Saturday, October 31, 2015

13 Nights of Shocktober: Ed Wood

by A.J. 

Happy Halloween! The countdown is over and Halloween is finally upon us. Tonight, hopefully, you'll be relaxing, eating some candy, and watching a scary, or not-so-scary, movie. There are a lot of options for tonight and I hope I've been of some help. Here is my final recommendation to help bring an end to Shocktober:

Night 13: Happy, Happy Halloween! “Can your heart stand the shocking facts of the true story of Edward D. Wood Jr.?”
Ed Wood 
I must confess I don’t know much about the real person of Ed Wood, so I don’t know how much of the movie or the characters is accurate or how much is embellishment. I don’t care. I love this movie, I love this Ed Wood. If you ever ask me if I want to watch Ed Wood, no matter what time of year it is, I will always say “yes,” even if I’ve just watched it. Ed Wood is one of my two favorite Tim Burton movies (the other is Big Fish) and I think it might be his best film. Ed Wood is a loving, nostalgic tribute not just to the worst director ever and his movies, but also to movies in general, movie lovers, and misfits.  
Ed Wood is filmed in black and white in way that evokes the films of the 1950’s without calling attention to its own style. The movie begins with a push-in on an old spooky house in a thunderstorm with theremin music, just like an old spooky movie. Criswell emerges from a coffin to introduce the legend of Edward D. Wood, Jr. The enthusiasm and joy that Johnny Depp exudes in playing Ed Wood also fills every scene of the movie. During the opening titles sequence the camera flies over miniatures and cheap special effects like flying saucers and an octopus, props that would be used in Wood’s movies.
Wood sees the positive in everything. He finds the one unintentionally good line in a very bad review (the costumes looked real) of a bad low budget play Wood and his troupe just performed. He tells a producer that he just put on play that that was praised for its realism. He says “perfect” after every take when he’s shooting a movie, and there’s usually only one take. He doesn’t have the money or the time for multiple takes, but also he really does see every take as perfect. A telephone conversation with a producer that has just seen Glen or Glenda? (Wood’s film about a transvestite, played by himself) ends with Wood saying, “Worst film you ever saw? Well, my next one will be better.” He’s even pretty positive about being a transvestite in 1950’s America.
Wood works with the same group of friends and collaborators on his films and even picks up a few new additions. They are a lovable band of misfits. Bill Murray is great as Bunny Breckinridge; he manages to be both subdued and flamboyant as the very “out" character who wants to be a woman. Jeffery Jones plays Criswell, a TV psychic that makes outlandish predictions. “Ed, this isn’t the real world. You’ve surrounded yourself with a bunch of weirdos,” says Wood’s long suffering girlfriend, Dolores, played by Sarah Jessica Parker. She’s supportive, but she can only take so much; she’s not a misfit like Wood and his gang. She eventually leaves him, but Wood meets a wonderful match in Kathy, played by Patricia Arquette. Late in the film Kathy tells the newly unemployed TV host Vampira, who is embarrassed to be taking a part in Plan 9 from Outer Space, “Eddie’s the only fella in town who doesn’t pass judgement on people.” Wood replies, “That’s right, if I did, I wouldn’t have any friends." 
The standout of Wood’s gang of misfits is Bela Lugosi, played excellently by Martin Landau. He deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor that year. Wood is so in awe of Lugosi that to him Lugosi is still a star even though he is washed up, his heyday having long since passed. Landau’s portrayal of Lugosi is very funny and very poignant. He’s not ready to stop making movies but the mainstream has forgotten about him. Even though everyone tells him Lugosi is washed up, to Wood sticks by his new friend, even after he finds out Lugosi is a morphine addict. Wood is Lugosi’s number one fan, and becomes his caretaker. There is something sad but endearing about someone looking after their broken down hero. Lugosi and Wood bond over nostalgia for old horror movies. Lugosi tells him, “They don’t want the classic horror films anymore. Today it’s all giant bugs… Who would believe such nonsense?” Wood feels the same, “The old ones were much spookier; they had castles and full moons.” It’s a great scene. Ed Wood was able to make Lugosi’s last days less somber and less tragic by giving him a chance to be in movies again, even if they were regarded as some of the worst movies ever made. Lugosi started his career starring in some of the best horror movies of the 30’s and finished his career by being in some of the worst movies of the 50’s, but they are movies people still remember and even enjoy, for one reason or another.
One of my favorite sub-genres is movies about making movies and Ed Wood is one of the best. It captures the joy of people doing something they really love. We see the making of Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster, and Wood’s masterpiece, Plan 9 from Outer Space. My favorite scene in Ed Wood, and my favorite scene about filmmaking in any film happens during the filming of Bride of the Monster. Tor Johnson, playing a character called Lobo, bumps into a doorframe and shakes the entire set. The cameraman asks Wood if he wants to do another take. Wood says, “No, it’s fine, it’s real. You know, in actuality, Lobo would have to struggle with that problem every day.” He’s completely right. Wood did have some kind of talent, even if it was only at finding a way to make his next movie (like convincing all of his friends to be baptized as Baptists so his religious landlord would fund Plan 9 from Outer Space, and maybe forget about the overdue rent). When Wood is feeling distraught and frustrated about the shooting of Plan 9, he goes to a bar, and sees Orson Welles, played quite impressively by Vincent D’Onofrio, sitting alone in the corner booth. They share frustrations about interfering, demanding producers and actors. Wood is wearing an angora sweater for the entire scene. Welles tells him, “Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else’s dreams?” I don’t care if this moment really happened or not; it’s a great scene.  
I could go on praising Ed Wood; I’ve only used two-thirds of my notes. There’s a lot to love about this movie. It’s a celebration of movies and misfits. It successfully combines joy and melancholy in way I typically only see in Wes Anderson films. It captures the unrelenting love people can have movies. Edward D. Wood, Jr. just needed to make movies and tell stories, even if they were bad. I’ll never get tired of hearing Depp’s wonderful delivery of “I like to wear women’s clothing.” Johnny Depp gives one of his best performances, if not his very best, as Wood. He seems over the top, but he’s not. He’s capturing Wood’s unbridled enthusiasm, positivity, and love for movies. It’s contagious. It makes me smile. I wonder if there is or ever has been anyone, including myself, that loved movies as much as Ed Wood. 

Friday, October 30, 2015

13 Nights of Shocktober: Night of the Creeps

by A.J. 

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 12: Spooky Fun Night, “The good news is your date is here. The bad news is…he’s dead.”
Night of the Creeps
The first time I saw the cult classic Night of the Creeps was on TCM as part of TCM Underground. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, on TCM of all channels, but I was very entertained and glad TCM included it in their programming schedule, uncut and commercial free. It is a cheesy 1980’s B-film of a horror movie but it is also a thoroughly entertaining love letter to cheesy 1950’s sci-fi/horror movies. Even a sharp observer will have to hit the rewind button a few times to catch all of the direct and indirect references to other horror movies and horror filmmakers.  
Right away Night of the Creeps lets you know what kind of movie you’re in for. It begins with two aliens with ray-guns on a spaceship chasing after a third alien carrying a cylinder. When the aliens speak, their dialogue is subtitled in both English and, what I assume to be, their alien language. The aliens are so obviously short men in suits and masks that I think that is what director Fred Dekker must have intended since the special effects later in the movie are pretty good. Dekker would go on to direct another cult classic with great effects, The Monster Squad, which is either a terrible or great film depending on what age you were when you first saw it. I think it’s great.
The mysterious alien cylinder is shot into space and lands on Earth in 1959. The first scene on Earth is in black and white and looks like a clichéd scene from 1950’s teen horror movie. The setting is sorority row and not that far away a boy and girl are in a parked car. From the alien cylinder a wormy slug springs into the mouth of the boy who left his date alone in the car. While an alien parasite worm is jumping into his mouth, an axe wielding escaped mental patient is attacks the girl. After this scene you should definitely know that Night of the Creeps is campy, over the top, self-aware fun. The movie then jumps to 1986 during "Pledge Week." We meet Chris and J.C., two college freshmen. Chris talks J.C. into pledging a fraternity with him because he is desperate to impressive the very pretty Cynthia, who he thinks (for no reason at all) is only interested in frat guys. Cynthia’s boyfriend, Brad, is the head of the fraternity and gives them the pledge task of stealing a dead body from the university medical lab. Chris and J.C. accidentally unfreeze the body of the college boy infected with the alien parasite back in the 50’s. They freak out and run away. The infected zombie body walks out of the university, but not before attacking a young scientist played by a young David Paymer

The zombie body walks to the sorority house where its head splits open and releases more parasite slugs. The slugs enter into a body then eat at the brain turning a person into essentially a zombie until their head explodes to spread more slugs. The special effects are great old-school practical effects. Some effects, like the slugs and zombie make-up hold up better than others, like the animatronic zombie dog and cat, which still look pretty cool and scary. The effects do get pretty gross, but they are meant to scare and entertain you, not just shock you and make you feel queasy. Night of the Creeps has fun with its effects too. When a bus driver sees the decaying zombie dog in the road, his eyes bulge out of his head, like a cartoon.


Night of the Creeps is a movie you watch for the fun, gross effects, but there are some good characters to go along with the effects too. Chris and J.C. are supposed to be geeks, but there’s nothing much geeky about them other than that they’re not jocks. Chris Romero, our main character, is unfortunately blandly average. His only motivation is to impress the pretty girl because she is pretty. The characters around him, however, are pretty interesting and entertaining. His goofy friend J.C. (James Carpenter) Hooper, is more socially adept and aware and is, overall, a more well-rounded character. The character that steals the movie is the hardened, self-destructive Detective Cameron played by Tom Atkins. He walks into a crime scene and says “thrill me” and constantly refers to Chris and J.C. as Spanky and Alfalfa. When he shoots one zombie in the head he says, “It’s Miller time.” It doesn’t make any sense but it’s great. My favorite scene with him is when he tells Chris a haunting story of revenge from his past. It’s a serious and intense speech in the middle a campy movie and an awkward moment for Chris. Somehow, this character isn’t laughable but is still fun and fits right in with the rest of the movie.

My favorite character is Cynthia Cronenberg, the object of everyone’s affections, played by Jill Whitlow. To say that the female roles in 80’s comedies, especially 80’s teen comedies, are lacking in substance would be a gross understatement. Cynthia, however, is not a trophy or a doll. She’s not impressed with Chris at first since he sent J.C. to talk to her for him. She puts together that the attacks happening around the college are related to the missing body from the medical lab and has to convince Chris and J.C., who are skeptical. At the climax, when a busload of slug infested zombie frat guys descend upon the sorority house, she fights them off along with Chris and Detective Cameron to protect the rest of the sorority. Shooting the zombies stops them, but then the slugs inside just explode out and scatter. The only thing that kills the slugs is fire, so Detective Cameron gets a flamethrower from the police armory (because of course they have a flamethrower). It’s Cynthia who uses that flame thrower while wearing her formal gown to kill off the alien slugs, and she is as badass as she sounds.
This movie is as much a tribute to the whole horror genre as it is a send up of 50’s sci-fi/horror movies. If the characters last names sound familiar it is because many characters are named after horror and science fiction directors like: David Cronenberg (Shivers), James Cameron (Piranha II, Terminator), Sean S. Cunningham (Friday the 13th), Steve Miner (Friday the 13th Part II and III), Sam Raimi (Evil Dead), John Carpenter (Halloween), Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), John Landis (An American Werewolf in London), and George Romero (Night of the Living Dead). The characters all attend Corman University, named after legendary producer Roger Corman, who made many, many campy films. When the sorority house mother is attacked she is watching Plan 9 from Outer Space on TV, perhaps the campiest film ever made by the man once voted worst director of all time, Ed Wood. 
Night of the Creeps was a flop when it was released in theaters but has since gone on to build a cult following. I can understand why. This movie has everything: horror, comedy, aliens, sorority girls, awesome horror effects, zombie jocks, a zombie cat, a zombie David Paymer, scenes in black and white, a scene with Dick Miller (who appears in several 80's horror movies), a suicidal cop on edge, a montage of college kids getting ready for a dance, and, best of all, a badass sorority girl with a flamethrower. Night of the Creeps is lots of fun and even a little scary. It’s a perfect movie for horror movie fans, people that like campy movies, and people that just want to have a spooky good time. 


Thursday, October 29, 2015

13 Nights of Shocktober: What We Do in the Shadows

by A.J. 

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 11: Horror-Comedy Night, “I think we drink virgin blood because it sounds cool.”

What We Do In the Shadows
I’ve always been suspicious of the easy, instant, and unquestioned coolness and sexiness of vampires. Every screen representation of vampires portrays them as outsiders, but as cool outsiders. What We Do In the Shadows is about a group of undead, uncool outsiders, which makes them the most relatable vampires I’ve ever seen. This is the most delightful and hilarious comedy I’ve seen in years. Have I laughed as hard at other recent comedies? Yes, but none have had such a lasting effect on me. I saw this movie in theaters back in February of this year, and I still smile whenever I think about it.
What We Do in the Shadows was co-written and co-directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, who also play two of the lead characters. Clement is best known for being part of the funny folk music duo Flight of the Conchords. He starred in the HBO series named after the duo. Taika Waititi wrote and directed some Flight of the Conchords episodes. The movie is shot as a documentary that follows four vampire friends and roommates in New Zealand as they prepare to attend the Unholy Masquerade, the biggest social event of the underworld.
This movie has an incredibly lovable band of misfits for its main characters. Each character portrays a different style of vampire. Viago (Waititi) is a foppish 18th century vampire, like Anne Rice’s characters in Interview with the Vampire. Vladislav (Clement) is a medieval, feudal tyrant, like Vlad the Impaler (if he really was a vampire). Deacon (played by Jonathan Brugh) is a 19th century Romantic era vampire, like Dracula, and Petyr (played by Ben Fransham) is a monstrous Nosferatu style vampire. Their dynamic is thrown for a loop for when Petyr turns one of their intended victims into a vampire. This new vampire is Nick (played by Cori Gonzalez-Macuer). He is young and hip and trendy and takes to being vampire very well. He walks down a busy sidewalk shouting, “I’m Twilight! That’s me!”
This is a horror comedy that is heavy on comedy and light on horror. There is not much gore but there are some bloody scenes played for laughs (Viago bites someone then can’t control the wild spurts of blood). The gags are very funny and clever. The vampires love going out but can’t tell if their outfits work because they don’t have reflections. Once they go out, they have to get the bouncer of a club to invite them in since vampires can’t enter any place they’re not invited. Viago, Vladislav, and Deacon all become obsessed with Nick’s blandly average human friend, Stu, who shows them how to use the internet, which leads to many laughs. One of the funniest scenes in the movie is when the vampires run into their natural rivals, a pack of werewolves led by Rhys Darby, who also had a part in the Flight of the Conchords series.
All of the vampires have backstories, hopes, and regrets that feel real and make them fully developed characters. The scenes of them having arguments about whose turn it is to do the dishes help, too. What We Do in the Shadows has loads of charm and delight but is also sincere without being overly dramatic. This film loves its characters and never makes fun of them. The pathos is genuine and well earned. This isn’t disposable comedy; jokes are great, but jokes with memorable characters are better. Whether you like horror or comedy, or both, or like vampires or are indifferent towards them, like me, What We Do in the Shadows will deliver on every front. When I make Best of 2015 list, I know this movie will be included, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I watch it next Shocktober, too. 

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

13 Nights of Shocktober: Targets

by A.J.  

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 10: Meta-Horror Night, “You know what they call my films today? Camp! High camp!”

Targets
Targets is a very peculiar film. It is more of a slow burn thriller than a traditional horror movie, but it is partly about horror films and meditates on both horror movies and real life horrors. Targets is director Peter Bogdanovich’s first feature film. He made the film in 1968 for legendary producer Roger Corman, whose only requirements of Bogdanovich was that he use actor Boris Karloff (who owed Corman two days’ work), and use stock footage from Corman’s 1963 film, The Terror (starring Boris Karloff). The story could be about anything. Bogdanovich wrote the screenplay with then wife Polly Platt, who was also the production designer. The result is a dual story, low budget movie that moves slow, but is interesting.
Boris Karloff plays an elderly horror movie legend named Byron Orlok who wants to retire against the wishes of the studio executives and the director of his latest movie, played by Peter Bogdanovich. The movie begins with the stock footage from The Terror (which also stars Jack Nicholson) doubling for footage of Orlok’s latest movie. It is a horror film with a castle, period costumes, and a terrible thunderstorm. It’s the kind of horror movie that Karloff himself made throughout his career, and like the films made by Hammer Films. Orlok is unhappy watching a preview of the film and decides to retire. He says that he feels like an anachronism and says the world belongs to the young. 
The second story is about a seemingly average, normal, clean cut looking young man named Bobby Thompson, played by Tim O'Kelly. He is a veteran and likes to collects guns. We see his home life; he and his wife live with his parents. He starts acting strangely. When out shooting at cans with a friend he lets the sight of his gun linger on the other person while their back is turned. He is distant from his wife and smokes in bed with all of the lights turned out. Then he types a cryptic note in red ink on his typewriter and begins a killing spree. He takes his rifle and some other guns, finds a high place, and starts picking off people.
The stories are not related directly but you know that they will eventually intersect. Bogdanovich works subtly to meld the stories together. The first time we see the Thompson is in a gun shop across the street from where Orlok screened his movie. The young man puts Orlok in his gunsight and lets it linger. It is safe to assume that the two men will have a confrontation at the premiere of Orlok’s movie at the drive-in theater where he will make his final public appearance before retiring. 
You can tell that Bogdanovich really wanted his movie to be 90 minutes long. Scenes play out a bit longer than they should and sometimes that helps the narrative, sometimes it doesn’t. There are several extended scenes of the Bobby Thompson’s average home life as he is becoming slowly and quietly unhinged. These scenes don’t really build character, but when they work, they have you searching for clues for why he’s cracking up. Even then, however, these scenes could still be shorter. The most effective of these lengthy scenes happens when Thompson is up on a refinery tower and unpacks his lunch. It’s an odd, humanizing moment (even psycho killers need to eat too), and it means that he planned ahead enough to pack a lunch, which is unnerving.    
The scenes with Boris Karloff work purely because it is interesting to watch Karloff playing a character loosely based on himself. He spends his scenes either with his assistant contemplating retirement or with Bogdanovich, who is trying to convince him not to retire. I get the distinct feeling that their scenes together exist just because Bogdanovich wanted to hang out with Boris Karloff. I can’t blame him; I would’ve done the same thing. The best scene of Targets by far is of Karloff telling an audience an old ghost story about a man encountering Death.
This movie was made at a time when the country was changing, culture was changing, and all the while the Vietnam War raged in the background. Targets is not explicitly about gun control, mental health, or even Vietnam, though the specter of each looms over every scene. It seems fairly obvious that the young man is based on Charles Whitman, who killed several people from the University of Texas tower in Austin only two years prior. That very year, 1968, would see two American political figures, each a symbol of promise and hope in their own way, gunned down by assassins: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. If you read books about film history, Targets will likely be in more than one of those books. It is not a landmark film like Rosemary’s Baby or Night of the Living Dead but it is a notable part of the shift that began to occur in horror films in the late 60s.
Up until this time in film history nearly every horror film was set in the past, in a faraway land, or a large spooky house or castle. The most notable exception to this was a few horror films produced by Val Lewton in the 1940s and 50s. That changed in 1968, the same year Targets was released, with movies like Rosemary’s Baby and George Romero's Night of the Living Dead that set the supernatural in a modern setting subtly and believably. As George Romero continued to make horror films, soon joined by Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, and David Cronenberg, horror films moved further and further away from costumes and monsters in castles. The most interesting aspects of Targets are its juxtaposition of real and movie horrors, and its awareness of the fading out of fashion of Gothic, fantasy horror movies in the character of Byron Orlok. Karloff as Orlok sees newspaper headlines of shootings and murders and becomes depressed. “Nobody’s afraid of a painted monster,” Orlok says in one scene. His horror movies can’t compare to the horrors in the newspaper and, soon, he feels, the public will feel the same.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

13 Nights of Shocktober: The Devil Rides Out

by A.J. 

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 9: Christopher Lee Memorial Night II, “The power of darkness is more than just a superstition. It is a living force which can be tapped at given moment of the night.”

The Devil Rides Out 
Christopher Lee is most famous for his roles as villains, which he was great at playing, but occasionally he got to play the hero and when he did, he was great at that, too. According to a few different websites, his heroic turn as Nicholas Duc de Richleau in The Devil Rides Out was one of his favorite roles. Made in 1968 for Hammer Films, The Devil Rides Out was directed by Terence Fisher with a screenplay written by Richard Matheson, based on a novel by Dennis Wheatley. In the U.S. this movie was released as The Devil’s Bride because executives thought the title The Devil Rides Out sounded too much like a western. Hammer is best known for its remakes of the Universal Monsters movies (Dracula, Frankenstein, and so on), and the sequels that each remake spawned, but this non-monster, non-remake is still everything you’d hope for in a Hammer film.
The film begins with Duc de Richleau and his friend, Rex Van Ryn, checking up on their younger friend, Simon, who has recently joined a suspicious “astronomical society.” Right away de Richleau, who is an expert on the occult, sees that this club is actually a satanic cult. He and Rex rescue Simon from being officially initiated into the cult, along with a young woman named Tanith, but then they all face the relentless wrath of the cult and their black magic.
The Devil Rides Out is a campy film now, and may have been even when it was released, but it is difficult to make a serious film about Satanists (with all of their magic spells, robes, funny names, and use of farm animals). It may come off as silly, but that doesn’t mean that the movie isn’t well done or spooky. The movie is set in 1929 and the production design is as good as Hammer’s Gothic horror movies. Simon’s room has large imposing windows and a satanic seal on the tiled floor. The Satanists wear purple robes, sacrifice a goat out in the woods during a ritual, and then dance around and act crazy. After breaking up that ritual de Richleau, Rex, Simon, and Tanith hide out at de Richleau’s niece’s country house. The country house and the English countryside provide a mood of isolation and slight distance from reality.
Not all of the visual effects hold up (adding to the camp value), but there is still some effective imagery, including the chilling appearance of the Angel of Death. The dated effects aren’t a big problem though because this movie relies mostly on the performances of the actors, especially Christopher Lee and Charles Gray as the satanic leader, Mocata. Most of the movie feels like a play; the second half of the movie takes place almost entirely in the country house.
There are a lot of great moments in this movie. In a car chase, Mocata uses black magic to lose Rex who is chasing after a possessed Tanith. First Rex's windshield turns opaque, then a fog is cast as the cars enter the woods. When Simon invites de Richleau and Rex into his room, Lee bounds across the room, throws open the closet, and is aghast at the wicker crate containing a chicken, which confirms his suspicions that his friend is about to join a satanic cult. At the country house de Richleau conducts a counter ritual that requires himself, his niece, her husband, and Simon to lie on the floor with their heads touching. It’s an image that is striking and silly at the same time. Actually, that’s how most things are in The Devil Rides Out, but you believe every moment of it because of Christopher Lee’s performance. He plays de Richleau with a believable authority and a commanding presence. Only an actor with real talent could be so angry at the sight of a chicken in a basket and somehow not go over the top. Lee is great at leading the rituals and casting spells. His serious performance gets us to take it seriously too. The Devil Rides Out is entertaining, spooky, fun, and even a little silly, but the real reason to watch this movie is for Christopher Lee’s performance.