cult film freak: CHRISTOPHER LEE STOKING HAMMER'S 'THE DEVIL RIDES OUT'

Written by James M. Tate / 1/11/2025 / No comments / charles gray , christopher lee , hammer films , horror , nike arrighi , occult , sixties , terence fisher

CHRISTOPHER LEE STOKING HAMMER'S 'THE DEVIL RIDES OUT'

1/11/2025 | No comment

Christopher Lee & Nike Arrighi in The Devil Rides Out/The Devil's Bride Year: 1968 Rating: **

In two of Hammer legend Christopher Lee's favorite Hammer movies, he's a regular fella, not a monster or killer... although in the THE TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL he's a double-crossing scoundrel, having sex with his titular best friend's wife and suffering constant gambling debts that he talks the initially vulnerable cuckold into paying...

Yet in THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, with the same director in Hammer staple Terence Fisher, he's actually the hero... and it was Lee's own persistence to bring author Dennis Wheatley's occult novel to the big screen...

From Hammer's THE DEVIL RIDES OUT

Sadly, by 1968, Hammer hadn't caught up to the kind of demon-cult movies that worked best with a tinge of dark humor, like the same year's ROSEMARY'S BABY...

In fact DEVIL, looking as vibrantly handsome as other Hammer/Fisher productions... only taking place in the early motor-era instead of Victorian... is extremely dated, particularly one distracting rear-projected driving sequence with Lee's bland sidekick falling for ingenue Nike Arrighi who, despite being sporadically possessed, there's hardly any real threat and she never really seems in danger...

From Hammer's THE DEVIL RIDES OUT

Meanwhile, during the Satanic Rituals, melodramatic music blasts so loud, it's one of the few Hammer films attempting to force audiences when to be afraid — but without any real reasons why...

Yet the biggest problem's not in Lee being miscast as the stalwart lead, but the otherwise sophisticated and gentlemanly veteran-actor Charles Gray as a demonic cult leader could have used some of that formidably hypnotic prowess that, unfortunately, Christopher was tired of.

From Hammer's THE DEVIL RIDES OUT

Christopher Lee in THE DEVIL RIDES OUT

Nike Arrighi in THE DEVIL RIDES OUT

Charles Gray in THE DEVIL RIDES OUT

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Tags : charles gray , christopher lee , hammer films , horror , nike arrighi , occult , sixties , terence fisher

James M. Tate

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