The Devil Rides Out (1968)

 "In magic, there is neither good nor evil."

It's been many years since I've seen this film, certainly a decade and a bit. I well remember being impressed with it, and this viewing has cemented its excellence for me. This is, without a doubt, the finest Hammer film I've seen, and the finest performance I’ve ever seen from a compellingly charismatic Christopher Lee. On the strength of this performance is staggering that he wasn’t asked do play more parts as the hero protagonist. He radiates authority and steadfastness as few actors can.

It’s not just the excellence of its leading man that elevates this film to greatness, though. For one thing Richard Matheson’s superb script, full of incident and tension and using up all the best occult tropes such as the chalk circle and sacrifice, adapts Dennis Wheatley’s novel superbly. I’ve never read any Wheatley and may never do so- occult-themed pulp fiction is not really my thing- but it’s clear that he’s a little vague in his definition of Satanism, conflating it with the worship of pagan deities and “magic” as it would presumably be understood by Aleister Crowley or, indeed, Alan Moore, and combining ritual with the kind of orgies that would be a nightmare for we introverts. But it certainly makes for a first class suspense-based horror film. And Charles Gray is a wonderfully urbane baddie.

More than that, though, this is Terence Fisher’s claim to greatness. Everything about the way this film is shot is magnificent- taut, terrifying, and deadly serious. This film shows him- and Hammer- to be capable of far more than the cheesiness for which we know them. A truly outstanding gem of a film.