Abominable Advent Calendar Day 17: The Devil’s Rain (1975)
Crapsterpiece Category: AnythingSploitation, WTF Were They Thinking?
Heads up: outrageous scenery chewing, gratuitous Satanist melting
Ernest Borgnine. William Shatner. Ida Lupino. Tom Skerritt. Eddie Albert. Keenan Wynn. A baby John Travolta. They might not all be A-listers, but they’ve all had respectable careers. So if they’re together in one film, it should be halfway decent, right? Oh, so very, delightfully wrong.
In a lonely desert town, one family, including mom (Lupino) and son (Shatner) is hiding a book of magic from a Satanic group hellbent on getting it. The Satanists call up a wild storm and kidnap Lupino, and Shatner goes to rescue her. Both disappear. Shatner’s brother (Skerritt) returns to the family home to find it ransacked, and together with Eddie Albert as the doctor, tries to rescue his family.
This movie is famous for—and much of its fun comes from—two things. The first is the scenery chewing of most of the cast, particularly Borgnine, who out-Shatners Shatner and appears to be having the time of his life being full-on Borgnine. When it came to onscreen temper tantrums, he was the Nic Cage of his time. In this case he goes charismatic unhinged Satanic cult leader in full goat-man makeup, which is absolutely worth seeing. Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey was a consultant on the film and had a small role as a priest and organist (Satanists have organists?), so maybe high camp is part of the Satanist gig.
The second thing this film is remembered for is the ending, which was advertised heavily as “Absolutely the most incredible ending of any motion picture.” If you take the word “incredible” to mean “not credible,” as in “unbelievable,” as in, “that’s not only not possible, but it’s entirely ludicrous, kind of gross, and also funny in a really messed-up way,” then there’s truth in advertising. Let’s just say it involves [minor spoiler alert] a loooong scene with a lot Satanists melting. But they don’t do it neatly, like Margaret Hamilton in the Wizard of Oz. No, it’s more like wax on Chianti-bottle candle holders in ‘70s Italian restaurants. LOTS of wax. For several minutes.
Melty Satanists aside, there is actually some cool cinematography in this film. But you’ll be too busy laughing or hollering at the stupid decisions of the heroes to notice.
