The Devil’s Rain, 1975.

Time for an absolute gem. The cast in this is massive. Ida Lupino, Tom Skerrit, Ernest Borgnine, the first ever appearance of John Travolta, and most importantly, Canada’s greatest export, The Shat. Furthermore, Anton LaVey serves as a technical advisor (and if I remember right has a cameo – upon review, I’m almost positive he’s the guy in the final ritual that looks like a TOS Romulan) and for those who don’t know, he’s the nut-bar that came up with the Church of Satan. This was made right smack-dab in the middle of the gap between Star Trek’s final season and Star Trek the Motion Picture so it serves as a nice little half-way point in watching Shatner get old and fat.

We open with still images from Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights – if you’ve never seen this painting, go check it like Where’s Waldo if you were on heroin. This is enhanced by ominous sounds and distorted voices moaning out “let me out of here.” It’s a fairly long credit sequence, 3 minutes, 53 seconds, so you really get to ease yourself into the creepy atmosphere. Within minutes we’re treated to a melted man stumbling through the rain muttering about SATAN. This is pretty cool but the reactions of Mr Shatner and his character’s mother are lack-luster in seeing this. Their father/husband just melted and they’re pretty calm. I feel like they should be pretty stressed and then pretty distraught. I know Mr Shatner’s capable of such a scene – just think of the end of Wrath of Khan. Shortly after there’s a bunch of discussion about a book and Corbus but this hasn’t been explained in any way. It’s really quite confusing. Ghosts or invisible assassins or something break into his house and manage to tear the place apart in like 9 seconds as Mr Shatner stands out in the rain. I know I said this movie was a gem and I mean that but be prepared for a bit of…less-than-perfect filmcraft.

There’s a tense meeting between Corbus, Mr Borgnine, and Mr Shatner in an abandoned western town. It’s pretty cool – the challenge gets laid out – a battle of the faiths with souls on the line. There’s almost a gentleman’s agreement between the two. They’re cordial even underneath the vitriol and animosity. I wish this was carried on throughout the film and we got more of a western influence. That’d be cool as heck. Instead we get a brief scene of a dueling prayer that ends in nothing particularly consequential and the movie carries on. The scene is interesting while it lasts and the creepy eye-less mooks are pretty memorable looking.

I would like to discuss this poster momentarily:
First, “Heaven help us all when the Devil’s Rain” makes no sense. It’s missing a verb. When the Devil’s Rain does what? You wouldn’t say “Heaven help us when the drunkar’d bottle.” It’s nonsense. Maybe it’s not a possessive apostrophe and it indicates a contraction. “Heaven help us all when the Devil is Rain.” I suppose that makes grammatical sense but who cares at the end of the day if the Devil happens to be rain? Is he all rain on the planet or is it localized? What implications does the Devil being rain carry with it? Like will all of our crops die or will they just be horny alcoholic wheatfields that give in to gambling? So let’s say it is the latter – what the fuck kind of movie title is “The Devil is Rain?” Horrid.
Then we get the tagline at the bottom – absolutely the most incredible ending of any motion picture. Look, I get that the market department wants to hype the film, and ya, it’s pretty fantastic, but that’s a bold claim. Let’s look at some other films with good endings (of course that were released previous to The Devil’s Rain, we can’t cheat and put in Raiders of the Lost Ark): The Godfather, Night of the Living Dead, Blazing Saddles, Planet of the Apes, the Wickerman, Dr Strangelove and 2001: Space Odyssey, the Good the Bad and the Ugly, Bride of Frankenstein, Freaks, The Exorcist, the list goes on. At least say “the most shocking ending” or “the most frightening” but using the words absolutely and incredible are a bit of a stretch.
Lastly, the art is absolutely incredible. Exploding culstists, Shat being sacrificed, melting dudes, screaming dude, stained glass, and a sad goat-man. KIckass.

Back to the movie – Mr Shatner’s brother and psychic sister-in-law are snooping through Satanville looking for the Shat and we get a cool flashback scene that explains he whole background to the satanist clan and their obsession with a book that was mentioned earlier. It might have been wise to open with this scene. That way we get the exposition so we’re not confused and then at the end of the vision, you can cut to the psychic girl screaming as she wakes up from a nightmare. Despite this minor sub-standard use of pacing, the scene is awesome. Mr Borgnine is going ballistic during this scene professing curses and prophecy, and let’s just take a moment to appreciate this casting – is there a more sinister looking man out there? Those eyebrows are Satan.

The last half-hour of the film is pretty cool. A satanic ritual starts in which Mr Borgnine turns into a goat-man which has kind of cool makeup, Mr Shatner’s eyes melt ’til he looks like one of the guys infected with Black Oil from the X-Files, they find a magical TV set that contains all of the cultist’s souls, people light on fire, people melt, and a church explodes. There’s Beasts and sort-of Blood in the form of melted crayon wax oozing out of the mooks, and no Breasts. I’ll let the wax-blood pass. The movie is a stumbling mess but it’s got gumption. It’s the kid on the sportsfield with absolutely no skill but gives it his all every play. You gotta respect it. One Thumb Up Seal of Approval.