{"id":1406,"date":"2024-07-29T17:47:31","date_gmt":"2024-07-29T17:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1406"},"modified":"2024-10-14T13:32:28","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T17:32:28","slug":"the-devils-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/07\/29\/the-devils-rain\/","title":{"rendered":"The Devil\u2019s Rain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Devil\u2019s Rain <\/strong>(1975)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bryanston Distribution\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 86 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, violence, scary scenes, thematic material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Robert Fuest\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gabe Essoe, James Ashton and Gerald Hopman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Al De Lory\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Alex Phillips Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 12, 1975 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert, William Shatner, Ida Lupino, Tom Skerritt, Joan Prather, Keenan Wynn, John Travolta.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0The opening titles of The Devil\u2019s Rain<\/strong> reveal two unique aspects of an otherwise lame horror story about Satan worshippers in the California desert. First, its technical advisor is Anton Szandor Lavey, the High Priest of the Church of Satan (he even has a bit part). Second, the title backgrounds are paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, the Dutch Renaissance-era artist known for his use of fantastic imagery to illustrate religious concepts. Those are some wild paintings! They may just be the scariest thing in The Devil\u2019s Rain<\/strong>. Everything that follows is an anticlimax.<\/p>\n

\u00a0All that aside, one of the main reasons people still remember this picture is because it features future star John Travolta in his film debut. Don\u2019t get too excited, it\u2019s only a very minor role (he plays a cult member) and you won\u2019t even recognize him under all the waxy makeup. He has a single line of dialogue (\u201cBlasphemer, blasphemer!\u201d). Is a star born? Hardly. Despite the involvement of an actual Satanist, The Devil\u2019s Rain<\/strong> isn\u2019t the least bit scary. It might be if you could understand it. What exactly is going on? I can\u2019t say for sure.<\/p>\n

\u00a0So exactly what is the \u201cdevil\u2019s rain\u201d referred to in the title? It\u2019s difficult to explain without first describing the messy plot. It all starts with the mysterious death of the patriarch of the Preston clan during a storm. He\u2019s gone missing and when he reappears, he melts into a puddle of green goo. It seems that Satanic cult leader Corbis (Borgnine, The Poseidon Adventure) wants a book the Preston family has been concealing for over 300 years. It\u2019s his source of power. Without it, he has no control over the souls trapped inside a glass container called \u201cThe Devil\u2019s Rain\u201d. Inside, you see a bunch of tormented souls begging to be let out. It always rains inside too. And there it is! But I\u2019m getting ahead of myself here.<\/p>\n

\u00a0After his mother (Lupino, High Sierra) is abducted by the cult, younger son Mark (Shatner, Star Trek) heads to a ghost town in the desert with the book. He also has an amulet that will hopefully help him defeat the evil Corbis. It\u2019s no match, the cult leader and his followers overtake him easily. Mark\u2019s older brother Tom (Skerritt, Alien) learns of his disappearance and goes in search of him with his wife Julie (Prather, Eight is Enough) and Dr. Sam Richards (Albert, Green Acres), an expert on the paranormal AND demonology (how very convenient!). It bears mentioning that the two men are at work on an experiment that will hopefully allow them to isolate the brain pattern that controls ESP. Julie is their test subject. Why is this included in the story? Who knows?<\/p>\n

\u00a0I haven\u2019t told you the coolest thing (the only cool thing) about The Devil\u2019s Rain<\/strong>. All of the cult members have black eye sockets and waxy skin making them look like creepy department store mannequins. When they die, they don\u2019t simply fall down. They melt into a puddle of green goo. It kind of looks like lime Jell-O left out in the sun too long. PLOT SPOILER ALERT!!! <\/strong>At the end, the Satanists all melt in a rainstorm. This might have been cool if director Robert Fuest (The Abominable Dr. Phibes) didn\u2019t drag it out for five minutes. One minute would have sufficed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s indicative of what\u2019s wrong with the whole of The Devil\u2019s Rain<\/strong>. There wasn\u2019t enough material for a feature-length film, so Fuest stretches out what little he has to work with to incredulous lengths. It results in a boring horror movie, something as equally unbearable as an unfunny comedy. Movies like these seem to go on forever with no end in sight, know what I mean?<\/p>\n

\u00a0The acting is all over the map. Albert looks befuddled like he\u2019s not quite sure how he got involved in this idiocy in the first place. Borgnine hams it up to the level of high camp even turning into Satan a couple of times. Shatner does what Shatner always does, so I can\u2019t really criticize him too much. Prather is simply terrible; she barely registers on the personality scale. The real mystery in The Devil\u2019s Rain<\/strong> is how the producers managed to convince such talented actors to appear in it. I can only conclude that they all needed the paychecks. Skerritt once described it as \u201cA Picture to Throw Up By\u201d. I wonder if he was on the publicity tour when he dropped this bon mot.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s not a total loss as the special effects are slightly better than one would expect from a low budget picture like this. And it is low budget. It was shot in Mexico, that\u2019s the real tip-off. The Devil\u2019s Rain<\/strong> is pretty bad alright, but I\u2019ll take it over 95% of today\u2019s tepid PG-13 horrors any day. At least it has the courage of its convictions as dull and incoherent as it is.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Devil\u2019s Rain (1975)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bryanston Distribution\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 86 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, violence, scary scenes, thematic material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Robert Fuest\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gabe Essoe, James Ashton and Gerald Hopman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Al De Lory\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Alex Phillips Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 12, 1975 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert, William Shatner, Ida Lupino, Tom Skerritt, Joan Prather, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guilty-pleasures","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/The-Devils-Rain-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1406"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1975,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406\/revisions\/1975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}