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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not bad at all, 11 Mar 2010
I saw The Devil's Rain in London in the 70's when it first came out. It was raining (strange?) and so I popped into a cinema for a couple of hours, and I thought it was perfectly OK. Borgnine plays himself, Captain Kirk is in it, Tom Skerrit, John Travolta, and some other reasonably well known character actors, and so it is not a film full of nobodies or anybodies. Borgnine and Shatner keep their respective egos under control and all the other actors are competent. It is certainly better, for example, than some of the poorer films made by hammy British film makers Hammer (and the only half decent little horror film I remember them making was Plague of the Zombies in the 60's). I can't understand why The Devil's Rain attracted so much criticsm - what are people expecting - Shakespeare? It is just a cheap and cheerful little horror flick. By the way, for people who have never seen the film - you will never ever ever guess the ending!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Satanic fun, 20 Aug 2004
This review is from: Devil's Rain [DVD] [1975] [US Import] [NTSC] (DVD)
Lots of fun, although sometimes confusing. The book explains it better. Notable for having both the High Priest and High Priestess of the Church of Satan - Anton and Diane LaVey, in bit parts. Their inclusion gives a true Satanic presence to this movie - they wrote that humor is important to Satanists. Anton was technical advisor, and you can see many of his influences, such as the trapezoid designs and the Satanic chants. Some of the Satanic designs used are beautiful and interesting, and are reported to have been designed by Anton LaVey himself. It was filmed in Durango, Mexico. The filming has interesting stories to it, such as Anton LaVey trying to teach chants to extras who did not speak English. Anyone who likes good old sci fi and horror or camp, should love this film.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
This puddles a bit of a muddle, 8 Dec 2009
Satanic priest John Corbis(Ernest Borgnine) cursed the Preston family 300 years ago. Revenge is a dish best served cold, because after all this time Corbis is ready. All he requires is a book that is in the possesion of the descendants of the Preston family. It is a list of those who were from his original flock. He captures and possesses various family members in order to obtain the book. Corbis also has in his posession a vessel known as the 'devil's rain' in which the souls of those he has ensnared are trapped. Corbis is pursued by Tom Preston(Tom Skerritt), Tom's psychic wife Julie(Joan Prather) and Psychic researcher Dr Richards(Eddie Albert). Can anybody stop Corbis from carrying out his evil plans?
To be honest this film is a bit of a mess. If you went into this film having seen Robert Fuest's previous genre efforts such as the two Dr Phibes films and the wild and wonderful The Final Programme, you might expect something that would be a mixture of incredible visuals, crazy plot and would be very entertaining. Sadly, this film is none of these things. It drags, despite its relatively short running time, until it reaches its completely over the top climax, when the vast majority of the characters dissolve into puddles of slime. Great actors such as Ida Lupino and Keenan Wynn are totally wasted in bit parts, Borgnine hams it up as Corbis, and theres John Travolta hidden under make-up as one of Corbis's minions.
A very dissapointing film, which I waited a long time to see. I think it will be quite a while before I watch it again. The best thing on offer here is the Region 0 Dark Sky release, a very nice presentation, with the added bonus of a commentary by Robert Fuest
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