The Devil Rides Out (1968)
A classic Hammer Horror directed by Terrence Fisher (who must have done like 20 films for Hammer), this is a great, melodramatic, occult adventure full of derring-do, mystery, ropy special effects, and portentous utterances filled with rich, well rounded vowels.
Christopher Lee plays a proper aristocratic fellow who, along with a buddy, goes to visit a mutual friend only to discover that he’s fallen in with the wrong crowd—Satanists! There’s all sorts of dark magic: summonings, giant spiders, possession, evil eyes looking out of mirrors to hypnotize and dominate, big wild orgiastic rituals, and a goat headed devil making an appearance to his devoted followers before Lee disrupts the whole affair.
There are many twists and turns to the plot, but by the end, both Lee’s friend and a young woman who had been promised as The Devil’s Bride (The original UK title of the film) have been saved from their dark fates, and along the way is a rip-roaring, if occasionally rather stately, tale.
I never really got into the Hammer films, but I can see the appeal. You’ve got to be in the right mood (if you’re not, they can be too staid and, at worst, kind of dull), and if you are, they can be like a warm blanket and a cup of tea on a rainy day. This film didn’t have any real scares to speak of, but there were twists and turns and a grand sense of the battle between dark and light, all in a tidy little aristocratically British package. A memorably mild pleasure.