We all know the deal with a Hammer horror movie by now, right? More often than not it’s an adaption/sequel of an existing property such as Dracula or Frankenstein that sees either Peter Cushing and/or Christopher Lee either seek to vanquish evil from a period landscape, or are, in fact, the evil themselves. Even the movies featuring less famous creatures tend to follow similar tropes and while you’re marvelling at the luxurious sets and vibrant cinematography, you may also experience the odd splash of crayon-coloured blood or a heaving cleavage or two to boost the sex and violence quota.
It’s a formula that saw Hammer in good stead for nearly twenty years, but every now and then the studio would release something that broke from the standard rules and offered up something impressively original. With 1968’s awesomely titled The Devil Rides Out, we found Richard Matheson scripting Dennis Wheatley for a Terence Fisher who seemed to be trying to emulate Terence Young in order to give us the rather mouthwatering concept of a supernatural Bond film. Don’t believe me? Then let me see what explanations I can conjure up for you…
In the South of England in the year 1929, the obscenely knowledgeable Duc de Richleau and his his friend Rex Van Ryn call in on his protegé, Simon Aron whom they both haven’t seen in quite a while. However, thanks to Simon’s curious behavior and the nature of the company he’s keeping that night, De Richleau soon finds that his Satan Sense has started tingling and fears that the younger man has fallen in with the mother of all bad crowds and gotten mixed up with the occult. Leading the pack is the seering Mr. Mocata who obviously has designs on Simon and De Richleau correctly deduces that the silver tongued villain aims to baptise Aron into the realms of darkness and both he and Rex leap into action to thwart the deed.
From here, things soon rapidly spiral out of control as De Richleau and Rex not only manage to snatch Simon out of the clutches of Mocata and his dark lord, but they also manage to pluck another young initiate, Tanith, from the jaws of the devil worshiping cult.
Now, satanism isn’t exactly my bag, but I do know that worshipers of old Scratch don’t usually take these sorts of things lying down and before you know it, both Duc De Richleau and Mocata find themselves embroiled in a deadly game of chess as each tries to outwit the other using their knowledge of the occult. On one side, Mocata has a hypnotic stare, the ability to conjure up terrifying apparitions and even has the Angel Of Death itself at his beck and call and all De Richleau has in response is Rex, a not very dependable Simon and Tanith and the long suffering family of his niece who soon find themselves horribly out-gunned when it comes to facing off against pure evil.
So, let’s address that rather left-field comment I made about The Devil Rides Out being the equivalent of a Hammer horror Bond flick (or even a supernatural version of The Saint, or The Persuaders). I don’t say such a thing lightly, but while a large amount of other Hammer fare features some sort of creature of some kind, be it a vampire, werewolf, gorgon or some sort of stitched together experiment, this adaption largely does away with all this in favour of more human combatants. Gone are beasts snarling in the dark, or stalking their prey through grim, gothic graveyards an in their place are rather normal looking – if intense – members of the upper class who do their dark business in full view and face to face while the general public remains oblivious. Wits and knowledge are the currency here and if you happen to know more than your enemy, you are more likely to deflect their assassination attempts in order to score one of your own – but rather than using garottes or silenced pistols, these gentlemen choose to carry out their spy vs spy tactics with spells, incantations and ornate, protection circles drawn on the wooden floor of a room. You may think I’m grasping at straws, but while watching The Devil Rides Out, I couldn’t help but be reminded of one of the older Sean Connery Bonds such as Dr. No or From Russia With Love, only the dueling secret agents had been replaced with men with knowledge of the occult and their weapon exchanged for spells and counter spells. Of course, there’s the odd car chase too which pretty much seals it.
It also helps that this battle of good against evil is carried out by some of the most bizarrely well behaved gentlemen you’ve ever seen who, like Bond, would rather fail than see their mask of British civility slip even when the Satanic chips are down. Much like Jacques Tourneur’s Night Of The Demon, The Devil Rides Out proves to be most fun when their players are laying out the various rules that govern black magic while trying to use it to out maneuver their enemy and you couldn’t hope to have two better men doing it than both Christopher Lee and Charles Gray. Adding even further to that feeling of a paranormal 007 adventure is that both men eventually went on to portray Bond villains, but what we essentially have are two actors eternally renowned for their ability to juggle camp gravitas, engaging in a battle of wills that involves the most sternest glares and the gravest of line readings and its a shame that some of the visuals haven’t dated well enough to do them justice. A moment where Satan is revealed to be a portly, crosslegged gentleman, with hairy shoulders and a goat’s head feels less like the king of Hell and looks more like the character of Cow Boy from the comedy film, Freaked. However, in other instances, the crude effects actually succeed in helping all the plotting pay off big time – in a stand out sequence where Mocata is sending various visions to goad the heroes outside of a protective circle. But when the villain plays especially dirty and has the daughter of De Richleau’s niece threatened by a giant spider, you actually feel the panic despite the presence of some fairly obvious blue screen work. Later still, the appearance of the Angel Of Death might look vaguely like Venger from that Dungeons & Dragons cartoon from the 80s and may seem hokey as hell (pun not intended), but it’s still a jarring sight when it suddenly barrels into the room.
A refreshing change of pace from the usual parade of monsters that Hammer excelled in, matters were all the more impressive that it was directed by the studio’s heaviest hitter, Terence Fisher who continued to show his versatility while still sticking to the basic, Hammer rules. However, surely the most memorable aspect of The Devil Rides Out is the sight of Lee and Gray desperately trying to out-upper class each other as their mortal enemies are locked in a game of Satanic one-upmanship. It’s made all the more imposing that not only is Lee the protagonist this time out as exudes the same amount of benevolent arrogance as Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange, but we get the truly alien sight of him regularly looking scared shitless as he’s tasked with neutralising yet another of Gray’s gnarly attacks. One of Hammer’s most purely enjoyable and exciting endeavours, The Devil Rides Out effortlessly dines out on its devilishly good plus points.
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