The Devil Rides Out Blu-ray Review

• 19th Oct 2012

Pre-dating Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby by one year and a million miles from any image of swinging London this adaptation of Dennis Wheatley’s novel, The Devil Rides Out is among one of Hammer’s best films of the 1960s. There is something incredibly English about this film, an element that I am sure the author would have appreciated. This film and a couple of other films the studio made in 1967 and before marked a turning point for Hammer. This time there is less blood and a more earnest story giving a semi-serious treatment to Wheatley’s novel. Adapted for the screen by the wonderful writer Richard Matheson (author of ‘I am Legend’) under the direction of the best of Hammer’s horror director’s, Terence Fisher this is a real treat of a film with a perfect meeting of cast and crew. The story is set in 1929 about a gathering of a small group of friends, one of whom is Duc de Richleau (Christopher Lee) who happens to be an expert on all things black magic. When they go to a friend’s, Simon (Patrick Mower) they suspect that the people gathering at the friend’s house are part of a satanic cult and the circle led by Mocartur (played by the brilliant Charles Gray). A battle of wills between good and evil ensues with Lee as the Duc de Richlieu belting out some fantastically laconic dialogue. Never before or since has Lee looked so elegant with his height and a well sculpted goaty beard spouting out some fantastically posturing hammy dialogue: “throw that at the damned monstrosity” as he instructs his other friend (Leon Greene) to throw a cross at the devil himself. Throughout both Lee and Gray battle it out with hypnotic stares and carry themselves brilliantly and Gray produces one of its best performances (even more so than his turn as Blofeld).

With regards the restoration work done you couldn’t have a better job than what’s been done here (as the restoring documentary attests to). Those who worked on restoring the many ropey effects in the film claim that there are over 1 million effects fixes but I do think that a series of standard before/after screen shots would show exactly what a good job has been done. It is clear on this restoration that a lot of effort has gone into restoring some of these dodgy effects without compromising any aspect of the films integrity. The colours, particularly the primary colours have come out superbly and the sharpness of the image does justice to Fisher’s direction. As a result the transfer is sharp and brilliant and is shown in its original 1.66:1 ratio.

As with other Studocanal releases of Hammer films there is an episode of the 1990 documentary series on Hammer, ‘The World of Hammer’ narrated by Hammer regular Oliver Reed. This particular episode deals with a general history of the studio through lots of clips and demonstrates that Hammer were more than merely makers of horror films. While the myriad of clips from the studio’s history are riveting the narration by Reed is mixed so poorly it is inaudible. Along with the other films in this current run of Hammer re-releases it has an excellent Making Of documentary and a commentary track by Chris Lee, supporting actress Sarah Lawson and film historian Marcus Hearn.

All these latest releases by Studiocanal are filled with some simply superb documentaries commissioned for the releases (most seem to have interviews with Hammer expert and writer Jonathan Rigby) including one on the writer Dennis Wheatley who in his day was a popular fiction writer of black magic stories akin to the like of Agatha Christie or Edgar Wallace. The Devil Rides Out is more accomplished than the two Wheatley adaptations by the studio, the sci-fi fantasy The Lost Continent (1967) and To the Devil a Daughter (1976) which with its 1970s locations and gore was an anathema to the old fashioned quintessentially English Wheatley. Allegedly Wheatley loved the job done with this film while he hated the other two. And with that Hammer died out too. While as a supernatural black magic chiller it is one of the great Hammer films it is still superseded by an earlier British supernatural horror called the Night of the Demon (1957) but is never the less a great film which, like those who the remember the film from their youth left a mark and a film that for me has a great deal of affection.

Chris Hick