In the mid 60s, Hammer tried to expand their roster of monsters beyond Dracula and Frankenstein – they tried zombies, Rasputin, the Gorgon, snake creatures, dinosaurs and, here, devil worshippers. This is the weakest of all those films- indeed, it’s one of Hammer’s poorest efforts of the decade. It needn’t have been; the script was from Quatermass writer Nigel Kneale, and is a decent enough story: a school teacher takes a job in a quaint, pretty English village, only to discover that there’s a bit of devil worshipping going on.
But it just doesn’t work – maybe it was in the script, but it doesn’t help either that the handling is flabby, or Joan Fontaine is poor in the lead. The school teacher is recovering from a nervous break down in Africa brought on by witch doctors, and presumably the producers thought “Joan Fontaine played a scaredy cat role in Rebecca, conquering her demons to save the day, she’ll be good” – but Fontaine is just all wrong. She occasionally tries to be scared but generally she’s too composed and coiffured, pulling her acting punches – Bette Davis could have played the hell out of this, but not Fontaine. (She would have been better cast in the role played by Kay Walsh, the village lady who turns out to be the head devil worshipper.)
There are some effective bits – a striking opening, the creepy use of little dolls, a nice build up of paranoia, the sexy devil possession by that girl at the end. But more often than not it’s silly – Fontaine being knocked over by some stampeding sheep; the ridiculous devil ceremonies (its possible to do these and make them scary, as Hammer’s second bash at the genre, The Devil’s Ride, proved); the fact that Walsh assumes Fontaine will be part of her plans even those she’s clearly not; the flat finale.
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