Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
A charismatic 17th-century French priest becomes the target of a sexually obsessed nun’s witchcraft accusations, which corrupt church and state officials are all too happy to exploit.
Ken Russell's The Devils is one of cinema's most audacious and genuinely singular works — a ferocious collision of religious satire, political horror, and transgressive spectacle that remains unlike anything else. Derek Jarman's stark, bleached-white production design and David Watkin's cinematography create an almost expressionist nightmare that feels utterly unmistakable. Oliver Reed delivers one of his finest performances as Grandier, a man of contradictions whose downfall is both tragic and inevitable, while Vanessa Redgrave's Sister Jeanne is a tour de force of repressed desire curdling into madness. The plot, drawn from Aldous Huxley and John Whiting, is densely layered — functioning simultaneously as historical drama, political allegory, and psychological horror — and remains urgently relevant. The ending, while historically faithful and emotionally devastating, is perhaps the one element that lands with somewhat less inventiveness than the extraordinary spectacle preceding it, resolving into martyrdom in a manner that feels slightly conventional by the film's own extreme standards. Novelty is off the charts — this film is absolutely one of a kind.