Review : The Devil's Rain (1975)

All of us kids in the early 80's wanted our parents to buy this new phenomenon called the Video machine. Most people couldn't afford to because prices were sky high back in the early days. A movie would cost something in the range of $200, and a VCR would cost about $2000, so very few households had Video yet, but all of us kids wanted it. In my class at school maybe 2 or 3 kids had Video yet in the early 80's.

That changed when my mother happened to win a VCR in a local lottery, a Video 2000 from Bang & Olufsen, and yes it is the one pictured above. Needless to say I jumped for joy, and the main reason was the ability to finally catch some of the violent video nasties that were so talked about in the papers and on TV.

The local video store carried some of them but not all, and not the nastiest ones, so those I got a hold of later, but they had some Horror movies. They would get a suitcase with 30 new movies inside every month, and there would be something for everyone, but mostly Horror, Western, and Action, and all B-movies as that was the norm in the early days of Video. Off to the store I went to finally be able to rent my first movie to watch at home, aged 12 and all hyped up about VIDEO, I ran to the store and rented what was supposedly the most scary Horror flick they had, a film called..




Plot: The Fyffe family has the "Book of the Dead" stolen from them, as well as family members kidnapped, and Martin Fyffe (William Shatner)is off to try and save the day. That leads him to a deserted ghost town where he has to fight Satanists to settle things. On this quest he stumbles into the Devil's Rain, where people are trapped, and contrary to popular beliefs it's not at all hot in Hell, but it rains, and it rains acid. Can Martin save his family members, and free the poor souls from The Devil's Rain before it's too late?



What's good? :
The Heronymous Bosch artwork in the opening titles, to the cries of the souls trapped in Hell sets the mood lovely. The plot is good, and so is the actors, and John Travolta in his debut as a disciple of Satan is a nice bonus. Ernest Borgnine as the EVIL one himself is a treat, and he's perfect for the part. I can't see a movie with him in it without thinking about him in this one actually. The founder of the real church of Satan, Anton Lavey, was hired as an advisor in this film, so we know the Black masses are pretty close to the real thing. The FX are very nice also, especially the ending when the poor souls of Hell escape the Devil's Rain only to be fried by it once again, and melt away as if they had been hit by acid...




What's bad?:
..and that's the only problem I can think of with this movie, that the acid sequence is overdone a lot to say the least. 5 Minutes or so would have been cool, but it seems to go on for about 15 minutes which is, despite the good FX, a bit too long.





The Verdict:

When all's said and done this is a very good, but still average, Horror movie, and hadn't it been for it being the first real Horror I saw after I got a VCR in the house, I might have rated it lower, but this is a childhood favorite, and made a big impression on the young me who had never seen even close to such things, and would scare the shit out of some of my friends as well, and was watched again and again as it was one of the few cool flicks in my hometown at the time. I must've seen this movie close to a hundred times back then, and have enjoyed it again now after it came out on DVD. The 80's was the best time to grow up in, and movies like this made life exciting.



Rating:
4 (out of 6)