The Devil's Men

This is the strangest episode of Father Ted that I've ever seen. It seems to be some sort of prequel starring Donald Pleasance as a younger Father Jack, who is situated on an island in Greece. Jack isn't doing too good a job of stopping tourists he meets from being sacrificed by the local Minotaur cult run by Bishop Brennan (played by Peter Cushing). Jack so far has:

1) Let two tourists be sacrificed at the start of the film then gets ignored by the police. 2) Fails to warn three further youngsters, then just watches as they sneak off into the night. 3) Waits until one of those three people escapes capture, then after she gets captured he phones New York to get help from a young Father Ted!

Ted does actually seem to be played by Dermot Morgan, so that's good. He gets to Greece and Father Jack is whining about how the devil and the Minotaur are the same needs to be stopped but Ted is giving the glad eye to a young Mrs Doyle who is looking for one of her friends. It's around this time that we realise that just about everyone in the town is part of the Minotaur cult, but it takes Jack and Ted an awfully long time to figure this out, after:

4) They totally ignore the one villager who was going to tell them the whole deal. She gets murdered not long after. 5) Leaving Mrs Doyle alone while the Minotaur cultists play 'peek-a-boo' at her bedroom window. 6) Leaving Mrs Doyle alone so she can be captured by the cultists.

Periodically Peter Cushing turns up as the local Baron/Head Cultist so he can pulls faces at the two of them and say 'What's up bitches?" before getting into his Rolls Royce and driving off. Things come to a head during the ceremony to kill Mrs Doyle, but will good win against evil?

This is pretty dull, unengaging stuff from start to finish. I've heard there's a version with slightly more gore and nudity in it, but then the version I watched had the 'people exploding' bit at the end, but no nudity. It just needed a kick in the arse action wise from start to finish, as Jack and Ted mostly wander about retracing the steps of the people who were captured and glaring at the locals.

Brian Eno did the soundtrack, however. I do recognise one track from Music For Films, but the rest was new to me. Not bad.

You can avoid this one though.

Well, pardon me for being excited at the prospect of watching Donald Pleasence and Peter Cushing in a '70s horror film. It does not take long to see why this film, titled "Land of the Minotaur" in the US but also possessing the horrendous title "The Devil's Men", is not more widely seen today or spoken about. It is such a dull film lacking in scares, drama and any other sort of talent that it is a wonder that Cushing and Pleasence were even in it. It has to have been a good pay-day for them. In fact, the entire budget must have went towards securing their contracts, because evidently there was nothing else left by the time they went to shoot this absolute borefest. Nothing happens, and there is nothing of interest apart from the banter between the priest and the PI, that swings between jovial and nasty. The director must have slept his way through the film, the editor had nothing to do because the film gives the impression that what was shot as quickly as possible and stuck together. Every single trope you can think of from Satantic horror films makes its way in here, and is done in a way that the film-makers shrugged and said "They've seen it before, why bother making an effort or putting a new spin on it?" I am surprised of Cushing and Pleasence not being able to see through this one when they were approached.

A pretty drudgy effort from all concerned. Peter Cushing is the sinister baron living in a castle in Greece when young people start to go missing. A priest (Donald Pleasance) is soon hot on the trail and together with Kostas Karagiorgis discovers a coven (?) of pagan minotaur worshippers. It is odd to see Cushing playing the baddie quite this blatantly, and perhaps if he featured a little more then the film would be better. Unfortunately, it's all just a bit too procedural - lots of screaming, a fair bit of rather gratuitous nudity, and lots of thick, gloopy, tomato sauce - without the style of a Hammer production to underpin it. Watchable, though, if you like the genre - and there is a cracker of a song at the end that really doesn't fit at all.

The Devil's Men represents what turned out to be one of the last gasps of the occult obsessed horror scene of the 70's shortly before Halloween came along, tore up the rule book, set fire to it and kicked it screaming through a plate glass window.

To cut a long story short a couple of enterprising Greek film makers fancy their chances of nailing together a new film franchise featuring the unlikely double act of womanising, wise talking American investigator Milo and stuffy but kind hearted priest Father Roche. An exiled nobleman is mixed up in some satanic jiggery pokery - offering up tourists as sacrifices to an extremely unfrightening effigy of the minotaur and only Milo and Roche can stop him!

Or something like that.

The reality is however horribly dull, frustrating and loaded with wasted opportunities. I strongly suspect that the fledgling film makers blew most of the budget on getting Donald Plesance, Peter Cushing and Brian Eno (for the soundtrack) onboard and hoped that would be enough to sway audiences in the English speaking world.

It isn't. The Devil's Men looks beautiful with assured, camera-work and fantastic locations. Eno's score, though basically just a one chord drone that he probably cranked out in an afternoon is suitably atmospheric and the movie is laden with cracking 70's crumpet including that Austrailian sort from Fawlty Towers and uber hottie Jane Lyle of Island of Death infamy. But there the positives end. Cushing sleepwalks through it, looking like he has a corn cob up his bum and Pleasance fusses about trying his best, but never quite getting things right. To make matters worse the character of Milo is appallingly flimsy and unlikeable.

Okay, so it doesn't look that good. But from there the film simply refuses to go anywhere. There is an insinuation that the local villagers are possessed, but to be fair to them, they never really do anything very much other than shuffle about looking glassy eyed. Perhaps they were just tired? Just when you are sure things will come to some kind of a head Milo and Roche interrupt the Baron's satanic party with laughable ease, sending him on to meet his maker. The statue of the minotaur falls silent and hey presto! Satan is defeated.

Yeah right.

The inane optimism that The Devil's Men might be the first of a series of films is hammered home by Father Roche's final line mere seconds before the ridiculously rushed ending.

"Who knows Milo? Perhaps one day I may call upon you again to help defeat the Antichrist."

I'm sure you'll be putting that call in any day now Donald.

The Devil's Men. A Satanic cult led by horror legend Peter Cushing are committing human sacrifice to a Minotaur figure in rural Greece and it's down to priest Donald Pleasence (another horror legend) and his friend from New York to put an end to it. I've read mainly negatives about this movie and it certainly has flaws. For a start Cushing looked to me like he was merely going through the motions. Pleasence played an Irish man but his accent kept slipping. Having an interest in the occult I felt that there was a lack of information about the cult, it's beliefs, origins, etc. And the finale was rather sill, but entertaining. However, on the positive side it is visually very good, plenty of colour and great use of Greek locations. The musical score, by Brian Eno, is effectively menacing. Some reviewers found it boring but I did not. Being a 1970's Euro horror movie we get some nudity, plus a fair amount of blood and gore. It's really not too bad.