Devils of Darkness (1970)

I'm at a loss as to how the actors were able to go through with this film with straight faces. However, two points of the film have some merit to them. The dance scene in the beginning was fabulous; in fact, it didn't fail to draw you into the movie, despite the bomb effect you are treated to after that. The only real acting that caught my eye was that of Karen, the love interest. She too came in at a time when you were about ready to give the whole thing up. Again, she had the quality of drawing you into the relationship that was being cultivated between the main characters. Other than that, it was more or less of a bad TV movie, guaranteed to give you a few good laughs.

"Devils of Darkness" is a semi-decent Gothic entry that has a couple flaws to it.**SPOILERS**Going out rock-climbing, Paul Baxter, (William Sylvester) and Madeline, (Diana Decker) find that the trip is about to be canceled by a neighboring gypsy ceremony. When an accidental death nearly puts an end to the ceremony, she becomes fearful of a curse from the gypsies, which is soon confirmed by a series of strange events happening around them. Getting evidence that a secret cult rather than the gypsies are involved with trying to prevent him from finding the truth, he goes out to investigate and sees that Count Sinistre, (Hubert Noel) is the head of the cult and is responsible for the actions going on. Learning of their intentions with her, he races to stop them from going through with their plans.The Good News: This here wasn't that bad. It's best elements from the it's Gothic undertones. This one, when it tries to, is really Gothic at times, most notably in the opening assaults on the gypsies. The sight of the bat forcing the coffin open, which slowly opens to reveal a hand emerging from the darkness in a long, drawn-out style as oblivious gypsies party away at a camp nearby. The later attack, where the bat attacks the fleeing members in a heavily wooded area is a marvelous Gothic sequence. The catacomb hideout is fantastic, with long, dark hallways, plenty of twists and turns and the fact that it needs candle-lights to illuminate them allows for some creepy atmosphere. The scenes of the cult at the end are it's best, since there's plenty of cheesy fun to be had from these scenes. The chants, the sacrificial ceremony and the rituals that come into play are purely fun and really entertaining, and there's even some rather fun moments to be had throughout, including the preparations for the ceremony and the fight to get free, which ends on it's lone moment of violence but remains effective nonetheless. These points offer up the film's good points.The Bad News: There isn't a whole lot wrong with it. The film's main factor against it is that it's just deadly boring. It starts off great with the awakening in the coffin followed by the gypsy attack, but all that occurs from there until the end is absolutely nothing of interest. The film decides to have absolutely everything talked out, and that leads to a never-ending series of scenes where he converses with absolutely everybody about what's going on, and it leads to deadly boredom for most of these scenes. These are mostly taken out of the unending scenes of conversing with the police. It's obvious these are merely time-wasters in the plot sense, being merely answers to keep the protagonist away from the truth. That also severely limits the action as well, making it seem even duller by comparison. The fact that this one also features a vampire that rarely gets to do any sort of vampiric activities is another marginal factor. The vampire comes out here and there but on the whole doesn't do a whole lot to justify the inclusion, as the powers demonstrated seem more suited to a black magic follower over a vampire. These, though, are what really keep the film down.The Final Verdict: A somewhat decent Gothic entry, there's enough in this one to make it watchable but it's still flawed. Give this one a shot if you're into this kind of film or if there's something about that appeals to you, otherwise then just skip this one altogether.Today's Rating-PG: Violence

I enjoyed the movie immensely. I had wanted to see it since I was a kid having read about it in SHRIEK! a short lived British horror movie mag.so, 35 years later I finally get to see it and I was not disappointed. It's not a great film, but it certainly shines above many of the horror films that were churned out during the same era (a la Blood of the Vampire 1958). The atmosphere and mood of the film is just right. The only truly annoying thing about the film to me was the beatnik-style music.Yes, it is a Hammer knockoff, but it was one of the better ones. (Even the later Hammer films were "Hammer knockoffs.")I say give it a chance! If you don't you will not know what you are missing.

This is one of those independent productions that kept appearing in the UK in the 60s and early 70s. Think Tigon and Tyburn film producers. Like many of them they made only one or two films and then disappeared again. Hammer's success with the Dracula franchise inspired this one. Its an interesting film that instead of the Gothic heavy appearance of Dracula this film transplants itself to contemporary France and England. Its starts promisingly with a gypsy wedding being interrupted by a rude bat. This is a metamorphosed form of a buried count who was interned alive for practicing the dark arts. He has arrived without an invitation to claim the intended bride as his own. This is rather heartless of him since he is taking the would be wife of one of his loyal servants. Having made her immortal he proceeds to gather a coven of worshipers as though being invincible wasn't enough for his ego, he need people to worship him too. Hubert Noël was successful at playing minor roles in film for which he seemed very suited. Here is thrown as the villain in the lead role. He may have th appearance of suave French vampire but he lacks the presence of a Dracula and his accent is an unintended joy. In addition there is Tracy Reed as the usual hapless victim and once again a minor actress is thrown into something too deep resulting in her never taking another lead role.The film ends predictably with the hero doing most of the right things. But this is a pale imitation of a Roger Corman film. I found this feature only the more interesting having read descriptions of it and seen a painting with references to the film. On a couple of film and vampire sites the then writer and psychic Stephen Armourae described the film and gave particular attention to Tracy Reed of whom he was clearly somewhat enamored including her in a column on Erotica. Later I saw an intriguing painting by him entitled 'Catherine'. Having then seen the film and the painting that appears in that as the vampire is also an artist I could see the connection and it wake me up from falling asleep. The difference being that Armourae has played & from what has appeared in print and net perhaps more a vampire better than Noel. If your in front of a TV and this comes on a satellite channel try and stay awake for Tracy Reed and a pretty hot painting of her. The rest- see a Hammer movie