Devil Story

After watching this I wondered if the director had actually ever seen a film before. Because this seems to ignore any and all of the conventions of film making we've come to expect. Plot, character development, subtext, all are dashed against the rocks of chaos here.

The movie starts with a mutant dressed in Nazi attire madly tearing his way out of a tent. We then have a prolonged shot of the victim of the mutant bleeding on the ground. Then as the mutant storms of into the woods to kill some one else his foot gets caught on the tent rope and he scuffles with it. Was that intentional? I don't know but they left it in. That question "Was that intentional?" is something I found myself asking a lot throughout the entire movie.

This is one of those film that has to be seen to be believed. There's a demonic cat that lives in the mountains. There's an old witch that controls the Nazi mutant. There's an old man with a shotgun that seems to have an endless supply of bullets. There's an Egyptian mummy that comes out of an old galleon which is magically drawn from the inside of a mountain by a devil horse.

I Liked it. Despite hearing myself sighing throughout I would definitely watch it again.

Contrary to what my fellow IMDb reviewer Weirdling_Wolf writes, I believe that the French have given us plenty of decent horror films*, from B&W classic Les Diaboliques, to the dreamlike work of Jean Rollin, to zombie/action flick La Horde, to more contemporary shockers Inside and Martyrs. Devil Story isn't one of them though, being a strong contender for the strangest, if not worst, horror film ever made. This low budget crap-fest from director Bernard Launois is technically inept in almost every department and has a virtually non-existent plot, making it a must for fans of z-grade schlock.

The film opens with a grunting, snuffling facially disfigured man in an SS uniform killing several people with a knife and dumping their bodies down a well, before continuing his murderous spree with a shotgun. The action then cuts to a young married couple who experience car trouble during a storm and seek shelter at a stately home occupied by an old man and his wife. The lady of the house tells the visitors a story about a group of bandits who lured ships onto the rocks, and explains that their descendants still live in the area: the ugly monster from the opening scene and his mother.

During the night, the young woman decides to up and leave without her husband, but wishes she had stayed put when she runs into the hideous killer and his mum, who try to seal her in a tomb. She escapes, but runs into an Egyptian mummy and a zombie woman, who are also roaming the countryside. Meanwhile, the old man from the stately home is trying to shoot a very noisy horse with his shotgun.

Devil Story suffers from poor direction, choppy editing, amateurish make-up effects and lousy acting, but the worst thing about it is the soundtrack, with all sound effects at maximum volume and repeated incessantly: in addition to the constantly whinnying horse we also get a very vocal owl, and repetitive use of that old horror cliché Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 in a misguided attempt to add atmosphere. I reckon if anything is going to make you want to hit the stop button, it'll be that damn horse!

On the plus side, the gore effects, while not exactly special, are plentiful and fun, with quite a lot of spurting blood from wounds, the monster getting injured so that part of his scalp flaps around, and one really unconvincing but very messy moment when the mummy stomps on the man with the shotgun causing his guts to spill out.

2/10. It's film making at its most incompetent, but for a select few, Devil Story will prove every bit as entertaining as a Marvel blockbuster is for the masses.

*their music still sucks, though!

Devil Story (1985)

*** (out of 4)

If you're looking for a "story" then you're not really going to find it here. The film starts off with a deformed man/creature killing anyone he comes across while grunting like a nut. The story then goes to a dark castle where a mummy is running around and there's an old legend dealing with wreck ships. All of this is happening as a crazy man keeps shooting at a black horse and a blonde woman tries to escape something. Oh yeah, there's a black cat running around as well.

DEVIL STORY is without a doubt one of the strangest movies that you're ever going to see. I had never heard of the movie before getting a preview of it on a Facebook group and from here I read a couple reviews that made the film seem like one of the craziest ever made. I read these wild reviews and thought to myself that there's no way the film could live up to the hype but it actually met that hype and surpassed it. DEVIL STORY is a film that will be impossible to forget once you see it.

Jeez, where do you start? The film begins with some rather campy murder scenes but director Bernard Launois at least knows that horror fans want gore so each stabbing has all sorts of red stuff shooting out in just about every direction possible. After a few murders the film then goes to a Gothic style, which really reminded me one TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD. The mummy itself looked quite good and we're given several good scenes with it including one great one where it gets its faced ripped only to have white goo start to go everywhere.

The film is really, really surreal and often times it doesn't make a bit of sense. Scenes happen that don't add up and then you wonder what the hell it is you're watching. I'm not going to ruin the ending but it just kinda knocks you upside the head and you don't know what to think. There's not any nudity but that doesn't take away from the exploitation factor. The gore level and flat-out weirdness is just unlike anything I've seen before and I like to think that I've seen all sorts of weird films. DEVIL STORY is certainly one of a kind.

Il était une fois le diable aka Devil Story made me laugh a few times. Yes, we get some gore too, but in no way I would call Devil Story a horror movie, it is rather a comedy with a few elements of horror. Anyway, the movie is a bad one, but some may still be entertained. Only recommended if you can cope with lots of trash and want to watch something absurd, grotesque and non-nonsensical. For the laughs, a rate of generous 3.

I seriously can't tell if this 80s French z movie is ridiculously inept or intentionally a surreal cheese-fest. Either way, it's lack of plot, inane pacing, bad acting, gore, and horrific dubbing are stupidly entertaining. It's like Ed Wood meets Fulci...