In this 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.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today on the show, we're gonna be talking about The Devil Rides Out, a nineteen hammer horror film about the perverted terrors of the Satanic cults operating throughout Interwar Britain. This movie stars Christopher Lee and Charles Gray and is based on a novel from the nineteen thirties by Dennis Wheatley. 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. Yes, and not children, mind you, grown adults. Yes, this is one of the most paternalistic movies I've ever seen. It has. It has an authority figure that's Christopher Lee. He represents order, the Sign of the Cross, uh conservative values, and he's just boss and everybody around constantly everyone stand back. The proper British adults are here. And 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, 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 a psychic Alistair 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. Uncharacteristically, for its provenance, this movie is culturally conservative and deadly serious, which in this context means it is pretty much just inviting us to laugh at it rather than with it. Absolutely, I mean not that there are a lot of built in laughs in this film. Anyway. But yeah, you know, it's it's very much one where you have you have to find some fun in a character like Christopher Lee's character. Really most of the adult characters in this film, because they're they're very hard to root for, impossible to laugh. 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. Oh, absolutely, especially concerning the poster art. Now, this was originally released under the title we're discussing it as The Devil Rides Out. Uh, 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 it looks pretty cool. I wouldn't shy 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 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 motorcyclely to me, and they're like no, no, no no, let's call it the Devil's Bride. But the poster for this one, oh, it's one of the finest nineteen seven, nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies horror posters you could possibly go for. Right, So it has our our goath head demon or 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 then in his room and then he's like holding um uh, 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 reflected a lot of the monsters and horrors that appear throughout the film. Yeah, beautiful yellow background that also kind of works, and it's just it's a beautiful poster. Also, I would say that the the just the image of the monster man carrying the woman, the unconscious woman. This is, of course, uh an iconic theme you find in various poster art from Yester Year not entirely unproblematic, but still very iconic. So this one, this post is really hitting a number of buttons, really coming out with guns of blazing and makes you think this is going to be the the psychedelic satanic film par excellence. And uh, I have to say, if that what you're expecting, be prepared to be maybe a little bit disappointed and find yourself going in a slightly different direction. Is still this film is still a lot of fun. It has some great satanic stuff in it, some great black masts and 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. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that we must stress is that this is a film that that has not just one, but two Bond villain actors in it. So of course chrispher Lee, uh you know, we we know chrispher Lee on this show. He plays the assassin Scaramonga in The Man with the Golden Gun, a Roger Moore Bond movie from the seventies I think widely regarded as one of the worst spawned movies. Um. And then you have Charles Gray as the villain in this movie, who plays Blowfeld and Diamonds Are Forever, the ladder of which is, without a doubt, the funniest Bond villain portrayal in the entire history of the franchise. Have you seen Diamonds Are Forever? Okay, I've seen both of these, but both of them I last saw them when I was a child. So the man with the Golden Gun I remember is being amazing because he had that golden gun. Yeah, that's the only thing I remember, though. The golden gun is very cool, and Christopher Lee is very cool. But Charles Gray and Diamonds Are Forever. He he plays Blowfeld with this I don't know what you you called the style of vocal delivery, but it's the Charles Grays And yes, yes, Is that the one that takes place in Vegas a little bit? Yeah? Yeah, they go to Last veg. That one's not good either. Okay, yeah, I barely remember that one, but you know, you you you brought up blow Feld. This reminds me of something. So one of the things I kept thinking about in this film was like, oh, we got to two Bond villains. We got a Bond villain actor, famous Bond villain actor playing the the hero and a famous Bond villain actor playing the villain, and um though this movie was before both of those, right, right, But it made me wonder, especially with Christopher Lee's 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. 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 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 Wickerman when I should So when 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 Wickerman just like a very uptight conservative person in the face of all of this depravity and devil worship. That's a good point, I guess in the Wickerman it's not explicitly devil it's you know, just pay Anism. Though of course, I would say the mindset that makes a lot of these Satanism movies and uh and stuff like Dennis Wheatley's novel would probably mostly conflate the two. Right. If it is not Christian, then there's a good chance that it is devil worship according to this mindset. Yes, And 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, 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 that ends up concerning the ac cult. And we'll get into that in a bed um. I've read that like that these helped sort of influence the uh, you know that what would become proper Satanic Panic in the decades to follow believe. Historian Philip but Jenkins has has particularly pointed to a N seven novel by Herbert Gorman titled The Place Called Dagon and pointed this is a key influence on the Satanic Panic themes to come, and the book apparently influenced such occult authors as din As Sweetly as HP Lovecraft and Robert Block. Now, I noticed that right before you picked this movie for Weirdhouse, 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 in the eighties. I think was what was this or the Satanic panic um making just like on on its 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 fact interviewing these experts who are obviously like have no idea what they're talking about. Uh, you know, finding devil worship in everything 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. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's it's ultimately the demons are there, but God is there. 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 is not necessarily about having watched The Exorcists, is about the idea that the Exorcist exists. You know, it's popularizing satanic themes, I guess. But so anyway, so so you got interested, I guess, in in these like satanic panic movies through that or is that a coincidence? Oh, I mean I'm always interested in satanic themes and things. You know. Um, it's you know, it's it's part of it's become such a part of our pop culture, so many that there are in so many movies on our our list of potential episodes that concern Satan worshippers in one way or another. The Weirdly enough, I think the first Satan worship movie that I saw as a child was the Dragnet movie that Dana Kroyd did. Do you remember this one? Yeah, Tom Hanks, Yeah, well d yeah, Dan Akroyd and Tom Hanks and I forget who plays like the high priest of Satan. But it's like Hollywood and Jackie Wallens. Maybe Jack Palance 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, um 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 metal music or anything like that, you know, the various themes of like movie Satanism are kind of unavoidable. Okay, well, should we hear some trailer audio, let's do it. Do you believe in evil? That's an idea. Do you believe in the power of darkness? That's a perstition? Are there? You were wrong? The power of darkness is more than justice superstition. It is a living force which can be tapped at any given moment of the night. Why on one night, but one year, should these people live in mortal fear, my God. The goat of mentis the devil himself. Christopher Lee as Doritia, who knows he must fight the devil's power to the death. O, my God, don't look at the eyes Rex eyes, eyes once filled with love, are consumed with fear. What Tanneth is now promised to the double Catholic of this is Makata, the Devil's chief disciple. You're real is leaving you, slipping away. The Double rides out from best seller or to Dennis Weekly's famous novel, fills the screen with a special kind of visual terror. Wire me quickly. You will hear his evil, you will feel his evil, you will see his evil. All right, So before we get into the people here, we should probably I 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? Oh, I mean, I know it's come up in passing. I don't know if we've featured one. We we've talked about them with Seth a lot are 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. So if you're not familiar, Hammer put out a lot of British horror films and the I don't know when their their full run was. I associate them 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, right right, Yeah, 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 that has been pointed out in particular horror historian Kim Newman discusses this a little bit in a in a little short extra on the Splendid Blu Ray for this movie that this is ultimately more of a nineteen thirties movie. It has nineteen thirties horror since the bill at ease or at least nineteen fifties, I believe, and more and more like a nineteen fifties horror movie as opposed to a nineteen eighth, 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, but it's not ready to quite embrace it or exploited. 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. Alright, well, let's let's start at the top. The director on this baby was Terence Fisher, who of nineteen o four through nineteen eighty um British film director best remembered for his Hammer films. Either 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 seven with the Curse of Frankenstein starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. He was already an established TV and film director by the is time, though, but he ended up directing a lot of the big Hammer films, including but not limited to, Horror of Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Monster from Hell, Frankenstein must be Destroyed, Dracula, Prince of Darkness and others. I have a big poster for Terence Fisher's production of the Mummy right next to me on the wall here is from nine and uh, I have the Belgian poster for it. I believe because the title on it isla Maledicttion de Ferran and the Curse of the Pharaohs. I guess. But the poster is great because there's like the Mummy which is played by Christopher Lee in the Terence 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. Oh yes, yeah, I have seen this poster. This is a beauty because there's kind of like a cosmic sense to the Mummy in it. Alright, we minute we mentioned Dennis Wheatley already. Dennis Wheetlely wrote the novel The Devil Rides Out upon which this is base. Wheatly lived seven through nineteen seventy seven, British author of popular thriller novels, often with the cult themes. And one of the things that uh 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 Wheetly 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 his books were, especially his earlier stuff. You know, it's it's sleuth centered, uh you know, it's about espionage 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 Whekly expert. I tried reading one of 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 Duke de Richelieu series, which of of which this book is a part right. Christopher Lee's character in the movie is the Duke de Richelo. 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. Yeah. So the first book in that series, however, is just pure espionage adventure. Um. And then the second book that comes later is The Devil's Right. The Devil rides out full of not only a cultist in 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 um, in super science a little bit. But then you get to the point where it's like, oh, yes, the Devil has shown up. Okay, so it's James Bond versus Baha met Yeah, sort of or a kind of like a proto James Bond, you know, because very much came first. But he has another series, the Gregory Salas series, that I think does much the same thing. The first book in that Black August from nineteen thirty four imagines a few futuristic nineteen sixty and economic collapse so very much, you know, a different beast. But then by nineteen sixty four he returns to that character in They Use Dark Forces, which has the hero battling Nazi occultists and I think teaming up with another occultists to take them on. This is the one that I actually tried to read once and just could not get into it. Um your mileage may vary, but I I could not get into Wheely. When you paste it in a paragraph from the opening page of The Devil Rides Out, I gotta say I was not attracted to the prose style. No, I don't think. I don't think. There are a lot of certainly modern critics that are praising his prose. 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 nineteenth four all Spy Zero Satan's thriller Forbidden Territory, directed by Phil Rosen and based on the first Duke novel. Uh though the protagonist 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 Wheatley's occult novel to the Devil A Daughter was adopted in nineteen seventy six, starring Christopher Lee, Richard Winmark Denholm, Elliott, and Natasha Kinsky, and other films based on his work include The Secret of Stambol and The Lost Continent. He allegedly invited Alistair Crawley to dinner to research The Devil Rides out ran across that tidbit. I don't know if actually had dinner, maybe just invited him. But anybody, anybody could invite Alistair Crawley to dinner, So I don't know, well I would. 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 it is in itself and is based on material that is genuinely contemptuous of any alternative religious practice or devil worship or anything perceived as devil worship. It's it's like believes that is real, that people actually do it, and it is evil and will destroy you. So it this is I think that the author here is not It's not just like exploitation. It is genuine belief in the danger of the Satanic forces massing against good society, right, yeah. They The original intro by the author is is kind of funny to read because he's like, uh, this is all fiction, but I did research it, and I am convinced Satanists 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 gonna exploit this. I'm comfortable exploiting this, but don't look into this any further than what I have presented here. It kind of reminds me of like the Da Vinci Code, you know Dan Brown books, where he's like, Okay, so this is a work of fiction, but all of the historical claims and the the situation of this story are one real and true, which in the Dan Brown's case, they are not right alright, so yes to my taste. Uh. 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 six through two thousand. American writer who is best remembered as the author of the excellent nineteen fifty four novel I Am a Legend, upon which three films have been based. Sixty four is The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price, The Omega Man starring Chuck Heston, and two thousand 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 adapted into films Duel by a young Steven Spielberg as well as such. 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 Gallery, Original Star Trek, The Alfred Hitchcock Our Thriller Um and as far as films go, his screenplays include Trilogy of Terror, uh Corman's House of Usher, and of course Jaws three D Jaws three D. That was Matheson. Yeah. I mean. One of the things about Matheson, and this is something that Kim Newman points out, is like Matheson was great. Matheson's we know work certainly holds up to a modern readers so much better than Wheatley. But also he worked with Corman a bit, so he could also work very fast and and presumably he says, you could probably work at a on a reasonable budget if you were working for Corman. So okaye, so is 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. Yeah, presumably. But anyway, I mean written mathis is great and and has has created so much wonderful work over the years. So it's interesting though that in a very British film we have this very American writing force that is adapting it and tweaking it a little bit, and and also and ultimately removing many things that probably didn't work all that well in the Wheely novel. One last thing, I didn't know that Matheson had written one of the Corman Poe movies, and I've been thinking we need to do one of the Corman Poe movies. Oh well, stay tuned, we may just do that, all right. No, let's get into the cast here. Uh so kind of like last last episode last the last new episode we did. I mean, what can you say about Christopher Lee who played the duke here? Uh you know, we we He's been in so many things I lived nineteen through. 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. Uh you know, he's known for playing so many villains. Dracula, Sorrowman, Uh, Scottamana, Count Dooku, Lord Uh, Summer Isle, Frankenstein's Monster, Carris The Mummy. He also voiced the villain King Hadrid in two is the Last Unicorn, which I just watched more than half of with um with my family last night, and I 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 that earmarked, uh, saying these absolutely cannot be cut. These lines have to stay in the in the picture. And he apparently did this with Lord of the Rings as well, and 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, Sorr, I'm sorry, Matheson, this goes in, This stays in the picture. 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 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 did 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, 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. He's basically the dick Um. But I mean, yeah, I gotta love Christopher Lee. Um, it's hard pick a favorite role. I'm tempted to go. I mean, he he is saw Rouman. 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, is Lord Sumerle. I mean he is he is the gentleman pagan from The wicker Man. It's it's it just can't be beat. Yeah, yeah, these these are all great roles. I love all the roles that I mentioned already, And and there are plenty of Christopher Rely performances out there I haven't seen, so I'm sure there's some other gems. I know. One thing I've said on the show before, I'm 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 would 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 opened a window and let fresh air in and now everything's oh, oh, things feel great now. Yeah. Yeah. I love his betrayal of Douku in in those two Star Wars films, and I especially love in the opening of the Revenge of the Seth where you have that that's that duel between Anakin and Douku, and then of course you have Palpatine watching on and ultimately deciding its fate. Yeah, that's it's a great sequence, and and Lee's great in it because he's you know, he's he's very much. He's great. He was 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, literally always brought brought something great to the to the table. But anyway, it's an interesting casting choice for this character of the Duke de Richelow that the protagonist of the movie, who who represents order in the side of good against against the chaos and evil of of Charles Gray. As as Mr Mocatta. But yeah, it's I'm kind of wondering, like, could you have cast somebody else in this role and how would the movie be different if you have? 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 characters are written, and maybe anybody would have been stuffy and unlikable in this role. One thing I gotta say is the the bizarre choice and and maybe this reflects how the esthetics of of Satanism have changed over time. But they give Christopher Lee devil worship or facial here. They give him the classic Satanist goatee when he's when he's playing the guy who's against the Satanists. Yeah, and then it is interesting when we look at who's playing his adversary, Mokata, the the the high priest of the like the London chapter of the Church, it's not actually the Church of Satan but this whatever the satanic cult is called in itself. Um, this is played by Charles Gray, who lived through the year two thousand. I think they're called the Friends of the Goat Friends of the Goat. Okay, So Gray not as legendary as Christopher Lee perhaps, but certainly I celebrated British character actor in his own right, often remembered for playing aristocratic and villainous roles, you know, very sort of tight lip to the clinch Jarard villains, very British. Uh. But he played some big ones. We already mentioned his his run as Blowfeld and 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. 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, don't I don't remember that. But um, he isn't fun. He played Microft Holmes. This is Sherlock Holmes brother, both in the nineteen seventies six film The Seven Percent Solution and also in the Jeremy Brett Excellent Jeremy Brett Granada television series of Sherlock Holmes. Oh, I've got to see those. Oh yeah, yeah, he's he's a lot of fun. And wait was the seven percent solution? Is that? Um? Nicholas Meyer? It is, yes, that this was his novel. Yes, I bet that's great. But of course, for many of you out there, Charles Gray is best remembered as the criminologist, an expert in the Rocky Horror Picture Show It's just to jump to the left, yeah, but even 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. Um. I keep thinking, oh, I love Rocky Horror. I'll give Shock Treatment to try, and I'll listen to the music a little bit. And it just hasn't happened. He's also in the The Wonderful, really Fun nineteen seventy four Werewolf Who Done It? The Beast Must Die? This is the film that has a werewolf break. As you'll remember, Jeremy, so you can collect your thoughts about who the werewolf is. He also dubbed for Ac Hawkins in the film Theater of Blood and others. After Hawkins learn X was removed to combat throat cancer. Theater of Blood is the other movie we talked about in the episode with about Dr 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. So Gray, it's fun in this, but he's he's very much playing a kind of stern and serious Alistair Crowley with hair, but also as uh, this is I thought. Another fun tid that that Kim Newman points out is he's kind of playing Alistair Crowley's idea of what Alistair Crowley seemed like to everybody else, you know, like like Crowley himself was you know, you know, a bit of a con man in his own right, you know, and was many other things. But 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 a film again where Satan evert anything that's not British and Christian is potentially Satan. Satanist in nature, um is potentially Satanism. And you have his character with his name Mokata that I'm to understand maybe has more of an international flair in the novel, but here we have him played by a very British actor with a very British performance. Yeah. I don't know how much we've emphasized that 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. Uh, though, I'm I'm a little confused. I don't know. I know there's a always some cultural crossover between between Britain and France. But as Richelow supposed to be British or French, his name is French, and he mentions, um, 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. Yeah, it's very confusing because it's a very French name, but in the film at least, it's a very British portrayal. Likewise, um, you know, Makata seems to have been played up in the novel for being something kind of you know, international and and the foreign and threatening. But of course, uh Mokatta's The name Okada has been has been very British for a 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. All right, should we go to the next actor? Um yeah. 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 A Regie. Her first name is spelled like the brand Nike in I K E. But I guess that's Nika. Yeah. She plays Tenneth carlyle Um in this film, which is probably one of the more likable characters. It's a it's a very low bar in this film, but um yeah. She's born seven French visual artist and former actor. As an actor, she was only actor from I believe nineteen sixties six through nineteen seventy four, appearing in various European horror and 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 and Kin Russell's The Devil's Uh Season in Hell The Perfume of the Lady in Black. That was her last picture, but then she went on to 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. Yeah. I was looking through her paintings and I really like some of them. They're they're interesting. So some are just like like watercolor landscapes showing on 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 like things 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. Um, 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 like it at any rate. She's good in this. She's acting opposite a whole lot of stiff, unlikable male characters. Uh so, but it's easily the character that seems to have like the most inner conflict. Uh you know, she's 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 she breathes a lot of life into it. 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 she has some kind of quality to her irises that makes them really good for this kind of shot. That looks intense alright. The next actor of note is Leon Green playing Rex Van Ryan, though the character is dubbed by Patrick Allen. Green live 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 jaw British man who is ready to punch Satanists, punch windshields, whatever it takes, if you mean saving a pretty lady from non British ideas. 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, and that 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. Yeah, I can see that he's also our 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 that at all. But then but then the Duke is like look at this, and then Rex is like, I'm convinced the famous the power of Darkness is a living force. Speech. Yeah. So a lot of this film is going to concern another character who they're very concerned about um, and that is the character Simon Aaron played by Patrick mower Bor, 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 es in Since for the Damned. Uh. He's pretty good in this in part because again his character is one of the few that seems to be in genuine conflict and gets to act a little bit more and ultimately, ultimately maybe it's a little more relatable. I kept thinking he looks like Toby maguire. He kind of does. Yeah, he does. Quick note that we have we have we have that goat monster, the Goat of Mendies that shows up later on. Uh. This is uncredited played by Eddie Powell, who of seven through the year two thousand and six five British stunt man who also wound up in costumes such creatures as the Zena morph in Alien for stunt purposes, The Mummy 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, Krull and various Bond movies. On that note, speaking of monsters, I'm just gonna briefly mention the makeup effects artists responsible for many of Hammer's best monsters. Roy Ashton was the monster maker on this and then the music U This is James Bernard 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 Nosferatu. Alright, are you ready to talk about the plot a little bit? Let's do it. Okay, So the movie starts with a reunion of old friends. We get Rex van Wren 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, playing the Duke de Richlow, who is watching with binoculars as he lands. And I assume Rex is arriving from overseas, but I'm not positive. Yeah, I think in the books he's actually American, even which is interesting. Just englished him right up. Anyway, they appear to be old friends reunited after some time apart, and uh, and so we learned that they have a mutual friend named Simon. And Rex is curious, where is he? Why is it 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 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 that this should be an alarm belve or 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 decided 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 go. Yeah, I don't. I don't think I remember seeing this in a film before, but I guess this must have been a thing because it's supposed to take place in the thirties, I 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 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 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 and South Asia, and then they're like, dear God. Yeah, I mean there's nothing in this saying that would make you think it's anything other than maybe a you know, various academics from around the world have gathered to discuss uh, you know, 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 deep so yeah, again, I think this is showing these weird xenophobic assumptions of the movie. Is 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 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 Mr Mokatta 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 takes him aside, and then they get a moment to speak with Tanneth played by Nika Rigi, 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 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, uh, you know, before we depart, may I see your observatory because he says he's recently become interested in astronomy. He would like a peek through the telescope and Simon tries to object, but as always in this movie, Christopher Lee just gives him the do as I command, you I and then they head on up. Now we'll see this observatory room in a couple of scenes, but there there is a giant goathead baff mat on the floor tiles, and another one I think on the wall. And when they come in there like this is interesting or these astronomical charts, Simon's just like, oh, it's just a 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? Oh? Well, this is this is great. So in just like pure inquisitor mode um, the duke goes over to the closet, pulls it open, and you know, we 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. Uh, and these are the hallmarks of black magic. You can't practice black magic unless you've got some chickens around to sacrifice. I guess, yeah, But it was the pair of chickens that that clinched it that this is definitely black magic, and not the Bafomet circle on the floor right right. The Bafomet circle is certainly like there are other reasons to have chickens around. Uh, there would even be other reasons to have, say, a black cat and a chicken around, but to have the like the full baffo met floor. Yeah, that's that suggests something 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 magic. It's such a it's such a great in telling line like this. It maybe it just adds extra unlikeability to this character, you know, um, like I would I would rather you be dead than adhere to some ideology that doesn't perfectly line up with Bion. So the Duke exhorts Simon to leave the house. He's like, come with us, you know, we 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 trauma. Yeah, you know, 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 with bottles and so forth, which these things happen in films all the time. But a few weeks ago I 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 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, 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 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. 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 rituals of darkness are, but he can practice them himself. Apparently. Oh yeah, this, this of course ties in so perfectly 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, fundamentalist and conservative mindsets where the individual's warning you about the evil. Whatever the evil happens to 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. Um. But but they're safe. They're concerned about your safety. And so, like the Duke is already coming off. It's such a hypocrite 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 looking to the mirror Simon and he brainwashed it, like he sees is his mind somehow, and he's like, you must go to bed now. Is one of the many greats sending people to bed scenes. He sends him up to his bedroom, he puts a crucifix necklace on him. He says it's a symbol of protection. And then they break out the sniff rs of brown liquor. I love that they're just like numerous unlabeled jars of brown liquor for them to drink from. And Christopher Lee and Rex they sit down and to have the talk about devil worship, and he asks Rex, do you believe in evil? And you know, Rex is like 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 open. Uh. 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 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 this point the caper is on. For the rest of the movie, the Duke and Rex will be in pursuit of their friends Simon and eventually also of Tannith 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 that struck us. One of 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 uh, and look around to see if he's there or if Mocatta's coven is still 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, Um, 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 uh, it seems to summon you know, it's like smokes bringing in some sort of form. What's it gonna be. It's gonna be a monster, a monster, you know, the demon. Maybe it'll be the goat guy from the poster, but no, it's just a dude that looks slightly 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 dude. I've seen that this, this uh, 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 stoned looking eyes. Um, they're able to play it up a bit. So it's not like it doesn't work. But it also seems to lean really hard that this idea of non white equals possibly satanic thing. Yeah, because this scene didn't feel great it was. It seems to lean more on those kind of xenophobic assumptions that the movie has. Yeah, because the only other non white act characters in the film, including Nigerian born actor playwright Jimmy Goodman, um A Jibati are all seen as members of the cult. None of our cult. The cult is international. It's got rubbers from all over, right, So yeah, this this feels a little 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 like it is. But if you lean into the sort of like here's a really stone dude um 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 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 beff Matt. But I think they defeat him by throwing a crucifix. Yeah, the first of severn All crucifix lobbings in the film. Yeah. The goosefix are like the Holy hand grenade. They make demons just explode ye one to 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 Tannith because I must go to the British Library. 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 Occult Tomes section is a friend of his. Yes, again, it's safe for the Duke to be interested in these things and be knowledgeable these things. But but not not you, Simon. Simon. I'd rather you be dead than read some of the books that I've read. So Rex. Uh. The next thing we see with Rex, he's just got Tannith 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 she get in the car? What did they say before she got in the car? I don't know. But then it becomes clear. He's like, I'm here to rescue you from Satanism, and she's like, I don't want to be rescued, and uh, and then yeah, it ultimately ends up being a whole chase sequence. Yes. Well, but also before that, he's like, I'm here to rescue you from satan and take you out to lunch. Do you want to go on a date? Yeah? And Uh, 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 bride of Satan to your house for lunch. I've kidnapped somebody. This is the other thing. This film has a lot of kidnappings, and Simon has already been kidnapped, and now Tanneth has been kidnapped, and there'll be more kidnappings to come. Yeah, she lured away on false pretenses, all right, And 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 Sitan worship please, and uh. 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 her, and there's you didn't expect a car chase in this movie, did you? But the car chase does involve Rex punching through his own windshield and uh they eventually, oh, they use magic to make him wreck his car, but he stuck unconscious. Another another concussion and right, yes, and then she so she eventually makes her way back to Moccata because Macada was like hypnotizing her through the rear view mirror in the car. Well. Mirrors are magic, we know that. Oh, that's right. So eventually Rex stumbles upon a satanic mass that Macada is conducting in the woods. Actually it looks pretty tame. It's just a lot of people in like white robes, the bosses like Macada. He's wearing a purple robe, but a lot of people in white robes just drinking wine and dancing like it is not as debauched as some of the the devil worship scenes in later movies would be, right, but it does have the ultimate. They sacrifice a goat and then uh, here comes the goat himself. Um uh, we we have this, this wonderful appearance by the goat of of of Mendes. Uh it's the goat headed humanoid form and it looks very good. Uh, it's legitimately creepy. I think this was a scene that they pulled off rather well because he just kind of appears, uh 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 excited. Yeah, and one thing I noted was like when they when they cut the goat's throat in the sacrifice, it's like dropping the beat in the club. I think everybody goes wild. Yeah, we have. They get very excited about it, and yeah, this the goat looks great. It's not I should stress it's not the ago 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 Mocata's robed body, and sort of built themselves a poster out of an images from the film. Well, anyway, this mass it's worse. Simon and Tanneth are going to be baptized in the name of Satan. So Rex goes to a nearby pay phone 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 how do they 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 the on the 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 lob a second holy hand grenade. They throw a crucifix at the goat and the explodes. Yeah. Yeah, And then Rex is in there punch and Satanists grabbing Tanneth, 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 night with her. Yes, And they also they rescue Tanneth and Simon and they take them back to Richard and Marie's house, where 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, So commanding people what to do, I think. So he gives them all these instructions while he goes out to fetch some magical implements. And then there's another big set piece, which is and this scene I actually thought was pretty effective in the way it was meant to be, uh, the visit by Mocada. So like Charles Gray just shows up at the door. Mocada arrives at the house and he, I guess 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 by Marie. And then Mokatta 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 good or evil, and then he tries to hypnotize her and bind her will to his 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 scary. Yeah, yeah, he's great in this scene. There's also another sequence where it's just the cult is 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 scary. Yeah, and he 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 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 or she's like, where's my ball? And then Maria is snapped out of her trance and asks Macada to leave. And I thought that was funny, especially because Rachel was like, it's the kid that's going to defeat the devil. Oh yeah, it's also kind of it reminded me, of course, of Indiana Jones, like next time, Dr Jones, It'll take more than children to save you. Oh yeah, yeah. But so Makata has asked to leave. He does, but then there's a great line he says, I will not be back, but something will. Oh and that's that's something. Should we talk about that something? 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. Uh, It's got symbols all around it, and inside the circle, the Uke, Simon, Marie, and Richard have to wait out the night while being besieged by the forces of evil that are sent by Mocada 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 like 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 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. Uh. 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 just up in a room somewhere. Yeah, I would. I mean, I wouldn't want my child to see the forces of darkness that have been marshal 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 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 know. Well anyway, So we get the siege here and Rob, do you want to describe the attacks that befalled them while they're they're waiting out the night in the circle? Alright? So? Uh 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 it is hard to hard to see. Winged horse rides in, and the rider on the horses 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. 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 angels death. Okay, well, okay, in that case, we get a lackluster giant spider attack, right, So that comes tricks them with all these illusions like the the the devil keeps simulating people they know, asking for help or trying to get them to step outside the circle. That pretends to be Peggy being attacked by the spider, but it's not really her. And of course the Duke is like, control yourself, man, stand there and uh yeah, and then but then we get the Angel of Death. I have to say the spider again. The spider does not look very good. No, it's just a tarantulo 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 to fight back against these forces is to say this spell the most dangerous magic spell in the world, and he's like, I I dare not say it unless our very souls are at pair role because it could destroy the entire universe. But I did memorize it just in 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. Tanneth has died and also Peggy has disappeared, so so they're in dire straits now. But where have they gone? Well, the Duke has to figure this out by conjuring 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 Moccada, where he has an on site temple for human sacrifice. I think he's going to sacrifice Peggy for some reason. What was it? He says, it's the transference of souls. I think it's like, if he sacrifices Peggy, then Tanneth will be brought back to him. Maybe Yeah. And they need Tanneth for satanic reasons for something yeah. And then in the end, the ghost of Tanneth, speaking through Marie, says the same dangerous spell that Christopher Lee said earlier, gets the child to say it, and this destroys the cult, destroys Mokada, and then we get oh, this ending, it's it is a causally justified. It was all a dream ending where they wake up back at Richard and Marie's house in the Magic Circle. Everyone who is dead is now alive except Mokata, who has been killed in the in exchange, and uh, 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. 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 Okada? He's like, oh, well he died. Now in this new version of things that happened. I'm not gonna show it to you or tell you what would it looked like, but trust me, it happened. Uh. And then and then one of the characters, maybe it's Rex or Simon's like thank God and uh. And the Duke is like, yes, all thanks to God. So they it is he we must thank yes, yes, so all thanks go to God for intervening wiping out all the villains. Um. But unlike say Raiders of the Lost Arc, we're pretty much a similar thing happens like God enters the picture and just and fixes everything. Uh. And we get to see it and Nazis explode and melt and so forth. Uh. Instead we're just told it happened, don't worry about it. Everybody can go to bed. Yeah. It's kind of a Dais x marchia. Uh. And for some reason, why does the Dais x machina work in Raiders of the Lost Ark where it almost never works otherwise because we get to watch the daist that's the thing, Like, we we get to see the forces of heaven come down from above. Uh. We get to see the Hebrew God avenge himself and his people against the Nazis and just utterly destonate them with splendid special effects. Uh. You know. So 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 uh, in the in Raiders of the Lost Arc. Yeah, I guess it's also the fact that at the end of Raiders that the that Indian Marian there, their insight that they have to survive at the end is humility, and that they must humble themselves and close their eyes. 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 you. I can peak. It's okay, I know what I'm doing. 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, their anti devil and their conservative But what exactly is the religious affiliation of the Duke's supposed to be? He he seems to be nominally Christian, at least insofar as Christianity is opposed to the 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 or is he supposed to be an occult wizard? And at least all the environments I'm familiar with these things are supposed to be mutually 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. Uh. One occultist is leaning hard into the black magic and the other one is a little more sensible about how he's using everything. But yeah, ultimately I think we get more of that. It's it's more like them, it's more of the satanic panic energy. It's ultimately kind of more like the like the Hinrich Kramer or Hammer the Witches 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 yeah, we don't see Christopher Lee's character the Duke go into church or anything. Uh. He just name drives Jesus and uh and God, you know twice in the whole picture, and throws the crucifix grenades. Yeah he'll throw He'll heave some some crosses around for sure. So yeah, ultimately, uh, it's it's a very fun picture. There's a lot lot to think about if you approach it from the right direction. Um, so I recommend it. You can. 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 absolutely amazing Blu Ray edition. Uh, this is the one that we rented from Video Drone for this episode. And yeah, this one would make the great Heat proud lots of extras, wonderful bright yellow he goat um menu screen that I was very impressed with, and just more more extras and special features then you could conceivably even want. Like Christopher Lee has his own commentary track on this one, so um, 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, what are your favorite Hammer horror films? We know we have some some Hammer fans out there right in let us know. We'd love to hear from you. Uh. Weird House Cinema comes out every Friday and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed were primarily a science podcast, but on Fridays we set most of the serious matters aside and we just talked about a weird film such as this one. UM. I also go ahead mentioned that I maintain a blog Samuda Music dot com s E M U T A M U S I C. And that's just a blog where I'll list the episodes that we have done on Weirdhouse 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 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. Really appreciate you stepping in. 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 com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.