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It’s very rare to find a movie that is not only still referred to as forbidden, or banned, but is also 40 years old. By this point, most of the “dangerous” movies of the 70’s and 80’s have long been defanged by modern sensibilities and filmmaking, but it is not so for this week’s Rotten Horror Picture Show subject, the ever-hard-to-find, ever-transgressive masterpiece of 70’s British folk horror, Ken Russell’s The Devils.
In 17th-century France, Father Grandier (Oliver Reed) is a priest whose unorthodox views on sex and religion influence a passionate following of nuns, including the sexually obsessed Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave). When the power-hungry Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) realizes he must eliminate Grandier to gain control of France, Richelieu portrays Grandier as a satanist and spearheads a public outcry to destroy the once-loved priest’s reputation.
Join Clay and Amanda as they go into to the devilish deep end with psychedelic convent orgies, giant wheels of destruction powered by protestants, horny priests and even hornier nuns, crocodiles as medical devices, an abundance of subway tile, a pandemic meet cute, and a mask for every occasion!
We’re sticking around the gritty days of film in the early 70’s again, for the fourth time in five of our last episodes, and oh boy what a time it was. As far out as some of the boundaries were pushed in that era, Ken Russell’s The Devils remains one of the few that still has the ability to push boundaries half a century later. Boundaries of aesthetic, boundaries of storytelling, and of course boundaries of good taste. It remains a relevant story about power and corruption that’s as striking today as it was 50 years ago!
So reenact the birth of Venus, have some inappropriate dreams about Oliver Read, and bring out your dead with us…if you DARE!