The Devil's Rain (1975) Melts In Your Mouth Like An LSD Walpurgisnacht
She stares into the empty sockets, and watches as out of the twin voids something begins to coalesce. Flames licking upwards, infernal and endless where once were the gateways to the soul. There's a history to be told beyond those scorching fingers and she sees it resurrected, tinged in fitful-amber. In a New England village a coven has gathered, one which worships at the feet of the fallen angel. They are in danger, and their high priest demands satisfaction. His voice has a gravel edge, and when he smiles wide, it is a rictus that promises horror beyond damnation. He is known mainly by his surname- Corbis.
The scene I recreated above takes place in The Devil's Rain. Ernest Borgnine smiles toothily as Jonathan Corbis, dressed like he's leading a Thanksgiving Day parade. He roasts a scenery-chewing Shatner for betraying the coven, then lets himself be immolated at the stake, cackling like he's the intro track to a King Diamond record. It's dramatic, schlocky and dripping with style. The Devil's Rain was born to be drive-in royalty.
The Preston family is cursed. Generations ago, their ancestors turned against a Satanic cult, taking with them a book containing the signatures that bind its members to the devil. Corbis, the coven leader, will stop at nothing to retrieve the book, intending swift revenge upon the lambs who deserted their flock. Under siege by the acolytes of Ol' Scratch, the Preston family will have to face the unholy, traveling to its source in a desecrated church at the center of a ghost town. A vessel is hidden in that defiled holy place, one in which the spirits of the damned scream under an eternal downpour. The Preston's faith is about to be tested. If found wanting, their souls will be eternally imprisoned, their cries muffled by THE DEVIL'S RAIN!
When it was released, critics predominantly savaged The Devil's Rain. Every pseudo-intellectual reviewer had some kind of witty roast for why it was bland, corny, or confusing. To paraphrase John Waters, you can't teach good-bad taste. The Devil's Rain stimulates the same part of my brain that reacts to old Venom promo photos, where they're posing with swords in front of an altar topped with skulls. It tickles the same neurons that fire when I see the cover of a pulp comic with a buxom babe in a tattered dress strapped to a pentagram altar.
Right out the gate the movie throws us into a dark and stormy night, as the Preston patriarch arrives to warn of Corbis' retribution before melting into what looks like various flavors of Gogurt. The whole family is appropriately distressed by this, none more than homestead caretaker John (Woody Chambliss) who looks and acts like Jiggle Billy from that episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. From there, we get eye-less cultists, Anton LaVey posturing in a gold helmet and Borgnine turning into a Freaked-esque goat man. I'd be satisfied with the aforementioned, but then there's the finale. Taking place in the Satanic church, it's a melt-murder spree by way of "Raining Blood." A protracted sequence of cultists writhing in agony as they degenerate into rivers of melted bulk sherbet.
The essence that runs through this movie has been harnessed countless times for everything from Evilspeak, to The Void, to whatever elements Rob Zombie thinks he successfully mined as homage. I truly believe you can't align the stars to make something this cinematically delightful again. A movie where Borgnine's throws up the horns and a young John Travolta (Who was introduced to Scientology on this film- Yikes) matches wits with Tom Skerritt. A piece of transgressive celluloid gold, where the intro credits play over still images of a Bosch painting scored with the cries of the damned. If all of that is hell, then count me a registered sinner.
-Dr. Benny Graves
