The Devil’s Men — The Devil’s Men(Blu Ray)
The Devil’s Men is a pulpy-to-creepy slice of black magic focused horror from the 1970s. It features both Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasence, and is a great blend of horror, light action & suspense- oh and the whole things topped off with a wonderful proto dark ambient/ ritual industrial score from none other than Brian Eno. Here from Powerhouse is a new Blu ray release of the film- taking in a great new scan of the film, a commentary track, and one or two other things.
Appearing in the year 1976 The Devil’s Men ( aka Land of the Minotaur ) was a Greek, Uk And Us production. It was directed by Athens born director Kostas Karagiannis- who between the early 1960s and 1990’s he had an impressive one hundred and seventy-eight credits to his name, which took in both feature lengths and TV Series episodes. His film work went from island-based con-man comedy The Island Of Love(1960), crime thriller Kidnapping(1964), gambling drama The Punk of Fokionos Negri (1965), romantic musical The Brightest Star (1967), WWII partisan resistance adventure The Brave Bunch (1970), gallio He Murdered His Wife/aka Death Kiss (1974)and a fair few comedies- and as far as I can gather The Devil’s Men was his one & only horror film.
The film was set in then present-day Greece- based in a small Greek village, where those visiting the local historic site are disappearing. And it turns out that local castle dwelling rich man Baron Corofax(Cushing) is kidnapping them to take part in rituals in worship of a pagan Minotaur god. Trying to uncover what’s going on is Irish priest Father Roche(Pleasence), his American private friend detective Milo( Kostas Karagiorgis), and blonde palaeontologists student Laurie (Luan Peters)- whose friends have gone missing.
The film starts off in great dramatic horror fashion as we see Cushing and his followers donning hooded gowns, getting ready to sacrifice two victims to their flaming nostril stone Minotaur god. As things unfold, we get a fairly evenly-paced & enjoyable blend of the smalltown unease and camping it up occult horror- with elements of action, fleeting shows of female flesh, and the odd bit of gore- mainly on the sacrificing side of things. On the whole, the film sits in the more creepily atmospheric to pulpy sides of things, so as a result the violence and sleaze is all fairly light/ tame by 70’s standards.
The film isn’t really breaking or changing dramatically satanic/ occult film tropes- we have the knowing & at times eerier villagers, and we have the pompous-at-times dark maniacal head of the cult- but it all flows together in an entertaining and atmospheric manner. Pleasence is in good form as the obsessive man of the cloth, though his Irish accent does drift/ disappear from time to time. Cushing is on usual fine form as the charming-to-malevolently devious count. The supporting cast is largely good too- Karagiorgis is effective, as the initial cynical PI, Peters is passable- enough as the twenty-something palaeontologists, though at times she does come off like your cliched screaming & hopeless woman victim. We get a good enough selection of creepy and eerily staring villages, with the whole thing coming off as a blend of occult meets slightly Scooby-Doo type horror filmmaking.
A big key to the film’s success is its score- which is by none other than ambient pioneer/ respected English musician Brian Eno. And it’s a very impressive blend of eerier warbling chants, darkly ritual percussive tones, moodily simmering to broodingly darting synth tones, and even the odd more sinisterly intense noise like rises and churns. I was never aware Mr Eno had scored a horror film soundtrack, and I must say it’s most impressive.
Moving onto this new Blu Ray release- and we get a great 2k scan of the film, which really brings out the 70’s colourings & more barren tones of the Spanish countryside. The disc presents us with two versions of the picture- The Devil’s Men which is the original cut of the film (94 mins), and Land of the Minotaur- the shorter US theatrical version which cut out the gore and nudity(86 mins). Moving onto the extras we get a commentary track from genre commentators/ critics David Flint and Adrian J Smith, and this is a nicely chatty & interesting track. They start off by talking about the opening credits/ ritual, mentioning the coloured robes that have a rather Jean Rollin feel to them. They discuss how Pleasence was initially going to play the role of the count, though he swapped to be the priest- as he felt he’d been typecast as a villain, and apparently, the rather dodgy slip in & out accent was his idea. They mention supporting cast members- many of whom were Greek actors, with two of the cast also appearing in Greek Video Nasty Island Of Death. They talk about how a lot of the film stills appeared in horror film books of the ’70s, and the impressively dramatic Greek landscape. Later on, they discuss Pleasence's career during this period, talk about both his film & TV work of the time- apparently he appeared in a great Columbo episode. After this they go on to talk about Cushing career at the time, commenting that he went from doing purely British productions to European & American films. They talk about the two different cuts of the film, their differences and their market. A most worthy track, that I can easily see myself returning to again. Otherwise, on the new extras front, we get a nearing eight-minute on-screen interview with the film's producer Frixos Constantin.
On the archive side, we have an audio interview with Cushing from 1973- this runs ninety-two minutes. There’s a super eight version of the film, trailers, and image gallery. The finished release comes with a thirty-six-page page booklet featuring a new essay by Andrew Graves, an archival interview with star Donald Pleasence, extracts from original promotional materials, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and film credits
Before this release, I wasn’t aware of The Devil’s Men- and I came away from it been most impressed, and I'd say if you enjoy occult focused horror films of the ’60s and 70’s you’ll very much enjoy what’s on offer here, with the great Eno soundtrack been a great bonus…..now we just need someone to reissue films the soundtrack, as it was very much ahead of its time!