THE DEVIL'S RAIN. This is a very odd film. It starts with a 20 minute opening scene featuring William Shatner which feels like it should be the films climax. The viewer is thrust into the middle of the plot with no real understanding as to what the hell is going on. There's a book, a beardy bloke, Bill Shatner delivering lines like he's doing an amateur production of Shakespeare for the hard of hearing and a bloke who suddenly melts into a tiny puddle of wax. Combined with the woozy feeling I'm having from a head cold, it was all rather pleasing.
Next thing you know Bill's out in the desert in a ghost town which as the film progresses seems more and more like another dimension, inhabited by black cloaked figures who on occasion stand in wonderful poses against the desert background. Bill then offers to test his faith against the head Satanist in a wonderfully decorated Satanic church, complete with Church of Satan inverse Pentagrams inside Trapezoids. Of course, this is understandable as Anton LeVey, head of CoS, not only plays a High Priest in the film but is also credited as Satanic adviser. Though to be fair, I'm not sure what advice he gave the makers of the film. He uses the film as a propaganda piece to promote the philosophy of the CoS which are at odds with the films hell and brimstone ideas and story. Still it's nice to hear Ernest Borgnine recite lines from the CoS's Black Mass.
Some other stuff happens with a new set of characters until the infamous meltdown scenes at the end. These are truly great in the general yuckiness of them and the sheer length of time they are shown for, it feels endless yet never boring or over used. Some images for me hinted at sexual excess but I'm not sure why, nor do I wish to delve into my psyche to find out.
I watched this on the 23rd Century DVD release which had the added bonus of making me want to get up and adjust the tracking every now and then as it's a VHS rip.
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