The Devil Rides Out: 30 of 31 Horror Movies I've Never Seen

I have this terrible habit of trying to watch a movie when I should be going to sleep.  Usually this happens after I get home from an incredibly late shift from work and I'm all wind blown from riding in the cold on my motorcycle.  I can't sleep quite yet so I always figure, "Well, I'll just watch a movie and by the end I'll definitely be tired."  It always ends up the same way, about 20 to 30 minutes in I pass out on the couch and wake up three hours later realizing that I passed out, stumble to bed, and go back to sleep.  This has happened to me with some movies a number of times, enough times that I feel like maybe I'm cursed not to finish them.  Tonight I broke the curse for The Devil Rides Out and I'm quite glad to have done it.

The plot of the film centers around a reunion of three friends, Duc de Richleau (Christopher Lee), Rex van Ryan (Leon Greene) and Simon Aran (Patrick Mower), except that Simon appears to have missed the reunion.  Richeleau and Rex decide to drop in on his house where they uncover a group of Black Magic practicing Satanic Worshipers led by a coldly calculating Mocata (Charles Gray) planning to Baptize Simon and a girl named Tanith (Nike Arrighi) in the name of the Dark Lord.  Through many set backs they take it upon themselves to halt this baptism and put an end to Mocata's sinister plans.

The script is penned by Richard Matheson, based off of a Dennis Wheatley novel.  The dialogue is quite good, but some of the character decisions made little sense.  For example, if a character has proven themselves time and time over to be correct why would anyone question them after a certain point?  It's a behavior common to horror movies that I've always felt was a rather weak device to steer an event.  Luckily the film makes up for these weak points by a great use of special effects and cinematography.

All in all, the acting ensemble represented in the film was quite strong and supported each other greatly through the story.  It's hard to hold a candle to Christopher Lee but Leon Greene played off of him quite well and Charles Gray's Mocata is such a downright sinister man that Lee's usually dark imposing quality is lightened by contrast.  It's no secret that I have a soft spot movies about Black Magic and Witch Craft so it should also be no surprise that I liked this movie quite a bit, regardless of a few of the strange choices on the writing side of the script.

It felt like quite a bit of research into the scientific side involving the power of suggestion had been done as well as the Seance Rituals of communicating with the spirits.  Such research served to really heighten the mood of the film, steering the audience to wonder just how much could be possible and how much is farce.  At the end of the day, it's a tale of good and evil, and good most certainly trumps evil in this case.

4 out of 5 skulls.