Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: The Devil Rides Out

In this classic episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the 1968 Hammer horror film “The Devil Rides Out,” directed by Terence Fisher and adapted by Richard Matheson from the novel by Dennis Wheatley. It stars Christopher Lee and Charles Gray as dueling occultists in a tale of high-stakes Satanism. (originally published 4/15/2022)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
And this is Joe McCormick, and today we're going into
the vault for an older episode of Weird House Cinema.
This one originally aired on April fifteenth, twenty twenty two,
and it's our episode on the Devil Rides Out.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
That's right as we're reairing this, we're halfway through our
Look at the wicker Man, and so you know we're
gonna be talking. We're talking about Christopher Lee a lot.
So this is this is another very interesting Christopher Lee film.
Plays a very dour character, but we have a lot
of fun with it. So I hope you enjoy.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
And this is Joe McCormick. And today on the show,
we're going to be talking about The Devil Rides Out,
a nineteen sixty eight hammer horror film about the perverted
terrors of the Satanic cults operating throughout inter War Britain.
This movie stars Christopher Lee and Charles Gray and is
based on a novel from the nineteen thirties by Dennis Wheatley,

(01:20):
and I will say all of the satanic themes aside.
If I could only make one comment about this film,
it's that it is a jackpot for anybody who likes
listening to Christopher Lee telling people not to do things
and ordering them to go to bed.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yes and not Chiltern, mind you, grown adults.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yes, this is one of the most paternalistic movies I've
ever seen. It has an authority figure as Christopher Lee.
He represents order, the Sign of the Cross, conservative values,
and he's just bosson everybody around constantly.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Everyone stand back, the proper British adults are here.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
It's funny because I, of course I love Christopher Lee,
but his character in this movie is so pompously self
serious and bossy and paternalistic. I feel like it's going
to be nearly impossible for modern audiences to avoid regarding
this character with anything other than like amusement or contempt,

(02:21):
which I think can be extrapolated to feelings about the
movie in general, because this is a very competently made
horror movie. But if you were to just give me
the pitch, like you know, read me a description of
what this is going to be. It's a hammer horror
movie made in nineteen sixty eight about satanic cults, starring
Christopher Lee as Maximum Order Daddy and Charles Gray as

(02:43):
a psychic Aleister Crowley who likes to make people garrot
themselves with necklaces. I would assume this was going to
be a jolly, campy frolic charged up with like gratuitous
sex and fangs and orange blood, but no uncarre. Characteristically
for its provenance, this movie is culturally conservative and deadly serious,

(03:06):
which in this context means it is pretty much just
inviting us to laugh at it rather than with it.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Absolutely. I mean not that there are a lot of
built in laughs in this film anyway, but yeah, it's
very much one where you have to find some fun
in a character like Christopher Lee's character, or really most
of the adult characters in this film, because they're very
hard to root for, impossible to love.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Another thing I would say is that looking at the
film's marketing material would also lead the average person, I think,
to the wrong conclusion about its tone and content.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Oh, absolutely, especially concerning the poster art. Now, this was
originally released under the title We're discussing It as the
Devil Rides Out. This is the British title. This was
the title of the book upon which it was based,
And so the British poster had like a devil riding
a horse and it looks pretty cool. I wouldn't shy

(04:00):
away from putting this on the wall. But then it's
released in the United States as The Devil's Bride, supposedly
because they thought The Devil Rides Out sounds too much
like a Western or And I don't know, maybe this
is just me, but I'm thinking maybe they thought it
sounds like a motorcycle film. It does sound motorcycling to me,
and they're like, no, no, no, let's call it the
Devil's Bride. But the poster for this one, oh, it's

(04:21):
one of the finest nineteen sixties nineteen seventies horror posters
you could possibly go for.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Right, So it has our goat head demon, our goat
of Mendez, which does appear in the movie. The funny
thing about him is he has the goat horns, but
then he also has floppy ears, and you would think, oh,
the floppy ears. That makes him look funny and cute,
But they add to the horror that it works. He's
got a big eye in his belly and his row

(04:49):
and then he's like holding one of the main actresses
in this movie in his arms, presumably you know, to
take her to hell with him. And then in his
robes you see reflect did a lot of the monsters
and horrors that appear throughout the film.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah, beautiful yellow background that also kind of works, And
it's just it's a beautiful poster. Also, I would say
that just the image of the monster man carrying the woman,
the unconscious woman. This is of course an iconic theme
you find in various poster art from Yester Year, not
entirely unproblematic, but still very iconic. So this one, this

(05:26):
poster is really hitting a number of buttons, really coming
out with guns ablazing and makes you think this is
going to be the psychedelic satanic film par excellence. And
I have to say, if that is what you're expecting,
be prepared to be maybe a little bit disappointed and
find yourself going in a slightly different direction. It's still

(05:47):
this film is still a lot of fun. It has
some great satanic stuff in it, some great Black Master
magic sequences. But this is a scene depicted on the
poster that does not actually occur in the film. It's
kind of constructed from elements of the film.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that we must stress is that
this is a film that has not just one, but
two Bond villain actors in it. So, of course Chris
fer Lee. You know, we know Chris fh Lee on
the show. He plays the assassin Scaramanga in The Man
with the Golden Gun, a Roger Moore Bond movie from

(06:22):
the seventies I think, widely regarded as one of the
worst Bond movies. And then you have Charles Gray as
the villain in this movie, who plays Blowfeld and Diamonds
Are Forever, the latter of which is, without a doubt,
the funniest Bond villain portrayal in the entire history of
the franchise. Have you seen Diamonds Are Forever?

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Okay, I've seen both of these, but both of them
I last saw them when I was a child. Okay,
So the Man with the Golden Gun I remember is
being amazing because he had that golden gun.

Speaker 4 (06:52):
Right.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, yeah, that's the only thing I remember.

Speaker 5 (06:54):
Though.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
The Golden Gun is very cool, and chrispher Lee is
very cool, but Charles Gray and Diamonds Are Forever. He
he plays Blowfeld with this. I don't know what you
called the style of vocal delivery, but it's the Charles
Grays and yeah, yes, yes, maybe.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Is that the one that takes place in Vegas a
little bit?

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yep, yeah, they got Las Vegas. That one's not good either.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Okay, yeah, I barely remember that one, but you know you,
you'd be brought up pub Blofeld. This reminds me of something.
So one of the things I kept thinking about in
this film was like, oh, we got two Bond villains.
We got a Bond villain actor, famous Bond villain actor
playing the hero and a famous Bond villain actor playing
the villain.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
And though this movie was before both of those.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Right, right, but it made me wonder, especially with Christopher Lee,
is Christopher Lee just not good at playing Like how
much of it is is like he just needs to
play villains. This is an actor who excels at playing villains,
and maybe he shouldn't play the heroes. And then how
much of it is just like this is kind of
a crummy hero role.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
I don't know. Yeah, I think it might be more
the latter because okay, so he's a villain in this
other movie. But you might think, well, maybe the problem
is he's just too imperious and he can't be a
kind of he can't have that likable, jolly protagonist energy
that you would need to really get people on your side.
But I would say he has that as the villain
in The wicker Man. Oh when I showed so when

(08:17):
Rachel and I watched The Devil Rides Out, Rachel observed
that this movie is kind of inverse Wickerman. It's with
Christopher Lee playing the Sergeant Howie character in The wicker Man,
just like a very uptight conservative person in the face
of all of this depravity and devil worship.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
That's a good point, I guess.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
In The Wickerman it's not explicitly devil it's you know, paganism.
Though of course, I would say the mindset that makes
a lot of these Satanism movies and stuff like Denni
Wheatley's novel would probably mostly conflate the two. Right.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
If it is not Christian, then there's a good chance
that it is devil worship according to this mindset.

Speaker 4 (08:55):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
And that's the other thing is that this movie, I
would say is Satanic Panic before the Satanic Panic. It's
like a progenitor of Satanic Panic. Even going back to
the novel which came out, It did come out in
the nineteen thirties, right.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah, this was a nineteen thirties novel. And I've actually
read that like this the books of Dennis Wheatley, because
there's more than one that ends up concerningly a cult,
and we'll get into that in the bit. I've read
that these helped sort of influence the you know what
would become proper Satanic Panic in the decades to follow,
believe historian Philip but Jenkins has particularly pointed to a

(09:33):
nineteen twenty seven novel by Herbert Gorman titled The Place
Called Dagon and pointed this out as a key influence
on the Satanic Panic themes to come, and the book
apparently influenced such occult authors as Dennisweetly, as HP Lovecraft,
and Robert Block.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Now, I noticed that right before you picked this movie
for Weird House, you sent me a you sent me
a link to a news segment produced sometime in the
eighties that was pure Satanic Panic. It was just it's
unreal the kind of stuff that used to run on
like mainstream media in the American press and on TV

(10:11):
in the eighties, I think was what was this twenty
twenty or.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
I'd believe it was, yeah, twenty twenty satanic panic.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
Making, just like on his face, absolutely absurd claims about
devil ritual you know, satanic rituals and stuff like that
going on in America, but presented completely seriously as if
this is one hundred percent fact. Interviewing these experts who
are obviously like have no idea what they're talking about,

(10:38):
you know, finding devil worship in every movie and music.
One thing that was weird is it even singled out
a movie like The Exorcist, which I would say is
a movie that is about as faithfully Catholic as a
movie could be.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's ultimately the demons
are there, but God is there. Yeah, maybe it's I
mean the Exorcist, especially at the time, was regarded as
a pretty extreme film and you know, very shocking and
was very much the talk of the town. Maybe part
of that is, like it's not necessarily about having watched
the Exorcists, about the idea that the Exorcist exists, you know,
it's popularizing Satanic themes.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
I guess. But so anyway, so you got interested, I guess,
in in these like satanic panic movies through that or
is that a coincidence?

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Oh? I mean I'm always interested in Satanic themes and things.
You know, it's you know, it's it's part of it's
become such a part of our pop culture. So many
of the move There are so many movies on our
list of potential episodes that concern Satan worshippers in one
way or another. Though weirdly enough, I think the first
Satan worship movie that I saw as a child was

(11:43):
the Dragnet movie that Dan Akroyd did. Do you remember
this one?

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, Tom Hanks?

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah, well yeah, dan Akroyd and Tom Hanks and I
forget who plays like the high Priest of Satan. But
it's like.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Hollywood and Jackie Allance.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Maybe jack Punce is in there. There's some older actor,
but yeah, it's that's I don't really remember that movie
is good or not, but it has a lot of
Satanic cult in Hollywood of kind of imagery, you know,
the robes, the goats, the satiric ex drugs, every kind
of filth. Yeah, so I mean, yeah, if you're into
if you're into horror films, if you're into into like

(12:17):
metal music or anything like that, you know, like the
various themes of like movie satanism are kind of unavoidable.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, okay, well, should we hear some trailer audio.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Let's do it.

Speaker 4 (12:32):
Ricks. Do you believe in evil? That's an idea. Do
you believe in the power of darkness? That's a superstition?

Speaker 2 (12:40):
How there?

Speaker 4 (12:41):
You were wrong? The power of darkness is more than
just a superstition. It is a living force which can
be tapped at any given moment of the night.

Speaker 5 (12:54):
Why on one night, on one ear should these people
live in mortal fear?

Speaker 4 (13:07):
My God? The goat of mentis.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
The devil himself.

Speaker 5 (13:15):
Christopher Leasdrishna, who knows he must fight the devil's power
to the death.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
My God, don't BLib it.

Speaker 5 (13:26):
The eyes Rex eyes, eyes once filled with love, are
consumed with fear for taneth is.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
Now promise to the devil. Listen, care to what I've said.

Speaker 5 (13:41):
This is Makata, the Devil's chief disciple. Your will is
leaving you, slipping away. The devil rides out from bestseller
author Dennis Whakley's famous novel fills the screen with a
special kind of visual quickly goodness. You will hear his evil,

(14:10):
you will feel is evil, you will see is evil.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
All right, So, uh, before we get into the people here,
we should probably don't know if we stressed. Yeah, I
think you mentioned it briefly. But this is, of course
a Hammer horror film. Have we discussed a Hammer film
on the show before?

Speaker 2 (14:35):
Oh, I mean, I know it's come up in passing.
I don't know if we've featured one. We've talked about
him with Seth a lot, our regular producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson.
I think sometime in the past couple of years got
like the ultimate box set of Hammer films and was
just going through them and we were talking about them all.
So if you're not familiar, Hammer put out a lot
of British horror films in the I don't know when

(14:58):
their their full run was. I associate than with the
sixties and the seventies, and you know a lot of
films starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and various Dracula
van Helsing Mummy kinds of roles. But then also they
branched out into just more general kind of sexy vampire movies.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Right right, Definitely, there's a shift that occurs as things
get more into the late sixties seventies vibe. And one
of the interesting things about this film that has been
pointed out in particular, horror historian Kim Newman discusses this
a little bit in a little short extra on the
Splendid Blu Ray for this movie that this is ultimately

(15:36):
more of a nineteen thirties movie. It has nineteen thirties
horror sensibilities, or at least nineteen fifties I believe, more
like a nineteen fifties horror movie, as opposed to a
nineteen sixty eight, you know, early seventies film, which would
have been, you know, more in line with the cultural
changes that are happening. This is a film, but it's
more for the older generation that's terrified by what's occurring,

(15:58):
but it's not ready to quite embrace it or exploited.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
Right. It came out in nineteen sixty eight, but it
is it seems to be wagging a finger at the
audience and cautioning them against any stranger or unorthodox beliefs
or practices.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
All right, well, let's start at the top. The director
on This Baby was Terence Fisher, who have nineteen oh
four through nineteen eighty yeah, British film director best remembered
for his Hammer films. He directed a slew of them,
beginning in I Believe nineteen fifty one with the Last Page,
but really kicking into high horror gear in nineteen fifty

(16:32):
seven with the Curse of Frankenstein starring Christopher Lee and
Peter Cushing. He was already an established TV and film
director by this time, though, but he ended up directing
a lot of the big Hammer films, including but not
limited to, Horror of Dracula, Frankenstein in The Monster from Hell,
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Dracula, Prince of Darkness, and others.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
I have a big poster for Terrence Fisher's production of
The Mummy right next to me on the wall here
nineteen fifty nine, and I have the Belgian poster for it,
I believe because the title on it is La Meledicion
de Feron and to the Curse of the Pharaohs, I guess.
But the poster is great because there's like the Mummy,

(17:14):
which is played by Christopher Lee in the Terrence Fisher movie,
but like it's approaching, and then there's a lady screaming
in the foreground, and then behind the mummy people are
shining a flashlight and the beam of light is just
like piercing right through it.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Oh, yes see, I have seen this poster. This is
a beauty because there's kind of like a cosmic sense
to the mummy in it. All right, we mentioned Dennis
Sweetly already. Dennis Sweetly wrote the novel The Devil Rides
Out upon which this is based. Wheaty lived eighteen ninety
seven through nineteen seventy seven, British author of popular thriller novels,
often with the cult themes. And one of the things

(17:48):
that the Kim Newman points out is like this guy
was a very popular author at the time. He says, like,
if you went to the horror section of your British bookstore,
half the books would be Dennis Sweetly novels. So he
was a big deal. He was a popular author. He's
said to have influenced the likes of Ian Fleming because
a lot of his books were, especially his earlier stuff.
You know, it's sleuth centered. You know, it's about espionage

(18:12):
and spies, but also very much around based around the
sort of you know, classic British machismo, you know, heroes
going out and risking their lives, punching somebody in the
face and saving a woman, that sort of thing. But
then things begin to get a little more. He ends
up throwing in more occult themes as he goes. Now,
I'm certainly no weekly expert. I tried reading one of

(18:35):
his books once and it didn't grab me. But my
understanding is that, yeah, a lot of his series, and
he has multiple series with recurring characters, start out more
traditional and then end up latching onto occult themes. And
we definitely see this in his Duc de Richelieu series,
of which this book is part right.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Christopher Lee's character in the movie is the Duke de Rischloh.
I think his actual given name is Nicholas. They only
say that like once or twice in the movie. Usually
he's just Duke or the Duke or Rishchlow.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah. So the first book in that series, however, is
just pure espionage adventure, and then the second book that
comes later is The Devil's Right. The Devil rides out
full of not only a cultist and satanist, but actual
supernatural forces. So it's like, imagine you had like a
couple of James Bond movies and yeah, they've got giant
squids and whatnot. But then in Super Science a little bit,

(19:29):
but then you get to the point where it's like, oh, yes,
the Devil has shown up.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Okay, so it's James Bond versus Baphomet.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, sort of or kind of like a proto James Bond,
you know, yeah, because it's very much came first. But
he has another series, the Gregory Sallas series, that I
think does much the same thing. The first book, in
That Black August from nineteen thirty four, imagines a futuristic
nineteen sixty and economic collapse, so very much you know,
a different beast. But then by nineteen sixty four he

(19:57):
returns to that character in Used Dark Forces, which has
the hero battling Nazi occultists and I think teaming up
with another occultist to take them on. This is the
one that I actually tried to read once and just
could not get into it. Your mileage may vary, but
I could not get into Wheeley.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
When you pasted in a paragraph from the opening page
of The Devil Rides Out, I got to say I
was not attracted to the prose style.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
No, I don't think. I don't think. There are a
lot of certainly modern critics that are praising his pros. Now,
one of the interesting things, since this is the this
is not the first book to have these characters in it,
you could consider this movie a sequel to the nineteen
thirty four All Spy Zero Satan's thriller Forbidden Territory, directed

(20:45):
by Phil Rosen and based on the first Duke novel,
though the protagonist's name and I think all the main characters'
names are changed for some reason. Alfred Hitchcock originally optioned
the book. Speaking of film adaptation, so wheat Leave's occult
novel To the Devil a Daughter was adapted in nineteen
seventy six starring Christopher Lee, Richard Winmark Denholm, Elliott, and

(21:06):
Natasha Kinsky, and other films based on his work include
The Secret of Stambol and The Lost Continent. He allegedly
invited Alistair Crowley to dinner to research The Devil Rides Out.
I ran across that tidbit. I don't know if they
actually had dinner, maybe just invited him, But anybody, anybody
could invite Alistair Crawley to dinner, So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Well, I would say again, one thing to stress about
this is that this is different than a lot of
the other devil worship movies horror movies that you might
see from the early seventies, because I would say, this
is in itself and is based on material that is
genuinely contemptuous of any alternative religious practice or devil worship

(21:50):
or anything perceived as devil worship. It believes that is real,
that people actually do it, and it is evil and
will destroy you. So this is I think that the
author here is it's not just like exploitation. It is
genuine belief in the danger of the Satanic forces massing
against good society. Right.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah. The original intro by the author is kind of
funny to read because he's like, this is all fiction,
but I did research it, and I am convinced Satanist
are in London doing their thing. Don't try this at home,
because your soul is in danger. Which is a weird
line to walk. It's like, I'm going to exploit this.
I'm comfortable exploiting this, but don't look into this any

(22:34):
further than what I have presented here.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
It kind of reminds me of like the Da Vinci Code,
you know, the Dan Brown books, where he's like, Okay,
so this is a work of fiction, but all of
the historical claims and the situation of this story are
one hundred percent real and true, which in Dan Brown's case,
they are not right, all.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Right, So yes, to my taste, Wheatley's work is kind
of insufferable, and there are a lot of problems with it.
But the gentleman who adapted the screenplay is a writer
that I think holds up exceptionally well, and that is
the American novelist and screenwriter Richard Matheson, who lived nineteen
twenty six through twenty thirteen. American writer who is best

(23:17):
remembered as the author of the excellent nineteen fifty four
novel I Am Legend, upon which three films have been based.
Sixty four is The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price,
nineteen seventy one's The Omega Man starring Chuck Heston, in
two thousand and sevens I Am Legend starring Will Smith.
He also wrote the excellent Haunted House novel Hell House,
the thriller Duel, and the Shrinking Man. All these were

(23:38):
adapted into films Duel by a young Steven Spielberg, as
well as other adaptations include What Dreams May Come, A
Stir of Echoes, and others. He also wrote a lot
of TV, including sixteen episodes of the original Twilight Zone,
including the iconic Nightmare at twenty thousand Feet episode, and
he also wrote for such shows as Night Gallant, Original

(24:01):
Star Trek, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour Thriller, and as far
as films go, his screenplays include Trilogy of Terror, Corman's
House of Usher, and of course Jaws three D.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
Jaws three D. That was Matheson. Yeah wow.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
I mean. One of the things about Matheson, and this
is something that Kim Newman points out, is like Matheson
was great. Matheson's you know, work certainly holds up to
a modern reader, so much better than Wheatley. But also
he worked with Corman a bit, so he could also
work very fast. Yes, and presumably he says, you could
probably work on a reasonable budget if you're working for Corman.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
So okay, I see. So it's the Corman principle. It's like,
you know, coming to Charles B. Griffith and saying I
need a movie called Attack of the Giant Crabs. It
needs to be done in four days.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Yeah, presumably, But anyway, I mean written, mathes is great
and has created so much wonderful work over the years.
So it's interesting though that in a very British film
we have this very you know, American writing force that
is adapting it and tweaking it a little bit and
also ultimately removing many things that probably didn't work all
that well. In the Wheely novel.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
One last Thing, I didn't know that Matheson had written
one of the Corman Poe movies, and I'd been thinking,
we need to do one of the Corman Poe movies.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
Oh well, stay tuned, we may just do that, all right. Now,
let's get into the cast here. So kind of like
last last episode, the last new episode we did. I mean,

(25:37):
what can you say about Christopher Lee, who plays the
duke here. You know, he's been in so many things,
lived nineteen twenty two through twenty fifteen. He has one
of those careers that had like multiple you know, you
had some sort of dips here and there, but also
you know, especially later in life, he was in so
many great films and you know, memorable films at least

(25:58):
you know, he's known for playing so many villains, Dracula, Sorrowman,
Scott Amanga, Count Dooku, Lord summer Isle, Frankenstein's Monster, Kris
The Mummy. He also voiced the villain King Hagrid in
nineteen eighty two. Is the Last Unicorn, which I just
watched more than half of with my family last night

(26:21):
and was really enjoying that so and that also reminded
I was looking up some stuff about Last Unicorn on
Last Unicorn is one of these where they hired Christopher
Lee for it, and he was very enthusiastic about it,
apparently a big reader, and he showed up with the
original novel with things earmarked, saying, these absolutely cannot be cut.

(26:41):
These lines have to stay in the picture. And he
apparently did this with Lord of the Rings as well. Oh,
and probably with this film, because I understand that The
Devil Rides Out was also a film where he liked
the book and he was really excited for the film
and probably showed up with the book and was like, no, sorry, Matheson,
this goes in this.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
That's funny because I actually watched part of an interview
or I think it was an audience Q and A
with some event that he was doing, and a member
of the audience asks him, you know, it's been rumored
that you have a large occult library. Is that true?
And how'd you get interested in that? And he says, no,
it is not true. I have maybe four or five
books on the occult, and one of them, he says,

(27:23):
is an original copy of The Devil Rides Out, signed
by the author, So he's clearly a fan. But then
he also cautions the audience not to experiment with devil worship.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
He's basically the Duke.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
But I mean, yeah, gotta love Christopher Lee. It's hard
to pick a favorite role. I'm tempted to go. I mean,
he is Saruman to me. It's one of those performances
that is so thoroughly the character that it replaces whatever
imagination you might have had from the book before you
saw the movie. He just embodies it perfectly. But then
the other thing I would say, maybe even more than that,

(27:57):
is Lord Summerle. I mean, he is the general and
Pagan from the Wickerman. It's it's it just can't be beat.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
Yeah, yeah, these these are all great roles. I love
all the roles that I mentioned already, and and there
are plenty of Christopher Lee performances out there I haven't seen,
so I'm sure there's some other gems.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
I know. One thing I've said on the show before,
I'm not a huge fan of the the Star Wars prequels,
but there's always that moment when Christopher Lee shows up
in them where I think the way I've put it before,
and I stand by this, is that it's like in
a movie that is kind of stuffy and suffocating, Christopher
Lee walks on screen and suddenly it's like someone has

(28:36):
opened a window and let fresh air and now everything's oh,
oh oh, things feel great now.

Speaker 4 (28:42):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
I love his betrayal of Dooku in those two Star
Wars films, and I especially love in the opening of
the Revenge of the Sith, where you have that that's
that duel between Anakin and Douku, and then of course
you have Palpatine watching on and ultimately deciding it's fate. Yeah,
it's a great sequence, and Lee's great in it because
he's you know, he's very much He's great. He was

(29:04):
always great at playing this kind of grandiose and egotistical villain,
and then we get to see like the vulnerability briefly
as he's betrayed by his master. So yeah, Lee always
brought brought something great to the table.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
But anyway, it's an interesting casting choice for this character
of the Duke de Richlow that the protagonist of the movie,
who who represents order and the side of good against
against the chaos and evil of Charles Gray as mister Mocatta.
But yeah, I'm kind of wondering, like, could you have
cast somebody else in this role and how would the

(29:38):
movie be different if you had?

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah, Like part of me was thinking, well, maybe, like
maybe Lee, especially at this point, wasn't as good at
like portraying like likable and vulnerable characteristics, like whereas someone
like Peter Cushing his close friend and you know in
Frequent co Star, maybe he would have been able to
deliver that better. But then again, I come back to
the way this character's written, and maybe anybody would have

(30:02):
been stuffy and unlikable in this role.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
One thing I got to say is the bizarre choice,
and maybe this reflects how the esthetics of Satanism have
changed over time. But they give Christopher Lee devil worship
or facial here they give him the classic Satanist goateee's
when he's playing the guy who's against the Satanists.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah. And then it is interesting when we look at
who's playing his adversary, Mocatta, the High Priest of the
London chapter of the Church. It's not actually the Church
of Satan, but this whatever the Satanic cult is calling itself,
this is played by Charles Gray, who lived nineteen twenty
eight through the year two thousand.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
I think they're called the Friends of the Goat.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Friends of the Goat. Okay, So Gray not as legendary
as Christopher Lee, perhaps, but certainly a celebrated British character
actor in his own right, often remembered for playing aristocratic
and villainous roles, you know, very sort of tight liped
to clinch jawed villains, very British. But he played some
big ones. We already mentioned his run as Blowfeld and

(31:10):
Diamonds Are Forever. But he also he also played a
good guy in sixty seven's You Only Live Twice. So
he's actually in two Bond films.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Oh that's right. He's like another spy who Bond meets
somewhere and I remember he gets a knife in the
back through a paper wall.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
I don't remember that. He is fun. He played Microft Holmes,
this is Sherlock Holmes's brother, both in the nineteen seventy
six film The Seven Percent Solution and also in the
Jeremy Brett Excellent Jeremy Brett Grenada television series of Sherlock Holmes.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
Oh, I've got to see those.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
Oh yeah, yeah, he's a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
And wait was the Seven Percent Solution?

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Is that.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Nicholas Meyer?

Speaker 1 (31:54):
It is? Yes, this was his novel.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yes, I bet that's great.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
But of course, for many of you out there, Gray
is best remembered as the criminologist an expert in nineteen
seventy five's The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
It's just to jump to the left.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yeah, But he's in a lot of other things too.
For instance, he was in Richard O'Brien's follow up musical film,
Shock Treatment, which I have not been able to get
into yet. I keep thinking, Oh, I love Rocky Horror.
I'll give Shock Treatment a try, and I'll listen to
the music a little bit. And it just hasn't happened.
He's also in the Wonderfully fun nineteen seventy four were

(32:28):
Wolf Who Done It? The Beast must Die? This is
the film that has a were wolf break, as you'll remember.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Joy, So yeah, you can collect your thoughts about who
the were wolf is.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
He also dubbed for Jack Hawkins in the film Theater
of Blood and others after Hawkins's Larnix was removed to
combat throat cancer.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Theater of Blood is the other movie we talked about
in the episode with about Doctor Fibes. It was the
other movie where Vincent Price must return from the grave
or after being assumed dead, to get revenge on nine
specific people who he believed wronged him.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
So Gray is fun in this, but he's very much
playing a kind of stern and serious Alistair Crowley with
hair but also as this is I thought. Another fun
tid that Kim Newman points out is he's kind of
playing Alistair Crowley's idea of what Aleister Crowley seemed like
to everybody else, you know, like like Crowley himself was

(33:27):
you know, you know, a bit of a con man
in his own right, you know, and was many other things.
But he may have thought that he came off like
this to other people. This highly charismatic, British occultist with
hypnotic eyes that just instantly has power over everyone when
he walks into a room. And then the other interesting
thing is that you have this character that this is

(33:49):
a film again where Satanan, anything that's not British and
Christian is potentially Satanist in nature, it's potentially Satanism. And
you have this character with his name Mocata that I'm
to understand maybe has more of an international flare in
the novel, but here we have him played by a
very British actor with a very British performance.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah. I don't know how much we've emphasized the xenophobic
themes of this movie already, but yeah, there is very
much a sense that like that which is foreign is
very likely associated with the devil. Though I'm a little confused.
I don't know. I know there's always some cultural crossover
between between Britain and France, but is Richlowe supposed to

(34:34):
be British or French? His name is French, and he
mentions I think he mentions that he and another character
that their fathers had worked together in some kind of
French organization. But he also just in every other way
appears to be British.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah, it's very confusing, yeah, because it's a very French name,
but in the film, at least, it's a very British portrayal. Likewise,
you know, Mokata seems to have been played up in
the novel for being something kind of you know, international
and the foreign and threatening. But of course Mocatta's the
name Mokata has been has been very British for a

(35:12):
long time. I mean, I believe it's tied to some
important banking families and so forth. So I'm a little
confused on that.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
All right, should we go to the next actor.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
I was trying to find how to pronounce her name,
and I was sorry that I could not find a
good example of it being said out loud, but it is.
Her name is I think Nick Arigi. Her first name
is spelled like the brand Nike in Ike, but I
guess that's niek Okay.

Speaker 4 (35:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
She plays Tenneth Carlisle in this film, which is probably
one of the more likable characters. It's a very low
bar in this film, but yeah. She was born nineteen
forty seven French visual artist and former actor. As an actor,
she was only active from I Believe nineteen sixty six
through nineteen seventy four, appearing in various European horror and

(35:59):
art house films. She had a small part in kin
Russell's nineteen sixty nine film Women in Love nineteen seventy
one's Countess Dracula. Other films include parts in Sunday Bloody Sunday,
playing a nun in kin Russell's The Devil's a Season
in Hell The Perfume of the Lady in Black. That
was her last picture, but then she went on to

(36:21):
focus on her art, and she has a website and
you can look at examples of her art there. Some
of these look like surrealistic oil and watercolor pieces.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Yeah, I was looking through her paintings and I really
like some of them. They're interesting. So some are just
like watercolor landscapes showing I don't know, a waterfall or
a city skyline or something, and then others are really surreal.
There's one of these women in I don't know, having
like a big It might be one of those things

(36:51):
they put on your I don't know what these are called,
These things they put on your head at the hairdresser
that like do a perm on you or something. It's
like a big glass helmet, but it's absurdly large in
the painting, making it look more like a science fiction device,
like it's scanning this this lady's brain while she's sitting
there with rollers in her hair, holding a baby. It's
a very, i don't know, weird interesting painting, and I

(37:13):
like it at any rate.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
She's good in this. She's acting opposite a whole lot
of stiff, unlikable male characters. So but it's easily the
character that seems to have like the most inner conflict.
You know, she's not ultimately not given a tremendous amount
of agency in this, so it's not you know, it's
not one of like, you know, the great roles one
might hope for, but you know, she breathes a lot

(37:36):
of life into it.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah, there are several parts where she just has to
gaze into the camera with like with hypnotized or possessed eyes,
and her eyelids go super wide, and she has some
kind of quality to her irises that makes them really
good for this kind of shod that looks intense.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
All right. The next actor of note is Leon Green
playing Rex van Row, though the character is dubbed by
Patrick Allen Green lived nineteen thirty one through twenty twenty one.
British actor who appeared in such films as a Funny
Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Flash Gordon.
In this he is the ultimate square job British man
who is ready to punch Satanists, punch windshields, whatever it

(38:18):
takes if it means saving a pretty lady from non
British ideas.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
He is our turbo lug. You I think you mentioned
when we were chatting about it, you said Rex is
ready to punch and kiss. Yes, that's about it. Yeah,
somehow I kept thinking, well, this doesn't quite communicate his
physical genre, which is sort of hunky lug. But he
reminded me of a cross between Chris Cooper and Buddy Hackett.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yeah, I could see that. He's also our skeptic for
like three minutes anyway in the film, because he's because
the Duke is like, Satanism is real and it's a
major threat to everything we know and love and buy
that at all. But then the Duke is like, look
at this, and then Rex is like, I'm convinced.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yes, the famous the power of darkness is a living
force speech.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah. So a lot of this film is going to
concern another character who they're very concerned about, and that
is the character Simon Aaron played by Patrick Mower born
nineteen thirty eight, Still active as he was just on
a British series called Emmerdale Farm. He's done a bunch
of TV work as well as such films as the
nineteen seventy vincent price movie Cry of the Banshee and

(39:31):
nineteen seventy one's Incense for the Damned. He's pretty good
in this in part because again his character is one
of the few that seems to be in in genuine
conflict and gets to act a little bit more and ultimately,
ultimately maybe is a little more relatable.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
I kept thinking he looks like Toby Maguire. He kind
of does, yeah, he does.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
Quick note that we have that goat monster, the goat
of Mendy's that shows up later on. This is uncredited
played by Eddie Powell, who lived nineteen twenty seven through
the year two thousand, a six' Five british stunt man
who also wound up in costume as such creatures as
The xeno morph in alien for stunt. Purposes The mummy

(40:12):
And The Mummy shroud And, yeah and this film he
plays the goat. Himself powell also did stunts on such
films As Willow, Legend, Batman, Indiana jones And The Last,
Crusade kroll in Various bond. Movies on that, note speaking of,
Monsters i'm just going to briefly mention the makeup effects
artists responsible for many Of hammer's best. Monsters Roy ashton

(40:34):
was the monster maker on this nineteen o nine through
nineteen ninety. Five and then the. Music this Is James,
bernard who lived nineteen twenty five through two thousand and.
ONE a classmate Of Christopher lee's At Wellington, college he
composed the scores of a whole bunch Of hammer horror,
films and later in life he wrote an original score
for Nos veratu in nineteen ninety.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Seven all, right are you ready to talk about the
plot a little?

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Bit let's do.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
It, Okay so the movie starts with a reunion of old.
Friends we Get rex Van renn. Again this is played
By Leon, green arriving by aeroplane which he pilots, himself
and landing in some kind OF i don't know. Field
it's just like a landing strip in somewhere in Rural,
england it looks, like and he meets With Christopher lee

(41:26):
playing The duke De, rischlow who is watching with binoculars
as he. Lands AND i Assume rex is arriving from,
overseas But i'm not.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
Positive, YEAH i think in the books he's Actually, american
even which is. Interesting, AGAIN i just englished him right.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Up, anyway they appear to be old, friends reunited after
some time, apart and so we learn that they have
a mutual friend Named, simon And rex is, curious where is?
He why isn't he here to greet me at the
airfield like, You and The duke, says, well he hasn't
heard From simon in three. Months he doesn't go to

(42:01):
his club In london, anymore which that's a horrible. Sign
and he's moved into a large house in the. Country
And rex is worried That simon might be in some
kind of. Trouble BUT i immediately this should be an
alarm bell for how this character is going to. Go
The duke is, like, now that's. Preposterous he would have
told me if he was in. Trouble but they decide

(42:22):
to go pay him a. Visit, oh and when they,
DO i don't know if you notice the same. Detail
it involves the. Duke they get into the back of
a car and the duke talks through some kind of
hose lined with red velvet to tell the driver where to.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
Go, YEAH i don't THINK i remember seeing this in
a film, before BUT i guess this must have been
a thing because he's supposed to take place in the,
THIRTIES i.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
Believe, yeah so he talks into the velvet hose and then,
yeah they get. There so they head out To simon's,
mansion and as soon as they're at his doorstep ringing the,
bell twilight has. Fallen there's creepy music. PLAYING a butler
answers the, door And Christopher lee is immediately highly. Suspicious
you see him squinting and furrowing his brows at everything

(43:05):
in the. House he just like looks at a vase,
suspiciously and he gazes into an open doorway like that's.
Trouble and then they get led into the next, room
where it looks Like simon must be hosting a nice.
Party and again it's one of those things where you
look at the party it looks like there's nothing. Wrong
with it at. All it looks, nice but The duke

(43:27):
immediately appears to have some kind of internal alarm sirens
screaming in his. Brain BUT i would say the only
thing that looks unusual about the party is, that like
you walk through and you like hear people, talking and
you see people's clothes and, stuff and it appears that
not everyone here is From, england like there appear to
be people from all throughout Continental europe And West africa

(43:48):
And South. Asia and then they're, like Dear.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
God, YEAH i, mean there's nothing in this scene that
would make you thinks anything other than maybe a you,
know various academics from around the world have gathered to,
discuss you, know a policy or, something, yeah you, know
un meeting or. Something but, yeah but they're just they're
just immediately. Horrified this is no. Good simon is in the.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Deep so, yeah, AGAIN i think this is showing these
weird xenophobic assumptions of the. Movie it's just, like, oh
there's tons of people from other countries. Here this must
be devil. Worship so they See, simon they come up
and talk to. Him rex is, like sorry for interrupting your,
party And simon is like, oh it's just a meeting
of a little astronomical Society i've. Joined so because they

(44:33):
looked outside when they were when they were outside, earlier
they looked up and there appears to be some kind
of like observatory dome at the top of his new.
House and then we meet some major. Characters we meet
Mister mocatta played By Charles. Gray he's not scary yet
in this. Scene in this scene he's more In blowfeld.
Mode he just has to, say you, know, well, well excuse, me,
gentlemen there's SOMETHING i must say To, simon and he

(44:55):
takes him. Aside and then they get a moment to
speak With tanneth played By Nick, arighi and she's confused
about their. PRESENCE i think she assumes that they are
part of the. Coven but then she, says surely we're
not meant to be more than. Thirteen and as soon
as she says, thirteen this gets a dramatic wheel about
From Christopher. Lee you, know he whips his head with

(45:15):
his eyes, wide and you know that like he's really
sure that there's trouble. Now so they're asked to, leave
but first The duke, asks you, know before we, depart
MAY i see your observatory because he says he's recently
become interested in. Astronomy he would like to peek through the,
telescope And simon tries to, object but as always in this,

(45:36):
Movie Christopher lee just gives him the do AS i
command you, eyes and then they head on. Up now
we'll see this observatory room in a couple of. Scenes
but there is a giant goat Head baphomet on the floor,
tiles and another ONE i think on the. Wall and
when they come, in they're, like this is. Interesting are
these astronomical? Charts simon's just, like, oh it's just a.

(45:57):
Decoration but then the, real the real thing that that
seals the deal is there's some noises in the closet
and we get the chicken, Reveal rob do you want
to describe this? Moment?

Speaker 1 (46:08):
Oh this is this is. Great so in just like
pure inquisitor, mode the duke goes over to the, closet
pulls it, open and you, know we see, this you,
know view the. Shot it's shot from the, closet horrified
look on his face because he opens his basket and
there are a couple of chickens in there and these
are the hallmarks of black. Magic you can't practice black

(46:31):
magic unless you've got some chickens around of, SACRIFICE i.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
Guess, Yeah but it was the pair of chickens that
that clinched it that this is definitely black, magic and
not The baphomet circle on the floor.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Right right the bathroom at circle is certainly like there
are other reasons to have chickens. Around there would even
be other reasons to, have, say a black cat and
a chicken, Around but to have the the Full baphomet, floor,
yeah that's that suggests something.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Else, oh but then we get the so he sees the,
chickens And lee knows for sure what's going, on and
then we GET i would say the line of the
film that stands out more than any, other which is
he turns To, simon he, says you, Fool i'd rather
see you dead than practicing black.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Magic it's such a it's such a great and telling
line like. This it may just adds extra unlikeability to this,
character you, know LIKE i WOULD i would rather you
be dead than adhere to some ideology that doesn't perfectly
line up with.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Bio so The duke Exhorts simon to leave the. House he's,
like come with, us you, know we will get you
out of, this And simon doesn't want to, go so
he just punches him, out just knocks him. Out they
repeatedly do this To. Simon by the, way by the
end of this, movie he will have had major head.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Trauma, YEAH i have to. ADMIT i, MEAN i know
that you're not supposed to punch people in the face
and try and knock them. Out you're not supposed to
hit people over the head with bottles and so, forth
which these things happen in films all the. Time but
a few weeks AGO i sustained a very mild concussion
and it was not. Fun and ever Since i've been
maybe a little like heightened sensitivity to these moments in.

(48:08):
Films so like something like this happens And i'm, like,
oh that's a concussion for, Sure and Then i'm, like,
oh he just had a concussion earlier in the. Picture
this is so. Dangerous stop Punching.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Simon, YEAH i love. It in movies they just treat
hitting people on the head as like general. Anesthesia, well
it just renders the, harmlessly renders them unconscious for some
short period of.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
Time how are you supposed to end a scene and
have somebody you need to get them to another location
and have them wake up and observe. Things so you
need you need some head trauma in. Between.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
Yeah so, anyway they go back to The duke's house
and there is a great hypnotism. Scene this is one
of the first scenes indicating That Christopher lee's character not
only knows what the the the rituals of darkness, are
but he can practice them. Himself.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
Apparently oh, yeah this this of course ties in so
per with a lot of the satanic panic energies that
the decades to, come and even some of the you,
know the scare tactics you see in other social, panics
and you, know fundamentalists and conservative mindsets where the individual's
warning you about the. Evil whatever the evil happens to,

(49:16):
be they know all about. It they've got all the
grizzly details and they will list it for. You they
know all the, terminology they have seen the. Stuff but they're.
Safe they're concerned about your. Safety and so like The
duke is already coming off it's such a hypocrite.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
Here, yeah so he there's this hypnotism scene where he
like puts a mirror in front Of, simon and he's he's,
like look into the mirror Of simon and he, brainwashes
like he seizes his mind, somehow and he's, like you
must go to bed now is one of the many
great sending people to bed. Scenes he sends him up
to his. Bedroom he puts a crucifix necklace on. Him

(49:54):
he says it's a symbol of. Protection and then they
break out the snifters of brown. LIQUOR i love that
there's there's just like numerous unlabeled jars of brown liquor
for them to drink. From And Christopher lee And rex
they sit down to have the talk about devil, worship
and he Asks, rex do you believe in? Evil and you,

(50:14):
Know rex is like ah magic and all. THAT i
think it's hocus. Pocus but then The duke gives a
speech about how the power of darkness is not just
an idea but a, living breathing. Thing and it's clear
now that they're up against something big and they may
have to do battle with it throughout the rest of the. Film,
Meanwhile simon upstairs in The duke's, bed his eyes snap.

(50:35):
Open he seems to be under the influence of, something
and he starts gathering up the chain of his crucifix
necklace and starts garrotting himself with, it and it seemed
for a minute like he was going to. DIE i
assume this character he's a. Goner but then the butler
comes in and helpfully removes the crucifix from his, neck
and Then simon just bolts out the. Window so at

(50:57):
this point the caper is on for the rest of.
Them The duke And rex will be in pursuit of
their Friend simon and eventually also Of tanneth to free
them from the cult and from the jaws Of satan.
Himself and so maybe at this point we can just
sort of zero in on several scenes and sequences throughout
the rest of the movie that struck. Us one of

(51:18):
WHICH i think we've got to talk about is the
return to the, house because the first thing The duke
And rex do When simon gets out of The duke's
place is, like, well maybe he went back. Home so
they go break in through a window and look around
to see if he's, there or If mocatta's coven is still.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
There that's. Right they go up to the observatory and
then what starts happening to the, Floor, well out of
that goat head on the, floor you have this sinister
smoke begins to, rise and we essentially have our first
proper summoning of the. Film they're, LIKE i think three
different summonings of, note and it seems to, summon you,

(51:56):
know it's like smokes bringing in some sort of. Form
what's it going to.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Be it's gonna be a, monster, right, sure a monster.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Or you, know a. Demon maybe it'll be the goat
guy from the, poster but, no it's just a dude
that looks slightly.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
Stoned yeah when we first saw. Him so there are
some good monsters later, on BUT i was just, like
this is just a. Guy but he's got bloodshot. Eyes
but it's just a.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Dude i've seen, this this this summoned being described as
a gin or a, demon but it's Just nigerian born
Actor Willie payne in red pants with a with a
legitimately kind of creepy smile and very stone looking. Eyes
they're able to play it up a, bit so it's
not like it doesn't, work but it also seems to

(52:38):
lean really hard into this idea of non white, equals
possibly satanic.

Speaker 4 (52:43):
Thing.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Yeah, yeah this scene didn't feel. Great it was it
seems to lean more on those kind of xenophobic assumptions
that the movie.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Has, yeah because the only other non white act characters
in the, film Including nigerian born actor Playwright Jimmy goodman A,
jibbai they are all seen as members of the. Cult
none of the.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
Cult the cult is, international it's got members from all, over.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Right so, yeah this this feels it's a little weird
to watch, This and it's also a little weird That
hammer picked this scene out put it on their. YouTube
they like here it. Is but if you lean into
the sort of like here's a really stone dude summoned
to combat your, heroes AND i kind of like, that
it's kind of, like don't look at his. Eyes he's really.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Stoned, yeah, yeah and and he's like hypnotizing, THEM i
guess with his eyes to like get them to come
into the circle of. Baphomett BUT i think they defeat
him by throwing a. Crucifix, yeah the first of several
crucifix lobbings in the. Film.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
Yeah the crucfix are like the holy hand. Grenade they
make demons just.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Explode, yeah, one, two, five and then they blow him
up and then they run out of the. House NOW
i think the next big thing is that The duke is,
like you, must you must Find taneth BECAUSE i must
go to The British. Live and what's he Gonna he's,
like gonna look into several occult tomes that are kept
under lock and. Key fortunately the person who runs the

(54:08):
occult tome section is a friend of.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
His, yes, again it's safe for The duke to be
interested in these things and be knowledgeable to these. Things
but not. You not, You Simon. Simon i'd rather you
be dead than read some of the books THAT i.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
Read So. Rex the next thing we see With, rex
he's just Got tanneth in the car and they're out
driving in the country, somewhere and it's one of those
weird scenes where somebody's already in the car with somebody
and then she's, like so why AM i? Here where
are we? Going and Then i'm, like, well why did

(54:43):
she get in the? Car what did they say before
she got in the? CAR i don't.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
Know but then it becomes. Clear he's, Like i'm here
to rescue you From. Satanism, yeah and she's, LIKE i
don't want to be, rescued and then, yeah it ultimately
ends up being a whole chase. Sequence.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Yes, well but also before, that he's, Like i'm here
rescue you From satan and take you out to. Lunch
do you want to go on a?

Speaker 5 (55:03):
Date?

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Yeah, Yeah and so they're they're planning on going to
lunch at a friend's. House this is the house Of
richard And marie and their Daughter, peggy who will become
bigger characters in the third. ACT a lot of the
second half of the movie takes place at their. House
BUT i was also wondering about they're not sure who he's.
Bringing so it's, like, hello old, FRIEND i brought a

(55:24):
bride Of satan to your house for.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
Lunch i've kidnapped. Somebody this is the other. Thing this
film has a lot of. Kidnappings And simon has already been, kidnapped,
yes and Now taneth has been. Kidnapped, yes and there'll
be more kidnappings to. Come.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
Yeah she lured away on false pretenses OR i assume
we don't know what they said before she got in the,
car but at least continuing along the journey after she
has said, NO i would rather go back to my
satan worship, Please and then this leads to a complex
series of chases where she steals a car from somewhere
and drives, away and Then rex has to chase after,

(55:57):
her and there's A you didn't expect a car chase this,
movie did? You but the car chase does Involve rex
punching through his own windshield. Yep and they, eventually, oh
they use magic to make him wreck.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
His, car but he's knocked. Unconscious another, concussion.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Right, Yes and then she so she eventually makes her
way back To mokata Because mokata was like hypnotizing her
through the rear view mirror in the.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
Car, well mirrors are, magic we know. That, oh that's.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Right so Eventually rex stumbles upon A satanic mass That
mokata is conducting in the. Woods actually it looks pretty.
Tame it's just a lot of people in like white,
robes the, bosses Like. Mokata he's wearing a purple, robe,
yes but a lot of people in white robes just
drinking wine and dancing. Like it is not as debauched
as some of the devil worship scenes in later movies would.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Be, right but it does have the ultimate that they
sacrifice a, goat and then here comes the goat. Himself
we have this wonderful appearance by the goat Of. Mendy's
it's the goat headed humanoid, form and it looks very.
Good it's legitimately. CREEPY i think this was a scene

(57:10):
that they pulled off rather well because he just kind of,
appears you. Know it's like he's come out of the.
Woods you've thrown a satanic party that is fun enough
that he is making an, appearance and everyone gets very.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
Excited, yeah and one THING i noted was like when
they cut the goat's throat in the, sacrifice it's like
dropping the beat in the, club like everybody goes. Wild.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
Yeah, yeah they get very excited about. It and, yeah
the goat looks. Great it's NOT i should, stress it's
not the goat you see on the. Poster they took
the head of the goat creature here and they put
it on one of the like probably The Charles gray
Character mocatta's robed, body and sort of built themselves a
poster out of images from the.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Film, well, anyway at this, mass it's. Worse simon And
tanneth are going to be baptized in the name Of.
Satan rex goes to a nearby payphone and summons the,
duke and so The duke comes and joins, him and
then they're, like, oh we've got to stop. This we've
got to stop this before they are baptized to the Evil.
One so they decide they're going To oh how They

(58:15):
the duke is, LIKE i wish there were some, light
and then he's, like what has? Light the headlights of a.
Car so they're, like we can defeat them with. Car
so they get into a car and then they drive
up on this, ceremony blasting the. HEADLIGHTS i guess they
turned the brights, on and that seems TO i don't,
know it does. Something everybody's, like. Oh and then they

(58:36):
lab a second holy hand. Grenade they throw a crucifix
at the goat and the goat explodes.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Yep. Yeah and Then rex is in there Punching, satanists Grabbing,
canneth carrying her, off AND i was struck by The
it's kind of ironic that we don't see the goat.
Creature we don't see The Great, goat The devil himself
carrying an unconscious, woman but we do See rex grabbing
our female character and running off into the.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
Night, yes and they also they Rescue tanneth And simon
and they take them back To richard And marie's, house
Where Christopher lee promptly starts managing everybody's sleeping. Arrangements he's,
like you will go to, bed and you will sit
beside the person who goes to, bed and. Commanding, yeah
so commanding people what to, DO i. Think so he

(59:20):
gives them all these instructions while he goes out to
fetch some magical. Implements and then there's another big set
piece which and this SCENE i actually thought was pretty
effective in the way it was meant to be the
visit By. Mokata So Charles gray just shows up at the.
Door makata arrives at the house and, HE i guess

(59:41):
it's proper courtesy to invite someone, in even if they
are the priest of The High priest Of, satan so
you know he's invited him By. Marie and Then mokata
And marie sit down in the study to have a
conversation where he will ask her to Hand simon And
tanneth over to. Him he, Says i'm not actually evil
in magic there is no or, evil and then he
tries to hypnotize her and bind her will to his

(01:00:04):
by the power of. Darkness AND i gotta say props
To Charles gray in this. Scene while he is often
funny in this, movie in this scene he is extremely.
GOOD i think actually rather.

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
Scary, yeah, yeah he's great in this. Scene there's also
another sequence where it's just the cult ist marching out
of the observatory house with some kind of thunderous music
and he's up front with a very stern look on his,
face where he also feels very powerful and a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
Scary, Yeah and so he's Hypnotized marie and he's, like
where Is simon and she says, upstairs WHICH i mean
he probably could have guessed, that but, anyway so he's trying,
TO i, guess get them out of the. House but
then he fails because the kid living in the, House,
peggy she runs in asking for a snack or. Something she's,

(01:00:52):
like where's my? Ball and Then marie is snapped out
of her trance and Asks macatta to. Leave AND i
thought that, funny especially Because rachel was, like it's the
kid that's going to defeat the. Devil oh.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Yeah it's also kind of it reminded, me of, course
Of Indiana, jones like next, Time Doctor, Jones it'll take
more than children to save.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
You oh, yeah. Yeah but So mokata is asked to.
Leave he, does but then there's a great. Line he,
SAYS i will not be, back but something.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
Will, hmmm oh and that's that's. Something should we talk
about that? Something?

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Well, YEAH i, MEAN i guess this leads into the
main thing that's left in the, movie which is the
siege of The Magic. Circle so The duke returns with
his magical implements and he draws a protective circle on
the floor of the library in the. House it's got
symbols all around, it and inside the, circle The, Duke, Simon,
marie And richard have to wait out the night while

(01:01:44):
being besieged by the forces of evil that are sent
By mokata AND i think conjured through the medium Of.
Tanneth this got kind of, complicated BUT i think the
idea is That mokata somehow Uses tanneth to make himself more.
Powerful he like manifests power through, her and for that,
Reason tanneth is, LIKE i can't be in the. House so,

(01:02:06):
meanwhile while they're in the, Library rex And tanneth run
off to a barn. SOMEWHERE i don't know exactly how
all that, works but that's where they. Go and the
other THING i was, wondering why Don't peggy and the
butler have to be inside the magic. Circle the other
four people in the house are in the. Circle peggy
And butler are just up in a room.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Somewhere, YEAH i. WOULD i, MEAN i wouldn't want my
child to see the forces of darkness that have been
marshalled against. Me but if they're going to be in
the house with the forces of, DARKNESS i THINK i
would rather than be like in the. CIRCLE i guess,
today if this were to, HAPPEN i could give my
son an iPad and he would be. Fine he just Watched,
pokemon and you could have the forces of darkness doing

(01:02:45):
their thing outside the circle and he wouldn't even look.
Up but how are you going to keep a kid
this age distracted during the, THIRTIES i don't.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Know well, Anyway so we get the siege here And,
rob do you want to describe the attacks that befall
them while they're waiting out the night in the? Circle all?

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
Right so. Yeah so the first attack was stone, dude
second attack was the great He, goat third attack, here
third summoning is going to be none other than The
angel Of. Death and it is pretty alarming when this one,
summoned because suddenly the door, opens white light spilling, out
and a perhaps semi transparent hard to see a winged

(01:03:21):
horse rides. In and the rider on that horse it's
this individual and. Armor you can't see his. Face but
then eventually he rides up close enough and we get
this close up like blue flames behind his. Head the
mask opens and it's a. Skull, yeah The angel Of
death is here to claim a human. Soul.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Robert one. THING i agree with everything you, said BUT
i think we're out of order here BECAUSE i think
the spider attacks before The angel does to.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Death oh, okay, well, okay in that, case we get
a lackluster giant spider, attack.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
Right so that comes tricks them with all these, illusions
like The devil keeps simulating people they, know asking for
help or trying to get them to step outside the.
Circle it pretends to Be peggy being attacked by the,
spider but it's not really, Her and of course The
duke is, like control yourself mad and stand there and,

(01:04:12):
yeah but then we get The angel Of.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
DEATH i have to say the spider. Again the spider
does not look very.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
Good, no it's just a tarantula with, force perspective and.
Stuff but, then so how do they defeat The angel Of?
Death Christopher lee has introduced this idea earlier that the
only thing he can do to fight back against these
forces is to say this spell the most dangerous magic
spell in the. World and he's, LIKE i dare not

(01:04:37):
say it unless our very souls are at peril because
it could destroy the entire.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
Universe BUT i did memorize it just in.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Case, yeah but he does say. It he says it
at The angel Of death and that that banishes. It
but at the end of the, night so they've made it.
Through but things look bad Because rex comes back and
he's holding the body Of tanneth has died and also has.
Disappeared so they're in dire straits. Now but where have they? Gone,
well The duke has to figure this out by conjuring

(01:05:08):
the ghost Of tanneth in the body Of marie and
then again commanding and yelling at, her, saying tell me
where have they, GONE i command. You but this leads
to a final confrontation at the Mansion, mokata where he
has an on site temple for human. SACRIFICE i think
he's going to Sacrifice peggy for some. Reason he says
it's the transference of. SOULS i think it's like if

(01:05:31):
he Sacrifices, peggy Then tanneth will be brought back to.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
Him Maybe, Yeah and they Need taneth for satanic reasons
for something.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
Yeah and then in the, end the ghost Of, taneth
speaking Through, marie says the same dangerous spell That Christopher
lee said, earlier or gets the child to say, it
and this destroys the, cult Destroys, mokata and then we get,
oh this ending it it is a causally. Justified it
was all a dream ending where they wake up back

(01:06:01):
At richard And marie's house in The Magic. Circle everyone
who is dead is now alive Except, mokatta who has
been killed in the in, exchange and The duke explains
time has been. Reversed everything that happened, happened but now
it has not. Happened and then the movie just ends
with a very stern insistence That god is in. Charge.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
Yeah nothing like a time travel out of, nowhere ending
with the off screen death of the, villain which also
seems an awful lot like speculation on The duke's. Part
he's just, like what happened To? Mokata is, like, oh,
well he. Died now in this new version of things that.
Happened i'm not going to show it to you or
tell you what it looked, like but trust, me it.
Happened and then one of the, characters maybe It's rex

(01:06:45):
Or simon's, like Thank, god and The duke is, like, yes,
all thanks To. God so they.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
It is He we must, think, yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
So all thanks go To god for intervening wiping out
all of. Villains but unlike Say raiders of The Lost,
ark where pretty much a similar thing, happens Like god
enters the picture and just and fixes everything and we
get to see it And nazis explode and melt and so.
Forth instead we're just told it, happened don't worry about.

(01:07:15):
It everybody can go to.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Bed, yeah it's kind of a diosx. Machina and for some,
reason why does the diosx machina work In raiders of
The Lost ark where it almost never? Works Otherwise i'm.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
Not so we get to watch The. Dais that's the, Thing,
like we get to see the forces of heaven come
down from. Above we get to see The Hebrew god
avenge himself and his people against The nazis and just
utterly decimate them with splendid special. Effects you. Know so

(01:07:46):
obviously this film didn't have the budget for that sort of,
thing BUT i think that's one of the reasons it
works so well In raiders of The Lost.

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):
Dark, YEAH i guess it's also the fact that at
the end Of raiders that That indian their insight that
they have to survive at the end is, humility and
that they must humble themselves and close their.

Speaker 4 (01:08:07):
Eyes.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
Yeah BUT i could imagine something like that happening in this,
film AND i wouldn't have bought it with The, duke
because The duke would be, LIKE i know exactly what's.
Happening everyone close your, Eyes, simon shut your. Eyes shut your.
EYES i will keep my eyes open for the rest of.

Speaker 4 (01:08:21):
YOU i can.

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
Pique it's, OKAY i know What i'm.

Speaker 4 (01:08:24):
Doing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Well that brings up a really good question About i'm
curious about the religious sensibilities of this, movie which are
clearly mostly you, know they're anti devil and their, Conservative
but what exactly is the religious affiliation of the duke
supposed to? Be he seems to be Nominally, christian at
least in so far As christianity is opposed to the,

(01:08:47):
devil which is the bad. Guy and there is one
line Where Christopher lee like grills the ghost Of tanneth
with that. Question he, says, like do you Acknowledge Jesus?
Christ but Then lee is just straight up doing occult
magic and defeating the enemy with esoteric. Spells so is
he supposed to be a down the line Conservative christian

(01:09:08):
or is he supposed to be in a cult? Wizard
and at least all the Environments i'm familiar with these
things are supposed to be mutually.

Speaker 1 (01:09:15):
Exclusive, Yeah LIKE i, mean they don't really play up
the idea that there's like good magic and bad magic
like that would HAVE i think that would have been
kind of ultimately maybe a more modern telling of, this
and maybe it would have been more fun if it
was like we have just dueling occultists, here just one
occultist is leaning hard into the black magic and the
other one is a little more sensible about how he's

(01:09:36):
using everything but, yeah, ULTIMATELY i think we get more of.
That it's more like the it's more of the satanic panic.
Energy it's ultimately kind of more like the like The
Heinrich Kramer, hammer The witch's kind of energy where it's,
Like I'M i can be super knowledgeable about all of
this stuff and like weirdly super into. It but it's
okay Because i'm here to stamp it, out you. Know but,

(01:09:59):
yeah we. Don't Christopher lee's character The duke going to
church or. Anything he just name Drops jesus In, god you,
know twice in the whole.

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
Picture and throws the crucifix.

Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
Grenades, yeah he'll Throw he'll heed some crosses around for.
Sure so, yeah ultimately it's a very fun. Picture there's a,
lot a lot to think about if you approach it
from the right, direction SO i recommend it. You you
can pick this one up in a few different. Places
there are some Different hammer LIKE dvd packs and so.
Forth but in twenty, Nineteen Shout factory put out an

(01:10:32):
absolutely Amazing Blu ray. Edition this is the one that
we rented From videodrome for this, episode and, yeah this
one would make the Great he got proud lots of,
extras wonderful bright yellow he goat menu screen THAT i
was very impressed, with and just more more extras and
special features than you could conceivably even. Want Like Christopher

(01:10:55):
lee has his own commentary track on this, one SO
i recommend picking that up or renting it if you
have the opportunity to do. So you might find it
streaming somewhere as. Well i'm not sure what the exact
streaming options might be for this. Picture we'd love to
hear from everyone out there, though if you have thoughts
on this picture or. Others you, know what are your
Favorite hammer or horror. Films we know we have Some
hammer fans out, there write in let us. Know we'd

(01:11:18):
love to hear from. You Weird House cinema comes out
Every friday and The stuff To blow Your mind podcast.
Feed we're primarily a science, podcast but On fridays we
set most of the serious matters aside and we just
talk about a weird film such as this. ONE i
also go ahead mentioned THAT i maintain a Blog Sammuda
music dot com se M U T a M u

(01:11:40):
S I. C and that's just a blog Where i'll
list the episodes that we have done On Weird House.
Cinema so if you want a complete list of the
films we've looked, at as well as some embedded media
here and there with you, know trailers that we, discuss
bits of music that we, DISCUSS i will host them.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
There big thanks as always to our excellent audio Producer
Seth Nicholas, johnson but he is out this, week so
huge thanks as well to our guest, Producer Paul. DECANT
i really appreciate you stepping.

Speaker 3 (01:12:08):
In.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
Paul if you would like to get in touch with
us with feedback on this episode or any, other to
suggest a topic for the, future or just to say,
hello you can email us at contact at stuff To
blow Your mind dot.

Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
Com stuff To Blow Your mind is production Of. iHeartRadio
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Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
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