Devils
of Darkness
1965
Director- Lance Comfort
Cast- William Sylvester, Hubert Noël, Carole Gray, Tracy
Reed, Diana Decker, Rona Anderson, Peter Illing, Gerard Heinz, Marianne Stone, Avril
Angers
The
first thing that stands out about this film is the cast, which features a lot
of familiar genre faces, but also has an interesting Stanley Kubrick
connection. The protagonist is played by William Sylvester, familiar to genre
fans as Dr. Heywood Floyd in 2001 A Space
Odyssey. Tracy Reed was the sexy Miss Scott in Dr. Strangelove.
Marianne Stone and Diana Decker both
appeared in Lolita. Hey, if this cast
is good enough for Kubrick, it should be good enough for you!
The plot concerns a coven of satanic vampires in France. A visiting American,Baxter, gets caught up in their intrigues when several of his friends
are murdered. He goes to the police, but it seems that everyone in the village,
except for its contingent of gypsies, is a member of the cult. He also managed
to get his hands on one of the cult’s talismans and they go to great lengths to
get it back. His search for answers leads him to a selection of beautiful tomes
and grimoires (folks in these movies always have the best books!) and an encounter
with Karen (Tracy Reed who is just absolutely gorgeous here). Karen is being
used by the vampires as a pawn to get close to Baxter.
The
film’s presentation of the cult is a little hokey but suitably melodramatic. It
was made before Hammer had really pushed the envelope with films like The Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil,
so its horror is mostly PG, but its suitably moody, has a few striking images
and successfully mixes the genres.
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