.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think. I don't think. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of certainly modern critics that are praising his pros. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the interesting things, since this is the this
Speaker 1: is not the first book to have these characters in it,
Speaker 1: you could consider this movie a sequel to the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty four All Spy Zero Satan's thriller Forbidden Territory, directed
Speaker 1: by Phil Rosen and based on the first Duke novel,
Speaker 1: though the protagonist's name and I think all the main characters'
Speaker 1: names are changed for some reason. Alfred Hitchcock originally optioned
Speaker 1: the book. Speaking of film adaptation, so wheat Leave's occult
Speaker 1: novel To the Devil a Daughter was adapted in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy six starring Christopher Lee, Richard Winmark Denholm, Elliott, and
Speaker 1: Natasha Kinsky, and other films based on his work include
Speaker 1: The Secret of Stambol and The Lost Continent. He allegedly
Speaker 1: invited Alistair Crowley to dinner to research The Devil Rides Out.
Speaker 1: I ran across that tidbit. I don't know if they
Speaker 1: actually had dinner, maybe just invited him, But anybody, anybody
Speaker 1: could invite Alistair Crawley to dinner, So I don't know.
Speaker 2: Well, I would say again, one thing to stress about
Speaker 2: this is that this is different than a lot of
Speaker 2: the other devil worship movies horror movies that you might
Speaker 2: see from the early seventies, because I would say, this
Speaker 2: is in itself and is based on material that is
Speaker 2: genuinely contemptuous of any alternative religious practice or devil worship
Speaker 2: or anything perceived as devil worship. It believes that is real,
Speaker 2: that people actually do it, and it is evil and
Speaker 2: will destroy you. So this is I think that the
Speaker 2: author here is it's not just like exploitation. It is
Speaker 2: genuine belief in the danger of the Satanic forces massing
Speaker 2: against good society. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The original intro by the author is kind of
Speaker 1: funny to read because he's like, this is all fiction,
Speaker 1: but I did research it, and I am convinced Satanist
Speaker 1: are 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 going to exploit this.
Speaker 1: I'm comfortable exploiting this, but don't look into this any
Speaker 1: further than what I have presented here.
Speaker 2: It kind of reminds me of like the Da Vinci Code,
Speaker 2: you know, the Dan Brown books, where he's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: so this is a work of fiction, but all of
Speaker 2: the historical claims and the situation of this story are
Speaker 2: one hundred percent real and true, which in Dan Brown's case,
Speaker 2: they are not right, all.
Speaker 1: Right, So yes, to my taste, 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: twenty six through twenty thirteen. American writer who is best
Speaker 1: remembered as the author of the excellent nineteen fifty four
Speaker 1: novel I Am Legend, upon which three films have been based.
Speaker 1: Sixty four is The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one's The Omega Man starring Chuck Heston, in
Speaker 1: two thousand and sevens I Am Legend starring Will Smith.
Speaker 1: He also wrote the excellent Haunted House novel Hell House,
Speaker 1: the thriller Duel, and the Shrinking Man. All these were
Speaker 1: adapted into films Duel by a young Steven Spielberg, as
Speaker 1: well as other adaptations include What Dreams May Come, A
Speaker 1: Stir of Echoes, and others. He also wrote a lot
Speaker 1: of TV, including sixteen episodes of the original Twilight Zone,
Speaker 1: including the iconic Nightmare at twenty thousand Feet episode, and
Speaker 1: he also wrote for such shows as Night Gallant, Original
Speaker 1: Star Trek, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour Thriller, and as far
Speaker 1: as films go, his screenplays include Trilogy of Terror, Corman's
Speaker 1: House of Usher, and of course Jaws three D.
Speaker 2: Jaws three D. That was Matheson. Yeah wow.
Speaker 1: I mean. One of the things about Matheson, and this
Speaker 1: is something that Kim Newman points out, is like Matheson
Speaker 1: was great. Matheson's you know, work certainly holds up to
Speaker 1: a modern reader, so much better than Wheatley. But also
Speaker 1: he worked with Corman a bit, so he could also
Speaker 1: work very fast. Yes, and presumably he says, you could
Speaker 1: probably work on a reasonable budget if you're working for Corman.
Speaker 2: So okay, I see. So it's the Corman principle. It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, coming to Charles B. Griffith and saying I
Speaker 2: need a movie called Attack of the Giant Crabs. It
Speaker 2: needs to be done in four days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, presumably, But anyway, I mean written, mathes is great
Speaker 1: and 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 you know, American writing force that
Speaker 1: is adapting it and tweaking it a little bit and
Speaker 1: also ultimately removing many things that probably didn't work all
Speaker 1: that well. In the Wheely novel.
Speaker 2: One last Thing, I didn't know that Matheson had written
Speaker 2: one of the Corman Poe movies, and I'd been thinking,
Speaker 2: we need to do one of the Corman Poe movies.
Speaker 1: Oh well, stay tuned, we may just do that, all right. Now,
Speaker 1: let's get into the cast here. So kind of like
Speaker 1: last last episode, the last new episode we did. I mean,
Speaker 1: what can you say about Christopher Lee, who plays the
Speaker 1: duke here. You know, he's been in so many things,
Speaker 1: lived nineteen twenty two through twenty fifteen. 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: you know, he's known for playing so many villains, Dracula, Sorrowman,
Speaker 1: Scott Amanga, Count Dooku, Lord summer Isle, Frankenstein's Monster, Kris
Speaker 1: The Mummy. He also voiced the villain King Hagrid in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two. Is the Last Unicorn, which I just
Speaker 1: watched more than half of with my family last night
Speaker 1: and was really enjoying that so and that also reminded
Speaker 1: I was looking up some stuff about Last Unicorn on
Speaker 1: Last Unicorn is one of these where they hired Christopher
Speaker 1: Lee for it, and he was very enthusiastic about it,
Speaker 1: apparently a big reader, and he showed up with the
Speaker 1: original novel with things earmarked, saying, these absolutely cannot be cut.
Speaker 1: These lines have to stay in the picture. And he
Speaker 1: apparently did this with Lord of the Rings as well. Oh,
Speaker 1: and probably with this film, because I understand that The
Speaker 1: Devil Rides Out was also a film where he liked
Speaker 1: the book and he was really excited for the film
Speaker 1: and probably showed up with the book and was like, no, sorry, Matheson,
Speaker 1: this goes in this.
Speaker 2: That's funny because I actually watched part of an interview
Speaker 2: or I think it was an audience Q and A
Speaker 2: with some event that he was doing, and a member
Speaker 2: of the audience asks him, you know, it's been rumored
Speaker 2: that you have a large occult library. Is that true?
Speaker 2: And how'd you get interested in that? And he says, no,
Speaker 2: it is not true. I have maybe four or five
Speaker 2: books on the occult, and one of them, he says,
Speaker 2: is an original copy of The Devil Rides Out, signed
Speaker 2: by the author, So he's clearly a fan. But then
Speaker 2: he also cautions the audience not to experiment with devil worship.
Speaker 1: He's basically the Duke.
Speaker 2: But I mean, yeah, gotta love Christopher Lee. It's hard
Speaker 2: to pick a favorite role. I'm tempted to go. I mean,
Speaker 2: he is Saruman to me. It's one of those performances
Speaker 2: that is so thoroughly the character that it replaces whatever
Speaker 2: imagination you might have had from the book before you
Speaker 2: saw the movie. He just embodies it perfectly. But then
Speaker 2: the other thing I would say, maybe even more than that,
Speaker 2: is Lord Summerle. I mean, he is the general and
Speaker 2: Pagan from the Wickerman. It's it's it just can't be beat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, these these are all great roles. I love
Speaker 1: all the roles that I mentioned already, and and there
Speaker 1: are plenty of Christopher Lee performances out there I haven't seen,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure there's some other gems.
Speaker 2: I know. One thing I've said on the show before,
Speaker 2: I'm not a huge fan of the the Star Wars prequels,
Speaker 2: but there's always that moment when Christopher Lee shows up
Speaker 2: in them where I think the way I've put it before,
Speaker 2: and I stand by this, is that it's like in
Speaker 2: a movie that is kind of stuffy and suffocating, Christopher
Speaker 2: Lee walks on screen and suddenly it's like someone has
Speaker 2: opened a window and let fresh air and now everything's oh,
Speaker 2: oh oh, things feel great now.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love his betrayal of Dooku in those two Star
Speaker 1: Wars films, and I especially love in the opening of
Speaker 1: the Revenge of the Sith, 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 it's fate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great sequence, and Lee's great in it because
Speaker 1: he's you know, he's very much He's great. He was
Speaker 1: always great at playing this kind of grandiose and egotistical villain,
Speaker 1: and then we get to see like the vulnerability briefly
Speaker 1: as he's betrayed by his master. So yeah, Lee always
Speaker 1: brought brought something great to the table.
Speaker 2: But anyway, it's an interesting casting choice for this character
Speaker 2: of the Duke de Richlow that the protagonist of the movie,
Speaker 2: who who represents order and the side of good against
Speaker 2: against the chaos and evil of Charles Gray as mister Mocatta.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I'm kind of wondering, like, could you have
Speaker 2: cast somebody else in this role and how would the
Speaker 2: movie be different if you had?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like part of me was thinking, well, maybe, like
Speaker 1: maybe Lee, especially at this point, wasn't as good at
Speaker 1: like portraying like likable and vulnerable characteristics, like whereas someone
Speaker 1: like Peter Cushing his close friend and you know in
Speaker 1: Frequent co Star, maybe he would have been able to
Speaker 1: deliver that better. But then again, I come back to
Speaker 1: the way this character's written, and maybe anybody would have
Speaker 1: been stuffy and unlikable in this role.
Speaker 2: One thing I got to say is the bizarre choice,
Speaker 2: and maybe this reflects how the esthetics of Satanism have
Speaker 2: changed over time. But they give Christopher Lee devil worship
Speaker 2: or facial here they give him the classic Satanist goateee's
Speaker 2: when he's playing the guy who's against the Satanists.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then it is interesting when we look at
Speaker 1: who's playing his adversary, Mocatta, the High Priest of the
Speaker 1: London chapter of the Church. It's not actually the Church
Speaker 1: of Satan, but this whatever the Satanic cult is calling itself,
Speaker 1: this is played by Charles Gray, who lived nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: eight through the year two thousand.
Speaker 2: I think they're called the Friends of the Goat.
Speaker 1: Friends of the Goat. Okay, So Gray not as legendary
Speaker 1: as Christopher Lee, perhaps, but certainly a celebrated British character
Speaker 1: actor in his own right, often remembered for playing aristocratic
Speaker 1: and villainous roles, you know, very sort of tight liped
Speaker 1: to clinch jawed villains, very British. But he played some
Speaker 1: big ones. We already mentioned his run as Blowfeld and
Speaker 1: Diamonds Are Forever. But he also he also played a
Speaker 1: good guy in sixty seven's You Only Live Twice. So
Speaker 1: he's actually in two Bond films.
Speaker 2: Oh that's right. He's like another spy who Bond meets
Speaker 2: somewhere and I remember he gets a knife in the
Speaker 2: back through a paper wall.
Speaker 1: I don't remember that. He is fun. He played Microft Holmes,
Speaker 1: this is Sherlock Holmes's brother, both in the nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: six film The Seven Percent Solution and also in the
Speaker 1: Jeremy Brett Excellent Jeremy Brett Grenada television series of Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 2: Oh, I've got to see those.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, he's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: And wait was the Seven Percent Solution?
Speaker 1: Is that.
Speaker 2: Nicholas Meyer?
Speaker 1: It is? Yes, this was his novel.
Speaker 2: Yes, I bet that's great.
Speaker 1: But of course, for many of you out there, Gray
Speaker 1: is best remembered as the criminologist an expert in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy five's The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Speaker 2: It's just to jump to the left.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But he's in a lot of other things too.
Speaker 1: For instance, he was in Richard O'Brien's follow up musical film,
Speaker 1: Shock Treatment, which I have not been able to get
Speaker 1: into yet. I keep thinking, Oh, I love Rocky Horror.
Speaker 1: I'll give Shock Treatment a try, and I'll listen to
Speaker 1: the music a little bit. And it just hasn't happened.
Speaker 1: He's also in the Wonderfully fun nineteen seventy four were
Speaker 1: Wolf Who Done It? The Beast must Die? This is
Speaker 1: the film that has a were wolf break, as you'll remember.
Speaker 2: Joy, So yeah, you can collect your thoughts about who
Speaker 2: the were wolf is.
Speaker 1: He also dubbed for Jack Hawkins in the film Theater
Speaker 1: of Blood and others after Hawkins's Larnix was removed to
Speaker 1: combat throat cancer.
Speaker 2: Theater of Blood is the other movie we talked about
Speaker 2: in the episode with about Doctor Fibes. It was the
Speaker 2: other movie where Vincent Price must return from the grave
Speaker 2: or after being assumed dead, to get revenge on nine
Speaker 2: specific people who he believed wronged him.
Speaker 1: So Gray is fun in this, but he's very much
Speaker 1: playing a kind of stern and serious Alistair Crowley with
Speaker 1: hair but also as this is I thought. Another fun
Speaker 1: tid that Kim Newman points out is he's kind of
Speaker 1: playing Alistair Crowley's idea of what Aleister Crowley seemed like
Speaker 1: to everybody else, you know, like like Crowley himself was
Speaker 1: you know, you know, a bit of a con man
Speaker 1: in his own right, you know, and was many other things.
Speaker 1: But he may have thought that he came off like
Speaker 1: this to other people. This highly charismatic, British occultist with
Speaker 1: hypnotic eyes that just instantly has power over everyone when
Speaker 1: he walks into a room. And then the other interesting
Speaker 1: thing is that you have this character that this is
Speaker 1: a film again where Satanan, anything that's not British and
Speaker 1: Christian is potentially Satanist in nature, it's potentially Satanism. And
Speaker 1: you have this character with his name Mocata that I'm
Speaker 1: to understand maybe has more of an international flare in
Speaker 1: the novel, but here we have him played by a
Speaker 1: very British actor with a very British performance.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know how much we've emphasized the xenophobic
Speaker 2: themes of this movie already, but yeah, there is very
Speaker 2: much a sense that like that which is foreign is
Speaker 2: very likely associated with the devil. Though I'm a little confused.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I know there's always some cultural crossover
Speaker 2: between between Britain and France, but is Richlowe supposed to
Speaker 2: be British or French? His name is French, and he
Speaker 2: mentions I think he mentions that he and another character
Speaker 2: that their fathers had worked together in some kind of
Speaker 2: French organization. But he also just in every other way
Speaker 2: appears to be British.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very confusing, yeah, because it's a very French name,
Speaker 1: but in the film, at least, it's a very British portrayal. Likewise,
Speaker 1: you know, Mokata seems to have been played up in
Speaker 1: the novel for being something kind of you know, international
Speaker 1: and the foreign and threatening. But of course Mocatta's the
Speaker 1: name Mokata has been has been very British for a
Speaker 1: long time. I mean, I believe it's tied to some
Speaker 1: important banking families and so forth. So I'm a little
Speaker 1: confused on that.
Speaker 2: All right, should we go to the next actor.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was trying to find how to pronounce her name,
Speaker 2: and I was sorry that I could not find a
Speaker 2: good example of it being said out loud, but it is.
Speaker 2: Her name is I think Nick Arigi. Her first name
Speaker 2: is spelled like the brand Nike in Ike, but I
Speaker 2: guess that's niek Okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: She plays Tenneth Carlisle in this film, which is probably
Speaker 1: one of the more likable characters. It's a very low
Speaker 1: bar in this film, but yeah. She was born nineteen
Speaker 1: forty seven French visual artist and former actor. As an actor,
Speaker 1: she was only active from I Believe nineteen sixty six
Speaker 1: through nineteen seventy four, appearing in various European horror and
Speaker 1: art house films. She had a small part in kin
Speaker 1: Russell's nineteen sixty nine film Women in Love nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: one's Countess Dracula. Other films include parts in Sunday Bloody Sunday,
Speaker 1: playing a nun in kin Russell's The Devil's a Season
Speaker 1: in Hell The Perfume of the Lady in Black. That
Speaker 1: was her last picture, but then she went on to
Speaker 1: focus on her art, and she has a website and
Speaker 1: you can look at examples of her art there. Some
Speaker 1: of these look like surrealistic oil and watercolor pieces.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was looking through her paintings and I really
Speaker 2: like some of them. They're interesting. So some are just
Speaker 2: like watercolor landscapes showing I don't know, a waterfall or
Speaker 2: a city skyline or something, and then others are really surreal.
Speaker 2: There's one of these women in I don't know, having
Speaker 2: like a big It might be one of those things
Speaker 2: they put on your I don't know what these are called,
Speaker 2: These things they put on your head at the hairdresser
Speaker 2: that like do a perm on you or something. It's
Speaker 2: like a big glass helmet, but it's absurdly large in
Speaker 2: the painting, making it look more like a science fiction device,
Speaker 2: like it's scanning this this lady's brain while she's sitting
Speaker 2: there with rollers in her hair, holding a baby. It's
Speaker 2: a very, i don't know, weird interesting painting, and I
Speaker 2: like it at any rate.
Speaker 1: She's good in this. She's acting opposite a whole lot
Speaker 1: of stiff, unlikable male characters. So but it's easily the
Speaker 1: character that seems to have like the most inner conflict.
Speaker 1: You know, she's not ultimately not given a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of agency in this, so it's not you know, it's
Speaker 1: not one of like, you know, the great roles one
Speaker 1: might hope for, but you know, she breathes a lot
Speaker 1: of life into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are several parts where she just has to
Speaker 2: gaze into the camera with like with hypnotized or possessed eyes,
Speaker 2: and her eyelids go super wide, and she has some
Speaker 2: kind of quality to her irises that makes them really
Speaker 2: good for this kind of shod that looks intense.
Speaker 1: All right. The next actor of note is Leon Green
Speaker 1: playing Rex van Row, though the character is dubbed by
Speaker 1: Patrick Allen Green lived nineteen thirty one through twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: British actor who appeared in such films as a Funny
Speaker 1: Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Flash Gordon.
Speaker 1: In this he is the ultimate square job British man
Speaker 1: who is ready to punch Satanists, punch windshields, whatever it
Speaker 1: takes if it means saving a pretty lady from non
Speaker 1: British ideas.
Speaker 2: He is our turbo lug. You I think you mentioned
Speaker 2: when we were chatting about it, you said Rex is
Speaker 2: ready to punch and kiss. Yes, that's about it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: somehow I kept thinking, well, this doesn't quite communicate his
Speaker 2: physical genre, which is sort of hunky lug. But he
Speaker 2: reminded me of a cross between Chris Cooper and Buddy Hackett.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could see that. He's also our skeptic for
Speaker 1: like three minutes anyway in the film, because he's because
Speaker 1: the Duke is like, Satanism is real and it's a
Speaker 1: major threat to everything we know and love and buy
Speaker 1: that at all. But then the Duke is like, look
Speaker 1: at this, and then Rex is like, I'm convinced.
Speaker 2: Yes, the famous the power of darkness is a living
Speaker 2: force speech.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So a lot of this film is going to
Speaker 1: concern another character who they're very concerned about, and that
Speaker 1: is the character Simon Aaron played by Patrick Mower born
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight, Still active as he was just on
Speaker 1: a British series called Emmerdale Farm. He's done a bunch
Speaker 1: of TV work as well as such films as the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy vincent price movie Cry of the Banshee and
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one's Incense for the Damned. He's pretty good
Speaker 1: in this in part because again his character is one
Speaker 1: of the few that seems to be in in genuine
Speaker 1: conflict and gets to act a little bit more and ultimately,
Speaker 1: ultimately maybe is a little more relatable.
Speaker 2: I kept thinking he looks like Toby Maguire. He kind
Speaker 2: of does, yeah, he does.
Speaker 1: Quick note that we have that goat monster, the goat
Speaker 1: of Mendy's that shows up later on. This is uncredited
Speaker 1: played by Eddie Powell, who lived nineteen twenty seven through
Speaker 1: the year two thousand, a six' Five british stunt man
Speaker 1: who also wound up in costume as such creatures as
Speaker 1: The xeno morph in alien for stunt. Purposes The mummy
Speaker 1: And The Mummy shroud And, yeah and this film he
Speaker 1: plays the goat. Himself powell also did stunts on such
Speaker 1: films As Willow, Legend, Batman, Indiana jones And The Last,
Speaker 1: Crusade kroll in Various bond. Movies on that, note speaking of,
Speaker 1: Monsters i'm just going to briefly mention the makeup effects
Speaker 1: artists responsible for many Of hammer's best. Monsters Roy ashton
Speaker 1: was the monster maker on this nineteen o nine through
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety. Five and then the. Music this Is James,
Speaker 1: bernard who lived nineteen twenty five through two thousand and.
Speaker 1: ONE a classmate Of Christopher lee's At Wellington, college he
Speaker 1: composed the scores of a whole bunch Of hammer horror,
Speaker 1: films and later in life he wrote an original score
Speaker 1: for Nos veratu in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: Seven all, right are you ready to talk about the
Speaker 2: plot a little?
Speaker 1: Bit let's do.
Speaker 2: It, Okay so the movie starts with a reunion of old.
Speaker 2: Friends we Get rex Van renn. Again this is played
Speaker 2: By Leon, green arriving by aeroplane which he pilots, himself
Speaker 2: and landing in some kind OF i don't know. Field
Speaker 2: it's just like a landing strip in somewhere in Rural,
Speaker 2: england it looks, like and he meets With Christopher lee
Speaker 2: playing The duke De, rischlow who is watching with binoculars
Speaker 2: as he. Lands AND i Assume rex is arriving from,
Speaker 2: overseas But i'm not.
Speaker 1: Positive, YEAH i think in the books he's Actually, american
Speaker 1: even which is. Interesting, AGAIN i just englished him right.
Speaker 2: Up, anyway they appear to be old, friends reunited after
Speaker 2: some time, apart and so we learn that they have
Speaker 2: a mutual friend Named, simon And rex is, curious where is?
Speaker 2: He why isn't he here to greet me at the
Speaker 2: airfield like, You and The duke, says, well he hasn't
Speaker 2: heard From simon in three. Months he doesn't go to
Speaker 2: his club In london, anymore which that's a horrible. Sign
Speaker 2: and he's moved into a large house in the. Country
Speaker 2: And rex is worried That simon might be in some
Speaker 2: kind of. Trouble BUT i immediately this should be an
Speaker 2: alarm bell for how this character is going to. Go
Speaker 2: The duke is, like, now that's. Preposterous he would have
Speaker 2: told me if he was in. Trouble but they decide
Speaker 2: to go pay him a. Visit, oh and when they,
Speaker 2: DO i don't know if you notice the same. Detail
Speaker 2: it involves the. Duke they get into the back of
Speaker 2: a car and the duke talks through some kind of
Speaker 2: hose lined with red velvet to tell the driver where to.
Speaker 1: Go, YEAH 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 he's supposed to take place in the,
Speaker 1: THIRTIES i.
Speaker 2: Believe, yeah so he talks into the velvet hose and then,
Speaker 2: yeah they get. There so they head out To simon's,
Speaker 2: mansion and as soon as they're at his doorstep ringing the,
Speaker 2: bell twilight has. Fallen there's creepy music. PLAYING a butler
Speaker 2: answers the, door And Christopher lee is immediately highly. Suspicious
Speaker 2: you see him squinting and furrowing his brows at everything
Speaker 2: in the. House he just like looks at a vase,
Speaker 2: suspiciously and he gazes into an open doorway like that's.
Speaker 2: Trouble and then they get led into the next, room
Speaker 2: where it looks Like simon must be hosting a nice.
Speaker 2: Party and again it's one of those things where you
Speaker 2: look at the party it looks like there's nothing. Wrong
Speaker 2: with it at. All it looks, nice but The duke
Speaker 2: immediately appears to have some kind of internal alarm sirens
Speaker 2: screaming in his. Brain BUT i would say the only
Speaker 2: thing that looks unusual about the party is, that like
Speaker 2: you walk through and you like hear people, talking and
Speaker 2: you see people's clothes and, stuff and it appears that
Speaker 2: not everyone here is From, england like there appear to
Speaker 2: be people from all throughout Continental europe And West africa
Speaker 2: And South. Asia and then they're, like Dear.
Speaker 1: God, YEAH i, mean there's nothing in this scene that
Speaker 1: would make you thinks anything other than maybe a you,
Speaker 1: know various academics from around the world have gathered to,
Speaker 1: discuss you, know a policy or, something, yeah you, know
Speaker 1: un meeting or. Something but, yeah but they're just they're
Speaker 1: just immediately. Horrified this is no. Good simon is in the.
Speaker 2: Deep so, yeah, AGAIN i think this is showing these
Speaker 2: weird xenophobic assumptions of the. Movie it's just, like, oh
Speaker 2: there's tons of people from other countries. Here this must
Speaker 2: be devil. Worship so they See, simon they come up
Speaker 2: and talk to. Him rex is, like sorry for interrupting your,
Speaker 2: party And simon is like, oh it's just a meeting
Speaker 2: of a little astronomical Society i've. Joined so because they
Speaker 2: looked outside when they were when they were outside, earlier
Speaker 2: they looked up and there appears to be some kind
Speaker 2: of like observatory dome at the top of his new.
Speaker 2: House and then we meet some major. Characters we meet
Speaker 2: Mister mocatta played By Charles. Gray he's not scary yet
Speaker 2: in this. Scene in this scene he's more In blowfeld.
Speaker 2: Mode he just has to, say you, know, well, well excuse, me,
Speaker 2: gentlemen there's SOMETHING i must say To, simon and he
Speaker 2: takes him. Aside and then they get a moment to
Speaker 2: speak With tanneth played By Nick, arighi and she's confused
Speaker 2: about their. PRESENCE i think she assumes that they are
Speaker 2: part of the. Coven but then she, says surely we're
Speaker 2: not meant to be more than. Thirteen and as soon
Speaker 2: as she says, thirteen this gets a dramatic wheel about
Speaker 2: From Christopher. Lee you, know he whips his head with
Speaker 2: his eyes, wide and you know that like he's really
Speaker 2: sure that there's trouble. Now so they're asked to, leave
Speaker 2: but first The duke, asks you, know before we, depart
Speaker 2: MAY i see your observatory because he says he's recently
Speaker 2: become interested in. Astronomy he would like to peek through the,
Speaker 2: telescope And simon tries to, object but as always in this,
Speaker 2: Movie Christopher lee just gives him the do AS i
Speaker 2: command you, eyes and then they head on. Up now
Speaker 2: we'll see this observatory room in a couple of. Scenes
Speaker 2: but there is a giant goat Head baphomet on the floor,
Speaker 2: tiles and another ONE i think on the. Wall and
Speaker 2: when they come, in they're, like this is. Interesting are
Speaker 2: these astronomical? Charts simon's just, like, oh it's just a.
Speaker 2: Decoration but then the, real the real thing that that
Speaker 2: seals the deal is there's some noises in the closet
Speaker 2: and we get the chicken, Reveal rob do you want
Speaker 2: to describe this? Moment?
Speaker 1: Oh this is this is. Great so in just like
Speaker 1: pure inquisitor, mode the duke goes over to the, closet
Speaker 1: pulls it, open and you, know we see, this you,
Speaker 1: know view the. Shot it's shot from the, closet horrified
Speaker 1: look on his face because he opens his basket and
Speaker 1: there are a couple of chickens in there and these
Speaker 1: are the hallmarks of black. Magic you can't practice black
Speaker 1: magic unless you've got some chickens around of, SACRIFICE i.
Speaker 2: Guess, Yeah but it was the pair of chickens that
Speaker 2: that clinched it that this is definitely black, magic and
Speaker 2: not The baphomet circle on the floor.
Speaker 1: Right right the bathroom at circle is certainly like there
Speaker 1: are other reasons to have chickens. Around there would even
Speaker 1: be other reasons to, have, say a black cat and
Speaker 1: a chicken, Around but to have the the Full baphomet, floor,
Speaker 1: yeah that's that suggests something.
Speaker 2: Else, oh but then we get the so he sees the,
Speaker 2: chickens And lee knows for sure what's going, on and
Speaker 2: then we GET i would say the line of the
Speaker 2: film that stands out more than any, other which is
Speaker 2: he turns To, simon he, says you, Fool i'd rather
Speaker 2: see you dead than practicing black.
Speaker 1: Magic it's such a it's such a great and telling
Speaker 1: line like. This it may just adds extra unlikeability to this,
Speaker 1: character you, know 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.
Speaker 2: Bio so The duke Exhorts simon to leave the. House he's,
Speaker 2: like come with, us you, know we will get you
Speaker 2: out of, this And simon doesn't want to, go so
Speaker 2: he just punches him, out just knocks him. Out they
Speaker 2: repeatedly do this To. Simon by the, way by the
Speaker 2: end of this, movie he will have had major head.
Speaker 1: Trauma, YEAH i have to. ADMIT i, MEAN i know
Speaker 1: that you're not supposed to punch people in the face
Speaker 1: and try and knock them. Out you're not supposed to
Speaker 1: hit people over the head with bottles and so, forth
Speaker 1: which these things happen in films all the. Time but
Speaker 1: a few weeks AGO i sustained a very mild concussion
Speaker 1: and it was not. Fun and ever Since i've been
Speaker 1: maybe a little like heightened sensitivity to these moments in.
Speaker 1: Films so like something like this happens And i'm, like,
Speaker 1: oh that's a concussion for, Sure and Then i'm, like,
Speaker 1: oh he just had a concussion earlier in the. Picture
Speaker 1: this is so. Dangerous stop Punching.
Speaker 2: Simon, YEAH i love. It in movies they just treat
Speaker 2: hitting people on the head as like general. Anesthesia, well
Speaker 2: it just renders the, harmlessly renders them unconscious for some
Speaker 2: short period of.
Speaker 1: Time how are you supposed to end a scene and
Speaker 1: have somebody you need to get them to another location
Speaker 1: and have them wake up and observe. Things so you
Speaker 1: need you need some head trauma in. Between.
Speaker 2: Yeah so, anyway they go back to The duke's house
Speaker 2: and there is a great hypnotism. Scene this is one
Speaker 2: of the first scenes indicating That Christopher lee's character not
Speaker 2: only knows what the the the rituals of darkness, are
Speaker 2: but he can practice them. Himself.
Speaker 1: Apparently oh, yeah this this of course ties in so
Speaker 1: per with a lot of the satanic panic energies that
Speaker 1: the decades to, come and even some of the you,
Speaker 1: know the scare tactics you see in other social, panics
Speaker 1: and you, know fundamentalists and conservative mindsets where the individual's
Speaker 1: warning you about the. Evil whatever the evil happens to,
Speaker 1: be they know all about. It they've got all the
Speaker 1: grizzly details and they will list it for. You they
Speaker 1: know all the, terminology they have seen the. Stuff but they're.
Speaker 1: Safe they're concerned about your. Safety and so like The
Speaker 1: duke is already coming off it's such a hypocrite.
Speaker 2: Here, yeah so he there's this hypnotism scene where he
Speaker 2: like puts a mirror in front Of, simon and he's he's,
Speaker 2: like look into the mirror Of simon and he, brainwashes
Speaker 2: like he seizes his mind, somehow and he's, like you
Speaker 2: must go to bed now is one of the many
Speaker 2: great sending people to bed. Scenes he sends him up
Speaker 2: to his. Bedroom he puts a crucifix necklace on. Him
Speaker 2: he says it's a symbol of. Protection and then they
Speaker 2: break out the snifters of brown. LIQUOR i love that
Speaker 2: there's there's just like numerous unlabeled jars of brown liquor
Speaker 2: for them to drink. From And Christopher lee And rex
Speaker 2: they sit down to have the talk about devil, worship
Speaker 2: and he Asks, rex do you believe in? Evil and you,
Speaker 2: Know rex is like ah magic and all. THAT i
Speaker 2: think it's hocus. Pocus but then The duke gives a
Speaker 2: speech about how the power of darkness is not just
Speaker 2: an idea but a, living breathing. Thing and it's clear
Speaker 2: now that they're up against something big and they may
Speaker 2: have to do battle with it throughout the rest of the. Film,
Speaker 2: Meanwhile simon upstairs in The duke's, bed his eyes snap.
Speaker 2: Open he seems to be under the influence of, something
Speaker 2: and he starts gathering up the chain of his crucifix
Speaker 2: necklace and starts garrotting himself with, it and it seemed
Speaker 2: for a minute like he was going to. DIE i
Speaker 2: assume this character he's a. Goner but then the butler
Speaker 2: comes in and helpfully removes the crucifix from his, neck
Speaker 2: and Then simon just bolts out the. Window so at
Speaker 2: this point the caper is on for the rest of.
Speaker 2: Them The duke And rex will be in pursuit of
Speaker 2: their Friend simon and eventually also Of tanneth to free
Speaker 2: them from the cult and from the jaws Of satan.
Speaker 2: Himself and so maybe at this point we can just
Speaker 2: sort of zero in on several scenes and sequences throughout
Speaker 2: the rest of the movie that struck. Us one of
Speaker 2: WHICH i think we've got to talk about is the
Speaker 2: return to the, house because the first thing The duke
Speaker 2: And rex do When simon gets out of The duke's
Speaker 2: place is, like, well maybe he went back. Home so
Speaker 2: they go break in through a window and look around
Speaker 2: to see if he's, there or If mocatta's coven is still.
Speaker 1: There that's. Right they go up to the observatory and
Speaker 1: then what starts happening to the, Floor, well out of
Speaker 1: that goat head on the, floor you have this sinister
Speaker 1: smoke begins to, rise and we essentially have our first
Speaker 1: proper summoning of the. Film they're, LIKE i think three
Speaker 1: different summonings of, note and it seems to, summon you,
Speaker 1: know it's like smokes bringing in some sort of. Form
Speaker 1: what's it going to.
Speaker 2: Be it's gonna be a, monster, right, sure a monster.
Speaker 1: Or you, know a. Demon maybe it'll be the goat
Speaker 1: guy from the, poster but, no it's just a dude
Speaker 1: that looks slightly.
Speaker 2: Stoned yeah when we first saw. Him so there are
Speaker 2: some good monsters later, on BUT i was just, like
Speaker 2: this is just a. Guy but he's got bloodshot. Eyes
Speaker 2: but it's just a.
Speaker 1: Dude i've seen, this this this summoned being described as
Speaker 1: a gin or a, demon but it's Just nigerian born
Speaker 1: Actor Willie payne in red pants with a with a
Speaker 1: legitimately kind of creepy smile and very stone looking. Eyes
Speaker 1: they're able to play it up a, bit so it's
Speaker 1: not like it doesn't, work but it also seems to
Speaker 1: lean really hard into this idea of non white, equals
Speaker 1: possibly satanic.
Speaker 4: Thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah this scene didn't feel. Great it was it
Speaker 2: seems to lean more on those kind of xenophobic assumptions
Speaker 2: that the movie.
Speaker 1: Has, yeah because the only other non white act characters
Speaker 1: in the, film Including nigerian born actor Playwright Jimmy goodman A,
Speaker 1: jibbai they are all seen as members of the. Cult
Speaker 1: none of the.
Speaker 2: Cult the cult is, international it's got members from all, over.
Speaker 1: Right so, yeah this this feels it's a little weird
Speaker 1: to watch, This and it's also a little weird That
Speaker 1: hammer picked this scene out put it on their. YouTube
Speaker 1: they like here it. Is but if you lean into
Speaker 1: the sort of like here's a really stone dude summoned
Speaker 1: to combat your, heroes AND i kind of like, that
Speaker 1: it's kind of, like don't look at his. Eyes he's really.
Speaker 2: Stoned, yeah, yeah and and he's like hypnotizing, THEM i
Speaker 2: guess with his eyes to like get them to come
Speaker 2: into the circle of. Baphomett BUT i think they defeat
Speaker 2: him by throwing a. Crucifix, yeah the first of several
Speaker 2: crucifix lobbings in the. Film.
Speaker 1: Yeah the crucfix are like the holy hand. Grenade they
Speaker 1: make demons just.
Speaker 2: Explode, yeah, one, two, five and then they blow him
Speaker 2: up and then they run out of the. House NOW
Speaker 2: i think the next big thing is that The duke is,
Speaker 2: like you, must you must Find taneth BECAUSE i must
Speaker 2: go to The British. Live and what's he Gonna he's,
Speaker 2: like gonna look into several occult tomes that are kept
Speaker 2: under lock and. Key fortunately the person who runs the
Speaker 2: occult tome section is a friend of.
Speaker 1: His, yes, again it's safe for The duke to be
Speaker 1: interested in these things and be knowledgeable to these. Things
Speaker 1: but not. You not, You Simon. Simon i'd rather you
Speaker 1: be dead than read some of the books THAT i.
Speaker 2: Read So. Rex the next thing we see With, rex
Speaker 2: he's just Got tanneth in the car and they're out
Speaker 2: driving in the country, somewhere and it's one of those
Speaker 2: weird scenes where somebody's already in the car with somebody
Speaker 2: and then she's, like so why AM i? Here where
Speaker 2: are we? Going and Then i'm, like, well why did
Speaker 2: she get in the? Car what did they say before
Speaker 2: she got in the? CAR i don't.
Speaker 1: Know but then it becomes. Clear he's, Like i'm here
Speaker 1: to rescue you From. Satanism, yeah and she's, LIKE i
Speaker 1: don't want to be, rescued and then, yeah it ultimately
Speaker 1: ends up being a whole chase. Sequence.
Speaker 2: Yes, well but also before, that he's, Like i'm here
Speaker 2: rescue you From satan and take you out to. Lunch
Speaker 2: do you want to go on a?
Speaker 5: Date?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah and so they're they're planning on going to
Speaker 2: lunch at a friend's. House this is the house Of
Speaker 2: richard And marie and their Daughter, peggy who will become
Speaker 2: bigger characters in the third. ACT a lot of the
Speaker 2: second half of the movie takes place at their. House
Speaker 2: BUT i was also wondering about they're not sure who he's.
Speaker 2: Bringing so it's, like, hello old, FRIEND i brought a
Speaker 2: bride Of satan to your house for.
Speaker 1: Lunch i've kidnapped. Somebody this is the other. Thing this
Speaker 1: film has a lot of. Kidnappings And simon has already been, kidnapped,
Speaker 1: yes and Now taneth has been. Kidnapped, yes and there'll
Speaker 1: be more kidnappings to. Come.
Speaker 2: Yeah she lured away on false pretenses OR i assume
Speaker 2: we don't know what they said before she got in the,
Speaker 2: car but at least continuing along the journey after she
Speaker 2: has said, NO i would rather go back to my
Speaker 2: satan worship, Please and then this leads to a complex
Speaker 2: series of chases where she steals a car from somewhere
Speaker 2: and drives, away and Then rex has to chase after,
Speaker 2: her and there's A you didn't expect a car chase this,
Speaker 2: movie did? You but the car chase does Involve rex
Speaker 2: punching through his own windshield. Yep and they, eventually, oh
Speaker 2: they use magic to make him wreck.
Speaker 1: His, car but he's knocked. Unconscious another, concussion.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes and then she so she eventually makes her
Speaker 2: way back To mokata Because mokata was like hypnotizing her
Speaker 2: through the rear view mirror in the.
Speaker 1: Car, well mirrors are, magic we know. That, oh that's.
Speaker 2: Right so Eventually rex stumbles upon A satanic mass That
Speaker 2: mokata is conducting in the. Woods actually it looks pretty.
Speaker 2: Tame it's just a lot of people in like white,
Speaker 2: robes the, bosses Like. Mokata he's wearing a purple, robe,
Speaker 2: yes but a lot of people in white robes just
Speaker 2: drinking wine and dancing. Like it is not as debauched
Speaker 2: as some of the devil worship scenes in later movies would.
Speaker 1: Be, right but it does have the ultimate that they
Speaker 1: sacrifice a, goat and then here comes the goat. Himself
Speaker 1: we have this wonderful appearance by the goat Of. Mendy's
Speaker 1: it's the goat headed humanoid, form and it looks very.
Speaker 1: Good it's legitimately. CREEPY i think this was a scene
Speaker 1: that they pulled off rather well because he just kind of,
Speaker 1: appears you. Know it's like he's come out of the.
Speaker 1: Woods you've thrown a satanic party that is fun enough
Speaker 1: that he is making an, appearance and everyone gets very.
Speaker 2: Excited, yeah and one THING i noted was like when
Speaker 2: they cut the goat's throat in the, sacrifice it's like
Speaker 2: dropping the beat in the, club like everybody goes. Wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah they get very excited about. It and, yeah
Speaker 1: the goat looks. Great it's NOT i should, stress it's
Speaker 1: not the goat you see on the. Poster they took
Speaker 1: the head of the goat creature here and they put
Speaker 1: it on one of the like probably The Charles gray
Speaker 1: Character mocatta's robed, body and sort of built themselves a
Speaker 1: poster out of images from the.
Speaker 2: Film, well, anyway at this, mass it's. Worse simon And
Speaker 2: tanneth are going to be baptized in the name Of.
Speaker 2: Satan rex goes to a nearby payphone and summons the,
Speaker 2: duke and so The duke comes and joins, him and
Speaker 2: then they're, like, oh we've got to stop. This we've
Speaker 2: got to stop this before they are baptized to the Evil.
Speaker 2: One so they decide they're going To oh how They
Speaker 2: the duke is, LIKE i wish there were some, light
Speaker 2: and then he's, like what has? Light the headlights of a.
Speaker 2: Car so they're, like we can defeat them with. Car
Speaker 2: so they get into a car and then they drive
Speaker 2: up on this, ceremony blasting the. HEADLIGHTS i guess they
Speaker 2: turned the brights, on and that seems TO i don't,
Speaker 2: know it does. Something everybody's, like. Oh and then they
Speaker 2: lab a second holy hand. Grenade they throw a crucifix
Speaker 2: at the goat and the goat explodes.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah and Then rex is in there Punching, satanists Grabbing,
Speaker 1: canneth carrying her, off AND i was struck by The
Speaker 1: it's kind of ironic that we don't see the goat.
Speaker 1: Creature we don't see The Great, goat The devil himself
Speaker 1: carrying an unconscious, woman but we do See rex grabbing
Speaker 1: our female character and running off into the.
Speaker 2: Night, yes and they also they Rescue tanneth And simon
Speaker 2: and they take them back To richard And marie's, house
Speaker 2: Where Christopher lee promptly starts managing everybody's sleeping. Arrangements he's,
Speaker 2: like you will go to, bed and you will sit
Speaker 2: beside the person who goes to, bed and. Commanding, yeah
Speaker 2: so commanding people what to, DO i. Think so he
Speaker 2: gives them all these instructions while he goes out to
Speaker 2: fetch some magical. Implements and then there's another big set
Speaker 2: piece which and this SCENE i actually thought was pretty
Speaker 2: effective in the way it was meant to be the
Speaker 2: visit By. Mokata So Charles gray just shows up at the.
Speaker 2: Door makata arrives at the house and, HE i guess
Speaker 2: it's proper courtesy to invite someone, in even if they
Speaker 2: are the priest of The High priest Of, satan so
Speaker 2: you know he's invited him By. Marie and Then mokata
Speaker 2: And marie sit down in the study to have a
Speaker 2: conversation where he will ask her to Hand simon And
Speaker 2: tanneth over to. Him he, Says i'm not actually evil
Speaker 2: in magic there is no or, evil and then he
Speaker 2: tries to hypnotize her and bind her will to his
Speaker 2: by the power of. Darkness AND i gotta say props
Speaker 2: To Charles gray in this. Scene while he is often
Speaker 2: funny in this, movie in this scene he is extremely.
Speaker 2: GOOD i think actually rather.
Speaker 1: Scary, yeah, yeah he's great in this. Scene there's also
Speaker 1: another sequence where it's just the cult ist marching out
Speaker 1: of the observatory house with some kind of thunderous music
Speaker 1: and he's up front with a very stern look on his,
Speaker 1: face where he also feels very powerful and a little bit.
Speaker 2: Scary, Yeah and so he's Hypnotized marie and he's, like
Speaker 2: where Is simon and she says, upstairs WHICH i mean
Speaker 2: he probably could have guessed, that but, anyway so he's trying,
Speaker 2: TO i, guess get them out of the. House but
Speaker 2: then he fails because the kid living in the, House,
Speaker 2: peggy she runs in asking for a snack or. Something she's,
Speaker 2: like where's my? Ball and Then marie is snapped out
Speaker 2: of her trance and Asks macatta to. Leave AND i
Speaker 2: thought that, funny especially Because rachel was, like it's the
Speaker 2: kid that's going to defeat the. Devil oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's also kind of it reminded, me of, course
Speaker 1: Of Indiana, jones like next, Time Doctor, Jones it'll take
Speaker 1: more than children to save.
Speaker 2: You oh, yeah. Yeah but So mokata is asked to.
Speaker 2: Leave he, does but then there's a great. Line he,
Speaker 2: SAYS i will not be, back but something.
Speaker 1: Will, hmmm oh and that's that's. Something should we talk
Speaker 1: about that? Something?
Speaker 2: Well, YEAH i, MEAN i guess this leads into the
Speaker 2: main thing that's left in the, movie which is the
Speaker 2: siege of The Magic. Circle so The duke returns with
Speaker 2: his magical implements and he draws a protective circle on
Speaker 2: the floor of the library in the. House it's got
Speaker 2: symbols all around, it and inside the, circle The, Duke, Simon,
Speaker 2: marie And richard have to wait out the night while
Speaker 2: being besieged by the forces of evil that are sent
Speaker 2: By mokata AND i think conjured through the medium Of.
Speaker 2: Tanneth this got kind of, complicated BUT i think the
Speaker 2: idea is That mokata somehow Uses tanneth to make himself more.
Speaker 2: Powerful he like manifests power through, her and for that,
Speaker 2: Reason tanneth is, LIKE i can't be in the. House so,
Speaker 2: meanwhile while they're in the, Library rex And tanneth run
Speaker 2: off to a barn. SOMEWHERE i don't know exactly how
Speaker 2: all that, works but that's where they. Go and the
Speaker 2: other THING i was, wondering why Don't peggy and the
Speaker 2: butler have to be inside the magic. Circle the other
Speaker 2: four people in the house are in the. Circle peggy
Speaker 2: And butler are just up in a room.
Speaker 1: Somewhere, YEAH i. WOULD i, MEAN i wouldn't want my
Speaker 1: child to see the forces of darkness that have been
Speaker 1: marshalled against. Me but if they're going to be in
Speaker 1: the house with the forces of, DARKNESS i THINK i
Speaker 1: would rather than be like in the. CIRCLE i guess,
Speaker 1: today if this were to, HAPPEN i could give my
Speaker 1: son an iPad and he would be. Fine he just Watched,
Speaker 1: pokemon and you could have the forces of darkness doing
Speaker 1: their thing outside the circle and he wouldn't even look.
Speaker 1: Up but how are you going to keep a kid
Speaker 1: this age distracted during the, THIRTIES i don't.
Speaker 2: Know well, Anyway so we get the siege here And,
Speaker 2: rob do you want to describe the attacks that befall
Speaker 2: them while they're waiting out the night in the? Circle all?
Speaker 1: Right so. Yeah so the first attack was stone, dude
Speaker 1: second attack was the great He, goat third attack, here
Speaker 1: third summoning is going to be none other than The
Speaker 1: angel Of. Death and it is pretty alarming when this one,
Speaker 1: summoned because suddenly the door, opens white light spilling, out
Speaker 1: and a perhaps semi transparent hard to see a winged
Speaker 1: horse rides. In and the rider on that horse it's
Speaker 1: this individual and. Armor you can't see his. Face but
Speaker 1: then eventually he rides up close enough and we get
Speaker 1: this close up like blue flames behind his. Head the
Speaker 1: mask opens and it's a. Skull, yeah The angel Of
Speaker 1: death is here to claim a human. Soul.
Speaker 2: Robert one. THING i agree with everything you, said BUT
Speaker 2: i think we're out of order here BECAUSE i think
Speaker 2: the spider attacks before The angel does to.
Speaker 1: Death oh, okay, well, okay in that, case we get
Speaker 1: a lackluster giant spider, attack.
Speaker 2: Right so that comes tricks them with all these, illusions
Speaker 2: like The devil keeps simulating people they, know asking for
Speaker 2: help or trying to get them to step outside the.
Speaker 2: Circle it pretends to Be peggy being attacked by the,
Speaker 2: spider but it's not really, Her and of course The
Speaker 2: duke is, like control yourself mad and stand there and,
Speaker 2: yeah but then we get The angel Of.
Speaker 1: DEATH i have to say the spider. Again the spider
Speaker 1: does not look very.
Speaker 2: Good, no it's just a tarantula with, force perspective and.
Speaker 2: Stuff but, then so how do they defeat The angel Of?
Speaker 2: Death Christopher lee has introduced this idea earlier that the
Speaker 2: only thing he can do to fight back against these
Speaker 2: forces is to say this spell the most dangerous magic
Speaker 2: spell in the. World and he's, LIKE i dare not
Speaker 2: say it unless our very souls are at peril because
Speaker 2: it could destroy the entire.
Speaker 1: Universe BUT i did memorize it just in.
Speaker 2: Case, yeah but he does say. It he says it
Speaker 2: at The angel Of death and that that banishes. It
Speaker 2: but at the end of the, night so they've made it.
Speaker 2: Through but things look bad Because rex comes back and
Speaker 2: he's holding the body Of tanneth has died and also has.
Speaker 2: Disappeared so they're in dire straits. Now but where have they? Gone,
Speaker 2: well The duke has to figure this out by conjuring
Speaker 2: the ghost Of tanneth in the body Of marie and
Speaker 2: then again commanding and yelling at, her, saying tell me
Speaker 2: where have they, GONE i command. You but this leads
Speaker 2: to a final confrontation at the Mansion, mokata where he
Speaker 2: has an on site temple for human. SACRIFICE i think
Speaker 2: he's going to Sacrifice peggy for some. Reason he says
Speaker 2: it's the transference of. SOULS i think it's like if
Speaker 2: he Sacrifices, peggy Then tanneth will be brought back to.
Speaker 1: Him Maybe, Yeah and they Need taneth for satanic reasons
Speaker 1: for something.
Speaker 2: Yeah and then in the, end the ghost Of, taneth
Speaker 2: speaking Through, marie says the same dangerous spell That Christopher
Speaker 2: lee said, earlier or gets the child to say, it
Speaker 2: and this destroys the, cult Destroys, mokata and then we get,
Speaker 2: oh this ending it it is a causally. Justified it
Speaker 2: was all a dream ending where they wake up back
Speaker 2: At richard And marie's house in The Magic. Circle everyone
Speaker 2: who is dead is now alive Except, mokatta who has
Speaker 2: been killed in the in, exchange and The duke explains
Speaker 2: time has been. Reversed everything that happened, happened but now
Speaker 2: it has not. Happened and then the movie just ends
Speaker 2: with a very stern insistence That god is in. Charge.
Speaker 1: Yeah nothing like a time travel out of, nowhere ending
Speaker 1: with the off screen death of the, villain which also
Speaker 1: seems an awful lot like speculation on The duke's. Part
Speaker 1: he's just, like what happened To? Mokata is, like, oh,
Speaker 1: well he. Died now in this new version of things that.
Speaker 1: Happened i'm not going to show it to you or
Speaker 1: tell you what it looked, like but trust, me it.
Speaker 1: Happened and then one of the, characters maybe It's rex
Speaker 1: Or simon's, like Thank, god and The duke is, like, yes,
Speaker 1: all thanks To. God so they.
Speaker 2: It is He we must, think, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: So all thanks go To god for intervening wiping out
Speaker 1: all of. Villains but unlike Say raiders of The Lost,
Speaker 1: ark where pretty much a similar thing, happens Like god
Speaker 1: enters the picture and just and fixes everything and we
Speaker 1: get to see it And nazis explode and melt and so.
Speaker 1: Forth instead we're just told it, happened don't worry about.
Speaker 1: It everybody can go to.
Speaker 2: Bed, yeah it's kind of a diosx. Machina and for some,
Speaker 2: reason why does the diosx machina work In raiders of
Speaker 2: The Lost ark where it almost never? Works Otherwise i'm.
Speaker 1: Not so we get to watch The. Dais that's the, Thing,
Speaker 1: like we get to see the forces of heaven come
Speaker 1: down from. Above we get to see The Hebrew god
Speaker 1: avenge himself and his people against The nazis and just
Speaker 1: utterly decimate them with splendid special. Effects you. Know so
Speaker 1: obviously this film didn't have the budget for that sort of,
Speaker 1: thing BUT i think that's one of the reasons it
Speaker 1: works so well In raiders of The Lost.
Speaker 2: Dark, YEAH i guess it's also the fact that at
Speaker 2: the end Of raiders that That indian their insight that
Speaker 2: they have to survive at the end is, humility and
Speaker 2: that they must humble themselves and close their.
Speaker 4: Eyes.
Speaker 1: Yeah BUT i could imagine something like that happening in this,
Speaker 1: film AND i wouldn't have bought it with The, duke
Speaker 1: because The duke would be, LIKE i know exactly what's.
Speaker 1: Happening everyone close your, Eyes, simon shut your. Eyes shut your.
Speaker 1: EYES i will keep my eyes open for the rest of.
Speaker 4: YOU i can.
Speaker 1: Pique it's, OKAY i know What i'm.
Speaker 4: Doing.
Speaker 2: Well that brings up a really good question About i'm
Speaker 2: curious about the religious sensibilities of this, movie which are
Speaker 2: clearly mostly you, know they're anti devil and their, Conservative
Speaker 2: but what exactly is the religious affiliation of the duke
Speaker 2: supposed to? Be he seems to be Nominally, christian at
Speaker 2: least in so far As christianity is opposed to the,
Speaker 2: devil which is the bad. Guy and there is one
Speaker 2: line Where Christopher lee like grills the ghost Of tanneth
Speaker 2: with that. Question he, says, like do you Acknowledge Jesus?
Speaker 2: Christ but Then lee is just straight up doing occult
Speaker 2: magic and defeating the enemy with esoteric. Spells so is
Speaker 2: he supposed to be a down the line Conservative christian
Speaker 2: or is he supposed to be in a cult? Wizard
Speaker 2: and at least all the Environments i'm familiar with these
Speaker 2: things are supposed to be mutually.
Speaker 1: Exclusive, Yeah LIKE i, mean they don't really play up
Speaker 1: the idea that there's like good magic and bad magic
Speaker 1: like that would HAVE i think that would have been
Speaker 1: kind of ultimately maybe a more modern telling of, this
Speaker 1: and maybe it would have been more fun if it
Speaker 1: was like we have just dueling occultists, here just one
Speaker 1: occultist is leaning hard into the black magic and the
Speaker 1: other one is a little more sensible about how he's
Speaker 1: using everything but, yeah, ULTIMATELY i think we get more of.
Speaker 1: That it's more like the it's more of the satanic panic.
Speaker 1: Energy it's ultimately kind of more like the like The
Speaker 1: Heinrich Kramer, hammer The witch's kind of energy where it's,
Speaker 1: Like I'M i can be super knowledgeable about all of
Speaker 1: this stuff and like weirdly super into. It but it's
Speaker 1: okay Because i'm here to stamp it, out you. Know but,
Speaker 1: yeah we. Don't Christopher lee's character The duke going to
Speaker 1: church or. Anything he just name Drops jesus In, god you,
Speaker 1: know twice in the whole.
Speaker 2: Picture and throws the crucifix.
Speaker 1: Grenades, yeah he'll Throw he'll heed some crosses around for.
Speaker 1: Sure so, yeah ultimately it's a very fun. Picture there's a,
Speaker 1: lot a lot to think about if you approach it
Speaker 1: from the right, direction SO i recommend it. You you
Speaker 1: can pick this one up in a few different. Places
Speaker 1: there are some Different hammer LIKE dvd packs and so.
Speaker 1: Forth but in twenty, Nineteen Shout factory put out an
Speaker 1: absolutely Amazing Blu ray. Edition this is the one that
Speaker 1: we rented From videodrome for this, episode and, yeah this
Speaker 1: one would make the Great he got proud lots of,
Speaker 1: extras wonderful bright yellow he goat menu screen THAT i
Speaker 1: was very impressed, with and just more more extras and
Speaker 1: special features than you could conceivably even. Want Like Christopher
Speaker 1: lee has his own commentary track on this, one SO
Speaker 1: i recommend picking that up or renting it if you
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to do. So you might find it
Speaker 1: streaming somewhere as. Well i'm not sure what the exact
Speaker 1: streaming options might be for this. Picture we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from everyone out there, though if you have thoughts
Speaker 1: on this picture or. Others you, know what are your
Speaker 1: Favorite hammer or horror. Films we know we have Some
Speaker 1: hammer fans out, there write in let us. Know we'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from. You Weird House cinema comes out
Speaker 1: Every friday and The stuff To blow Your mind podcast.
Speaker 1: Feed we're primarily a science, podcast but On fridays we
Speaker 1: set most of the serious matters aside and we just
Speaker 1: talk about a weird film such as this. ONE i
Speaker 1: also go ahead mentioned THAT i maintain a Blog Sammuda
Speaker 1: music dot com se M U T a M u
Speaker 1: S I. C and that's just a blog Where i'll
Speaker 1: list the episodes that we have done On Weird House.
Speaker 1: Cinema so if you want a complete list of the
Speaker 1: films we've looked, at as well as some embedded media
Speaker 1: here and there with you, know trailers that we, discuss
Speaker 1: bits of music that we, DISCUSS i will host them.
Speaker 2: There big thanks as always to our excellent audio Producer
Speaker 2: Seth Nicholas, johnson but he is out this, week so
Speaker 2: huge thanks as well to our guest, Producer Paul. DECANT
Speaker 2: i really appreciate you stepping.
Speaker 3: In.
Speaker 2: Paul if you would like to get in touch with
Speaker 2: us with feedback on this episode or any, other to
Speaker 2: suggest a topic for the, future or just to say,
Speaker 2: hello you can email us at contact at stuff To
Speaker 2: blow Your mind dot.
Speaker 3: Com stuff To Blow Your mind is production Of. iHeartRadio
Speaker 3: for more podcasts my Heart, radio visit The iHeartRadio, App Apple,
Speaker 3: podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite.
Speaker 2: Shows