THE DEVILS is the point where the art-flick meets nunsploitation. It's also a sort-of bigger budgeted version of MARK OF THE DEVIL and uses it's larger scale to great effect. The story itself deals with the ideas of religious insanity and more so with the inevitability of those in power to abuse their authority for whatever purposes benefit them. I'm sure this film was quite shocking to anyone lucky enough to view it back when it was released, though because it was censored so heavily by the powers that be at the time I'm not sure too many people got the chance to view the version director Ken Russell intended. This is a shame because this film does a beautiful job of depicting the evil insanity of organized mob-mentality i.e. church-mind. The most censored scene contains a group of nuns accused of demonic possession raping a statue of Jesus and if there ever was a more fitting depiction of the absurdity of religion put on film I'm not sure what it would be. You also get some more typical inquisition-style torture and naughty nun orgies. Probably the best made movie in this blasphemous sub-genre and really deserves a nice Criterion release at some point.
No comments:
Post a Comment