Friday, October 24, 2008

The Devil's Rain

(1975) ***1/2



I suppose I should make this clear right off the bat – I blindly love any movie involving cloaked Satan worshipers and I will continue to rate them much higher than they deserve. In the same way that all it takes to get me excited about a song is a sitar and some echoey voices, all it takes to get me excited about a horror movie is an upside down cross and some chanted gibberish. This movie has that in spades plus the added bonus of Mr. William Shatner.

The evil leader of a powerful Satanic cult was betrayed centuries ago by a member of the Preston family. The Satanic book that granted him great power was stolen and hidden for generations. At the beginning of the film Shat's father appears at the door with no eyes and warns him to return the book to Corbin before promptly melting. (Awesome!) But just as Captain Kirk would never back down from a threat neither does Mark Preston.

Corbis and Preston meet in a ghost town and engage in a confusing wager about faith. Preston seems to lose the bet and is thus reduced to another mindless slave. It is now up to Mark's older brother to infiltrate the cult, save his soul and destroy Corbin once and for all. The secret to Corbin's existence has to do with a vase called the Devil's Rain which contains the souls of his followers. Things get boring for a while but eventually the chanting culties reappear and obtain my undivided attention. Overall the story makes just enough sense to be acceptable and the grand finale is both goofy and badass. Lots of melting.

Yes = The Devil’s Rain!

Also noteworthy is John “Vinnie Bobarino” Travolta’s big screen debut in a blink-and-miss-it cameo. I must have blinked because I missed it.

4 comments:

Catfreeek said...

Somewhere in my hunting for pictures I stumbled on that picture of Ernest Borgnine a week or so back. It made me laugh so hard and now to see it topping your great review here just makes my day. Cloaked Devil worshippers do deserve a little extra don't they.

DKC said...

Love the review and your unbridled enthusiasm for the satanic cults!

Whirlygirl said...

Nice review! Next year you should watch all horror movies with satanic cults.

I've been contemplating going out with a cloak today, not to worship the devil, but for a Halloween thing. Though if I happened to pass a satanic cult in my travels, I may not be able to refuse joining them to spout some gibberish and wave an upside down cross in the air.

Catfreeek said...

I used to work the night shift for a silent alarm company in a secluded place on a hill when I lived in Pennsylvania and there was a satanic church just up past my work.

They had a big ritual thingy one night and 2 cloaked people were stopping all the cars and asking what their business was on the road. I went outside on my break and I could hear them chanting, really weird.

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...