The Devil's Rain (1975)

AKA Hell's Rain. I love this mid 1970'stale of Satanism in the American desert, so much so that I still have it on tape when I recorded it off TV in the 80's. I also have it as Hell Rain on VHS sell thru & low grade DVD, it really does deserves a decent re-issue here in the UK. The opening credits feature the Hellish paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. Great cast. John Travolta makes an early but brief appearance and Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, acted as technical adviser plus he played the High Priest. The finale is a tremendous melt sequence, which out melts The Incredible Melting Man! This is one of those movies that I never tire of watching.

(43%) A pretty bad, yet not without its charm cult based horror staring William Shatner at at time in his life when he'd appear in anything as long as his cheque didn't bounce. Ernest Borgnine plays the lead bad guy which works as well as it sounds as the guy just isn't very intimidating; although it's great to see underrated cinema legend Ida Lupino in anything. John Travolta fans need not track this down because I honestly struggled to spot him, though the fact that I was more than a little sleepy may not have helped. This has brushes of good quality, the opening credit sequence is creepy, and there's tons of scenes (maybe too much) of people melting like a fizzing sherbet dip dab in the rain, but this is too sluggish and forgettable to hit all the right buttons.

The "dated" fx in THE DEVIL'S RAIN weren't "dated" when it hit drive-in screens back in the day: the melting man who appears early on in the movie was- and still IS, in my opinion- pretty gruesome. And anybody who doesn't think that Ernest Borgnine's makeup is outstanding doesn't know from makeup Good or Bad. William Shatner does a good job as the first of two brothers to confront the horde of devil-worshippers haunting the old ghost town in the middle of the desert (and how's THAT for a scenario? Ah, the 70s were The Sh-t...). Ida Lupino plays his mother, Tom Skerritt his brother, and Keenan Wynn one other. The only real weakness is in some of the writing (Borgnine's speeches, in particular, sound more than a little comic-bookish), but Robert Fuest's sure-handed direction more than compensates for any other shortcomings. Worth a look.

Here's a mouldy oldie from deep in the cheese vault. I haven't seen this for many years since I saw it on TV sometime in the 80s (I remember a time when old horror films were regularly shown on TV). This review will have spoilersMrs Preston (Ida Lupino) is worried that her husband is missing and so her son Mark Preston (William Shatner) goes to confront the Satanist sorcerer Corbis (Ernest Borgnine) who has kidnapped his father in an attempt force the Preston family to return a book to him stolen from him by one of their ancestors who betrayed Corbis. This book has the signatures of all those whose souls he has captured but he can't return to Hell with the souls until he has the book. Preston challenges Corbis to battle of faith which he loses and so he too is captured by Corbis.It is now up to a team made up psychic investigator Tom Preston (Tom Skerrit), his wife Julie (Joan Prather) and Dr Sam Richard (Eddie Albert) to confront Corbis and try to rescue Tom's family from Corbis's clutches. Their first attempt fails and Julie is captured to used in their next ceremony. Tom and Dr Richard discover a jar full souls in torment, The Devil's Rain. Just as Corbis's ceremony reaches its peak Dr Richard confronts Corbis and smashes the jar, unleashing the Devil's Rain on the cultists. There is then a long drawn out scene where the whole cult melts.This is not very entertaining film. It is quite amusing to see Shatner earnestly hamming his way through the opening scenes in the film and I was giggling quite a lot at Shatner's rewrite of the Lord's prayer as he battled for his faith. But then the film switches to an unfamiliar group of characters who are now the main protagonists and the early part of the film seems to have been demoted to an extended prologue. I don't know if this why the film just fails to build up any sense of tension but certainly didn't help. The big melt scene at the end is not only long and unpleasant to look at, it is a major anti-climax.Rating 4/10