The Devil Rides Out

The Devil Rides Out deals in some of the usual Hammer Films tropes, but adds a spin with its roaring 20s setting and by making an actor who is usually the villain into the hero. Also known as The Devil's Bride, the film was based on a novel by Dennis Wheatley.

Christopher Lee usually played a bad guy--hell, the baddest of guys--but he was equally as effective as a hero. He gives the comforting feeling that, whatever evil is coming your way, Christopher Lee knows it well and will shut it down. Oddly, this is kind of accurate: During World War II, Lee was a member of the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare--also known as the Special Operations Executive, an actual unit, dedicated to taking out Nazis by means that were... well, sometimes rather ungentlemanly. He was also six-foot-five and a direct descendant of Charlemagne.

But things kick right off with a set of opening credits that could easily be a heavy metal video if you just swapped out the soundtrack (perhaps one of Lee's own, as he had a late-in-life career as a heavy metal vocalist and was apparently a big Black Sabbath fan). Another twist to The Devil  Rides Out is that it's set in roaring 20s Britain and Satanism is just another lark for upper-class Bright Young Things.

The Duc de Richleau, aka Christopher Lee shows up to visit a friend who is hosting a "meeting" or his "astronomical society." Yeah, you ain't fooling the Duc, who has been around all the blocks, many times. Of course the meeting is actually a congregation of devil worshippers, led by none other than Charles Gray, whom you know from Diamonds Are Forever and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Here he is Mocata, the utterly unctuous leader of the local Satanic coven.

"Chickens in a basket, diagrams on a floor. Do these mean something to you?"

Rather like those in The Black Cat, it's one classy, well-dressed group of Satanists--the manor house is gorgeous, the patter is literary and the wine exquisite, and the crowd is strictly black tie and pearls, with the occasional dashiki or sari. But Christopher Lee feels nothing but disdain, as those who are "meddling with black magic" rank about as high in his esteem as Nickelback fans.

Christopher Lee waves off the devil worshippers and carries off his wanabe Satanist pal, but he's going to have to rout this bunch of vermin from the neighborhood. Any gentleman would. Really, it is interesting that The Devil Rides Out chooses as its main combatant against evil, not some radiant creature of pure goodness, but a guy who seems to know exactly what he's up against because he's been there and rolls his eyes at your puerile edgelord nonsense. You think you're a powerful mage summoning Baphomet to do your most vile and stygian bidding, to Christopher Lee you're just a spotty teen playing Marilyn Manson loud until mom makes you a Hot Pocket.

Yet another of the main differences between The Devil Rides Out and your typical Satanist horror flick is that it almost entirely dodges the conventional Judeo-Christian angle for a more ego-centered version. When he goes off on the power of his will, it's not hard to hear the distaff Alestier Crowley` philosophy. It's a choice more suitable to the film's 1920s setting as well as the post-hippie/summer of Manson period in which it was released. (I bet Jimmy Page loves this movie.)

According to the Duc de Christopher Lee, "the power of darkness is more than superstition. it is a living force that can be tapped at any given moment of the night." Something like William S. Burroughs' "ugly spirit," that malevolent force that touches some more than others, and which one must struggle to control, regardless of whether one is suppressing or focusing its darkness.

So, anyhow, the deal is that Duc de Christopher Lee's buddy is in love with this girl who's already engaged to the devil--ergo the movie's stateside title, The Devil's Bride--and Charles Gray has to make sure that nothing interferes with getting her to the church--or coven--on time. One of the ways Charles Gray tries to keep his Satanic wedding planner mojo going is by causing a rather groovy car chase with old timey cars: His eyes appear in your review mirror and next thing you know you're driving a perfectly lovely Buick Roadster off the road and getting your cloche all askew.

So Christopher Lee has to disrupt the Satanic baptism--Baptism before wedding because, hey, we're Satanists!--which he seems to be intent upon disrupting not just because it involves sacrificing souls to evil incarnate, but because it's so damned tacky. I swear that as he drives his Hispano Suzia into the center of a group of frolicking devil worshippers, he's not only chanting prayers, but muttering something about "cheap Woodstock knockoff" and "ill-fitting hospital gowns" and various maledictions against those who would drink Captain Morgan's.

"As part of one's initiation, one has to choose the name of some past great practitioner of the occult."
Oooh! Can I be Jayne Mansfield?

"The goat of Mendes! The devil himself!"

Some friends come by to visit for not other apparent reason than to supply the plot with a child to be sacrificed to Satan later--meetings, baptisms, weddings, sacrifices... I can see why one has to be upper-class to belong to this coven. One would have to be independently wealthy to have enough free time--not to mention all of the appropriate outfits--for the many mandatory activities.

Charles Gray stops by to be all shady and mind-control-y. "In magic there is neither good nor evil, there is merely a science. The science of causing change to happen merely through one's will." When his cover his blown, he flounces out, proclaiming, "I shall not be back. But something will." Could be a campy British closet case or an Avon lady, could be a bomb cyclone or a giant spider, who knows...

The climax is when Duc Lee Richleau and his cronies do some kind of magic circle thing in the library to ward of an attack by Macaca that involves wind, lightning, bats and giant spiders. And you know what's worse than giant spiders? The Angel of Death! Okay, maybe nothing is worse than giant spiders, but it's still all kinds of bad stuff...

"Don't look at the eyes!" Lee does a lot of telling people not to look at shit, or not to leave someone alone or not to turn off the light or not to remove the crucifix and they always do. Why? I have no idea: If Christopher Lee tells you to do shit, you fucking do it. Fortunately Christopher Lee can pretty much always shut evil down, since he's a 12th level magic user, as well as a 7th level fighter--and his character in The Devil Rides Out clearly has a number of mystical powers as well...

I'd rather see you dead than meddling with black magic!

This is really the big scene of the film. Sure, everyone rushes over to disrupt the human sacrifice of some woman's daughter and flip off Charles Gray but that's basically a bunch of deus ex machina and an improbable happy ending. Because even more ridiculous than "it was all a dream" is "We time-traveled back to right before all of this happened."

The Devil Rides Out is a relatively short, fast-moving horror film and one wishes it had spent a little more time developing its unorthodox Crowley-esque vision of Satanism and the humanist magic Lee uses to defeat--or at least thwart--it.

And, well, they had Charles Gray and Christopher Lee to put this over. I would sit and watch those two recite the phone book or the dialogue from an Adam Sandler movie--much less act imperious and make dismissive gestures while reciting the names of Egyptian gods and random bits of Latin.

Overall, The Devil Rides Out is a solid horror flick--it may be light on the scares, but it makes up for it with atmosphere, characterization and a unique take on an old topic. Also, it's got Christopher Lee. And, even with 280 entries on the man's IMDB page, there's never enough of that.

The Viking Queen

Ah, yes, let us now all take a moment and consider our debt to the fine British gentlemen of Hammer Films, who helped keep the 60s and 70s full of luridly colored historo-overkill epics after Cecil B. DeMille lost his mojo. Arguably, the essence of the Hammer style is 1,001 ways to nearly and/or accidentally show naked breasts, and The Viking Queen is a high example of such.

The queen of the title seems to be based on Boudica , ancient queen of the Britons who almost drove the Romans off the Isles, but for some poor battle strategy. (Boudica, or Boudicca or Bodicea,  has been one of my heroes since childhood and deserves to have a decent damned movie made about her someday -- it's a tale of honor and treachery, cultural conflict and the changing role of women, how quickly we can be taken in by hubris and how revenge can spin out of control.)

But the historical foundations of The Viking Queen are unsteady and the story built upon them is flimsy indeed. To start, they call her the Viking Queen, even though she is queen of the Britons. I can only imagine this is some kind of excuse for the leading lady's accent (although that's the least of her thespianic issues). She is also the leader of the Druids, even though they all worship Zeus. Zeus was actually a Greek god, so this is kind of taking historical inaccuracy to a new level of "whatever."

Said queen is played by "International Beauty" Carita in a style so rigid that "wooden" doesn't cover it, although she is slightly more expressive than a rock. She was a model who had bits in two other films, but this was her only leading role. However, she is not the Carita who did some of the best hair of the 60s, including Jane Fonda's astonishing do's in the Euro-Poe flick Spirits of the Dead. Starring opposite her as her eyeliner-ed Roman love interest is Don Murray, a long way from Marilyn Monroe and the Bus Stop. But, well, he wasn't much of an actor even then, so The Viking Queen is pretty understaffed. The guy playing the head Druid priest tries to make up for it by chewing scenery like a pothead eats animal-style double-doubles. Along with people who can't act acting, there's also people who can't swordfight swordfighting, people who can't ride riding and battle scenes that seem to simply consist of people in bathmats milling about and waving their arms.

So, it's during the time of the Roman conquest of Britain. The Viking Queen's husband dies, leaving half the kingdom to her and half to Rome. At first, she bonds with her Roman co-leader, Don Murray -- not even Bette Davis or Meryl Streep could make "I look at this middle-aged man with a perm, hot pants and gold chains and immediately fall in love and want to chariot-race him into a bucolic pasture for a mercifully brief love scene" believable, so i guess we should go easy on Carita for this one.

Perm n' Hot Pants of the Imperial Legion XXIV gets called away to another part of the map to put down some kind of tribal uprising. During this time, his asshole Roman boss decides to welch on the deal and take all of the Viking Queen's kingdom. They seal the deal by publicly whipping the Viking Queen (this scene has a cult following of its own) and allusively raping her daughters (who seem to be the same age as her, because Hammer has no use for women under 18 or over 30). This pisses her off and she goes on a rampage of bloodshed and human sacrifice.

My favorite scene is where the British-Viking-Greek-Druids are sacrificing Romans to the fiery pit and there's this great awkward moment where they've pitched in the first few and hooted for their vengeful god and victims have screamed as they died in agony. But then the fire burns down and some kind of assistant priest has to climb down from the big rock and stoke the fire for the next human sacrifice while all the other British-Viking-Greek-Druids stand waiting impatiently and talking amongst themselves, totally ruining that ritual sacrifice momentum. I hate it when that happens.

The Viking Queen is a reasonably enjoyable piece of sword & sandal schlock. However, i wouldn't try to pass a history quiz based on its information. If you want pop culture you can use for high school study, i suggest you stick with Isabelle Adjani films or Iron Maiden songs. Seriously: I know people who passed their AP English test on Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by listening to the Iron Maiden song of the same name.

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires

As i have pointed out, most movie ideas are bad. You have no idea how they go from pitch to post-production. But The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was genius the moment it was conceived: Cross a British Hammer vampire film with a Shaw Brothers kung fu action flick. Who, sitting in the back row of a theater balcony on the Deuce, eating oleo popcorn and Milk Duds, forty of Old E in a paper bag and joints a'rollin, could ask for anything more?

However, awesome + awesome does not always = ultramegaawesome. Sometimes it just = pretty damn awesome. The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires has its flaws, but it also has it moments and is, overall, an enjoyable flick. We open where any good vampire movie should open: "Transylvania 1804." A Chinese guy in dragon robe & walrus mustache drag  is climbing up a hill as a shocked Eastern European peasant looks on. After flinching before a random roadside cross, he finds Dracula's tomb, does some chanting and calls Drac out of his coffin.

"Who dares to disturb the sancity of Dracula?" Wha? Sanctity? Sanctity as in "the state or quality of being holy, sacred, or saintly." I thought that was the last thing Dracula would want to relax in the middle of.

... and -- wait! That's not Christopher Lee! Nope, Christopher Lee could not be bothered with this gig. Which is weird: I didn't know there was a movie Christopher Lee wouldn't do.

So, anyway, Droopy Mustache explains to "Dracula" that he's come all this way because there used to be seven vampires in his province and now there's only six and only six vampires gets no respect. Help me, Godfather! "Dracula" decides China sounds like a good place to move his vampire base, so he possesses Droopy Mustache and the credits roll!

Next thing we see, it's Chung King in 1904 and Professor Van Helsing -- Peter Cushing! Like he's supposed to be! Thank god! He's lecturing a class on vampires in China. As he tells the story of vampire attacks on villages, we focus in one one student in particular and then soft-focus into a flashback. A flashback that is what all flashbacks should be: A ten-minute kung fu battle involving the undead...

Humble farmer decides to save daughter from vampire sacrifice. Farmer goes to vampire hangout, frees daughter, but the vampires go apeshit. Farmer makes it out of the building -- but wait! What's that coming out of the ground? It's a rotting human hand! Zombie! Zombies! Zombie army! Apparently, in China, the vampires can summon zombies. I guess that's why Dracula decided to move his operation here: Cheap zombie labor.

Post-flashback, most of the students walk out, but the one we focused on remains. At a cocktail party after the lecture, we meet assorted Brits and Chinese, Van Helsing's son and a rich Scandinavian widow who's traveling the world in search of adventure. Yadda yadda, student pleads with Van Helsing to accompany him to his ancestral village and help wipe out the vampires.

Art first it's no go, but after everyone is attacked in the street and the Seven Brothers show off their mad skills -- and the foxy Swedish widow agrees to foot the bills -- the groups takes off through remote countryside to distant village to defeat the Seven Golden Vampires. From here on out, it's just alternating kung fu battles and Cushing-delivered exposition with occasional pan shots of the landscape. Rather than try to enumerate every kick, punch and "Long ago...," let us just list a few of the things one picks up while watching The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires.

1. Grindhouse math: If there are seven brothers and their one sister fighting nintey-eight zombies and six vampires, how many undead does each kung fu warrior get to kill? If each one gets to kill one vampire, how many kung fu warriors will not get to kill their own vampire?
2. The widow may bring her platinum AmEx, but you will grow tired of her cowering behind you during battles. And sometimes even when there is not a battle.
3. American zombies move in a sort of smacked-out goosestep, Chinese zombies do the bunny hop.
4. Vampires apparently hire third-graders to make their masks and swords. The undead do not concern themselves with the possible dangers of exposing young children to massive amounts of metallic spray paint.
5. Peter Cushing is one of the few men who can carry off a pith helmet adorned with flowing scarf without looking like Truman Capote vacationing in Tangier.
6. Vampires get really upset if you steal their belt buckles. The belt buckle is the source of a vampire's power.
7. It's nice to see that, for once, the male romantic lead looks at the shrieking, helpless, big-breasted blonde in the corset and the butt-kicking, take-care-of-myself girl in pigtails and satin pajamas and makes the right decision.
8. No matter what kind of monster costume you're making, a gorilla suit is always a great place to start.
9. When you enter a deep, dark cave in vampire territory, and you run across bats and skeletons, please don't act surprised when they are followed by vampires.
10. True love means impaling yourself on the same sharp stick.

The Shaw Brothers had done western co-productions before, such as Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (kung fu blaxploitation) and Virgins of the Seven Seas, a German co-production (kung fu Eurosleaze). Hammer had reportedly planned a follow-up, specifically a Bollywood/Hammer co-pro (whoa). The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires isn't the best of Hammer or the best of the Shaw Brothers, but it's still got plenty of the ingredients for a good time at the movies.