Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1975
The Devil's Rain (film)
Buy The Devil's Rain (film) now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
{{Infobox film
| name = The Devil's Rain
| image = TheDevilsRain.jpg
| alt =
| caption = Theatrical release poster
| native_name =
| director = Robert Fuest
| producer =
| writer =
| screenplay =
| story =
| based_on =
| starring =
| narrator =
| music = Al De Lory
| cinematography = Alex Phillips, Jr.
| editing = Michael Kahn
| studio =
| distributor = Bryanston Distributing Company
| released =
| runtime = 85 minutes
| country =
| language = English
| budget =
| gross =
}}
'The Devil's Rain' is a 1975 horror film directed by Robert Fuest. It was one of several B-films in which William Shatner starred between the original 'Star Trek' television series and 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' (1979). Other cast members included Tom Skerritt, Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert, Ida Lupino, Keenan Wynn and John Travolta in his film debut in a minor role. Satanist Anton LaVey is credited as the film's technical advisor and appeared in the film playing a minor role. Although apparently taking place in an unspecified part of the American Southwest, the movie was shot in Durango, Mexico.
Plot
A curse affects the Preston family, caused by an ancestor's betrayal of the Satanic priest Jonathan Corbis in colonial New England. Corbis has harassed the Preston family for generations to obtain a book containing the signatures of the members of his cult which bind their souls to Satan. In what appears to be 1970s Arizona, Corbis captures patriarch Steve Preston, who is allowed to escape to warn his wife Emma and son Mark. He tells them to give the book to Corbis, before melting into a waxy substance. Mark advises Emma to keep the book hidden and entrusts her to family friend John. However, moments after he leaves to meet Corbis, he hears Emma scream and returns to find the Satanists have abducted Emma, leaving John bound, hanging by his feet and terrified.
In a ghost town in the desert, Mark challenges Corbis to a battle of faith. Corbis leads Mark to his cult's church where he reveals that Emma has joined them, as reflected by her now eyeless face. When Mark refuses to do the same (even resisting the temptations of Lilith), he is surrounded and overwhelmed by Corbis's followers, despite deploying the power of a Christian amulet.
Sheriff Owens scoffs at John's story of eyeless cultists living in a long-deserted town and refuses to conduct a search for the three missing Prestons, so Mark's older brother, Tom, and his wife Julie search for them on their own. In the ghost town they are attacked by Satanists. After escaping, Tom sends Julie to summon the authorities while he returns to rescue Mark. En route, Julie is captured by a Satanist who was waiting hidden in her car.
Wearing the robe of a defeated Satanist, Tom infiltrates Corbis's church, where Corbis performs a ceremony to convert Mark into one of his eyeless minions. Tom is discovered by Danny, one of the Satanists, but eludes capture. He and Dr. Sam Richards, a psychic researcher, review the book, which explains that the source of Corbis's power is an ornate glass bottle known as "The Devil's Rain", which contains the souls of Corbis's disciples. They also find Mark's signature in the book, which Richards is sure was not there the last time Mark had the book.
Tom and Richards head to Corbis's church and remove The Devil's Rain from its hiding place. The Satanists converge on the church, so Tom and Richards retreat, taking The Devil's Rain but leaving behind the book, which is taken by Corbis. As Corbis (sporting a horned goat head) begins the ceremony to convert Julie to an eyeless one (hinting also of possible rape), Tom jumps in to intervene, and is captured as well. (Inexplicably, the sheriff shows up with an ax, but fights against the Prestons and Richards.) Richards threatens to destroy The Devil's Rain, but is overpowered by the Satanists, and Mark takes the Devil's Rain from him. Richards tells Mark that he can still save his soul by destroying the bottle, while Corbis maintains that if the bottle is destroyed Mark will wander through nothingness for eternity, unable to enter either Heaven or Hell. Mark smashes the bottle. The Devil's Rain is released from the bottle, melting the Satanists (including Mark and Corbis) and burning down the church. Tom and Julie make a hasty exit. As Tom embraces Julie, it is revealed that he is actually embracing Corbis, and that his wife's soul has become trapped within a new Devil's Rain.
Cast
* Ernest Borgnine as Jonathan Corbis
* Eddie Albert as Dr. Sam Richards
* William Shatner as Mark Preston
* Ida Lupino as Emma Preston
* Tom Skerritt as Tom Preston
* Joan Prather as Julie Preston
* Keenan Wynn as Sheriff Owens
* John Travolta as Danny
* George Sawaya as Steve Preston
* Anton LaVey as High Priest of the Church of Satan
* Diane LaVey as Priscilla Corbis
* Woodrow Chambliss as John
* Lisa Todd as Lilith, the temptress
Release
'The Devil's Rain' was released in 1975, with screenings in New York on August 7 and Los Angeles on August 13, 1975.
Reception
'The Devil's Rain' received a uniformly negative critical response, with the chief complaint being the incoherent storyline. The film's lack of adequate scares was also widely criticized. Vincent Canby in 'The New York Times' opined that "'The Devil's Rain' is ostensibly a horror film, but it barely manages to be a horror ... It is as horrible as watching an egg fry." Roger Ebert in the 'Chicago Sun-Times' said "All of this would be good silly fun if the movie weren't so painfully dull. The problem is that the material's stretched too thin. There's not enough here to fill a feature-length film." He particularly derided the exhaustive melting of the Satanists at the finale. He gave the film 1 stars out of four, and eventually added it to his "Most Hated" movies list.
In his 2010 book 'Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies', Australian film reviewer Michael Adams called 'The Devil's Rain' "the ultimate cult movie ... It's about a cult, has a cult following, was devised with input from a cult leader, and saw a future superstar indoctrinated into a cult he'd help popularize." The latter reference is to John Travolta and Scientology.
See also
* List of American films of 1975
Notes
Buy The Devil's Rain (film) now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1975