 Hello, and welcome to another episode of Frightfully Forgotten Horror Movies, but before we get started, what are we drinking? Today we're drinking Chucky's Check Pills That Kills. Don't fuck with the chuck! Nothing like a little drinkin', they get circulation goin'. Today we're gonna bring to you 1975's The Devil's Rain. This was a request by Thad Kissick. And if you wanna request a movie for us to review, join us on our Patreon page. The link is in the description below. Devil's Rain is directed by David Fused, and he directed both Dr. Fibes movies, starring Vincent Price. This stars William Shatner, the Canadian national treasure himself, who, upon filming this, is still alive at like 90 or 91 or so. Shatner, of course, is Captain Kirk from Star Trek, but he was also in Kingdom of the Spiders, which we covered a couple of years back. If you wanna watch that review, click the link. Get back to the lodge. Yeah, get back to the lodge. Give me a hammer. Nails. Ernest Borgnein is in this, and he was in Convoy, which we covered. Escape from New York is cave-y, just to mention two out of like an enormous list of movies that he's done. Tom Scared is in this, he was an alien, top gun, and poltergeist three. The best of the poltergeist movies. And I'm not even joking! Yeah, I kinda think it's the best. Joan Prather is in this, and she was in The Thing with Two Heads, which we covered, click the link above. And there's also a cameo by John Travolta, it's one of his first movies that he was ever in. The way Devil's Reign starts off, it puts you in the mood right away. All the opening credits take place over all these creepy paintings of like hell and people in their souls being tortured and eaten by all these demons. Sinking down into hell. Backwards music playing and moaning. The painting is Hieronymus Bosch, and it's The Last Judgment. And it suits the opening credits perfectly. Yeah. Mark Preston, played by William Schander, coming home, and his mother is all freaking out wondering where his dad is. Your father is not home yet, he'll be home. And it's pissing down rain too. Yeah, so he figure he's caught in the storm, he'll be home. Other old guy hanging around, you're not really sure who he is, like he's just like the farm hand or something. Dog starts barking, someone's close by, they go outside, and the dad comes around the corner of the house, his face is all like fucked up. His eyes are like missing, and his face looks like it's kind of melting a little bit. Spewing all the stuff about the book in Corbis desert and falls to the ground and his face and his body just start melting in the rain. It's crazy. They know what he's talking about, about Corbis and the desert, but we don't really know yet. So Mark's wondering what this book is all about, and his mom shows him this book under the floorboards, gives him this amulet that he's supposed to use for good luck when he battles Corbis. The amulet. So then Mark goes to the truck to leave and sees this voodoo doll in the truck and gets freaked out by it. And then it goes back to the house and that old man's all strung up upside down. He's emoting and fucking somebody took the boots to him. All quick, like he was only gone for like a minute, and he goes looking for his mom and his mom's gone. And he's like, oh the book and he finds the book safe under the floorboards. Damn you, Corbis! He gets to this truck and he sets out to this desert town to find his missing mother. When he arrives in town, he goes to this well for a drink of water, rusted cup, and he starts drinking. This guy appears, this old guy, and he starts talking to Mark Preston. Who are you looking for? Looking for Corbis? Well you found him, and they start walking towards like this building in the middle of the desert, and they start talking about having like a battle, a battle between faiths. I'll show you my faith, and you'll show me yours. I'll go into that church, Corbis, and I'll come out the same way I went in. No you won't. No you won't. All these followers, all these monks and robes and stuff, his mom comes up to him. She's got those same black, dead eyes like Preston's father did. Corbis starts chanting, and they start having a battle of faith. Preston has that amulet that's supposed to protect him, and they kind of get forced outside, and Corbis makes the amulet look like a snake. And so Preston gets all freaked out. See yourselves. You know, throws it, and right away Corbis knows he got him, right? They catch Preston, and they bring him back into the church, and they start all carving him up and everything and torturing him, putting all these symbols in his chest, getting lured upside down on that cross. So Preston's brother and his wife learned that Mark is missing, and his mother too, and his father. So they go to this town to go looking for him, and while they're there, they actually encounter the followers in this cult. You get all stalked by John Travolta. Yeah, but they beat the shit out of him. They catch the brother's wife. Corbis actually turned into the devil. Some goat thing. Yeah, and he starts doing all those chants. He notices his brother, Mark, that's turned. Tom ends up escaping Corbis and his followers. He calls the professor, right? The professor. The professor. The some random professor. The professor has the book that's long sought after by Corbis, and he explains to Tom why Corbis wants the book. Devil's Rain never heard of that one before. That's a real good professor. What the fuck good are you? Tom and the professor travel back to the town to do battle with Corbis and his followers, and to try and deny Corbis the book. And to get their family back. Yeah, that too. So if you want to see what happens with Tom, Mark, Preston, Corbis, and the others, keep watching 1975's The Devil's Rain. Because you should. It's a fun fucking movie. That's the first thing. It's just fun. Yeah. Right from the get go. This movie wastes no time getting right into the thick of it. That's right. Right after the opening credits, it's like shit hits the fan right away. Give you just enough too, right? They tease you just enough with the opening story lines, character development too between the dialogue with the characters and stuff, right? And so you're intrigued, you're sucked right in. You're super intrigued too because it is kind of like a mystery in the beginning because you know the dads talking about the book and Corbis and all this shit. But you don't really know what that means yet. Yeah, it means nothing to us really. So, but it's enough to intrigue you. Like, oh, okay, what's going on? Everyone else knows that I don't know yet. I gotta find out what the hell they're talking about. I like how the mystery unfolds too, right? They feed you just enough throughout the movie to keep you invested. Yeah. Because it's pace really good. Like the pacing of this movie is fantastic. Like it starts off with a bang, never really slows down at all. And where it does slow down, you kind of get to breathe a little bit and you get to learn a little more about the characters, which is what you're supposed to do. It's got a really cool story as well, right? And it has a cool backstory to it. And it all centers around the devil worship, witchcraft, vengeance. The betrayal. Yeah. Corbis and his followers hark back to the 1600s. He gets betrayed by the Preston family. And they're played like they're in that flashback. It's all still played by William Shatner. He's in some sick wig. They're speaking all that old time English. Dost thou with betray me? So I go and talk like that. You slut. And call his wife whatever a slut. Catch him for witchcraft and burn him alive so then he needs his vengeance. Laughing and burning? This is the mid-70s and, you know, Satanic worship was the big scare of the day. Corbis is a good bad guy, but Satanists in general are kind of like the bad guys. The settings in this movie are actually pretty good. They're very simple, but they're effective. Preston travels out into the middle of this godforsaken town in the middle of nowhere. And it just works with the idea that there's this big cult operating in the middle of nowhere where they can't be found. In this ghost town. Desert setting is great because you do feel like there's no help is coming. No. You're by yourself fighting these Satanists. There's nothing in between you and the next city except for just miles and miles of desert and mountains. A lot of really good camera work in this movie. Really good camera work and great cinematography too. Yeah, and the night shots during all those rituals and everything that Corbis is putting on is really cool. Even the inside of that church they operate out of looks really good too because of the stained glass windows and all that. Because on the outside it's all disheveled, but inside it's all nice and well not nice, but it looks really cool. Corbis, you put all this money in there. Yeah. Fix it up. Home renovation show with the guy. I like trying to help him renovate it. While he looks like the goat. Corbis, Preston. All of the characters are pretty good actually. They're pretty distinct. Corbis is a great villain in this. Evil and stuff, but you still like him because he's so charismatic. Right? Like he's super charismatic, so like he's a bad guy, but you still like him. And you can kind of see it from his point of view too, right? He did get that book stolen from him. He was betrayed. He burned alive. So yeah, you can kind of sympathize. They do like a character swap on you. You think Shatner is going to be the hero of the movie. Well, he's the big name in the movie and he's fucking Captain Kirk. But no, he gets captured halfway through and he's not the hero. His brother shows up. Yeah. It has to save the day with that shitty professor buddy of his. Brother and a professor completely fuck things up. They get out of the situation purely by luck. They all leave the book on the fucking, on the stage there where one of the followers just takes it and gives it to Corbis. Corbis. Oh, I've been looking for this. The devil's reign when the professor has it. William Shatner just takes it. It's like you fucking, you guys should have never been there. And Shatner, man, like he gives it his all in this. Like one thing about Shatner doesn't matter what project he's on. He's always 110%. Yeah. He's screaming when he's being tortured. Like super is giving it everything. And the effects in this movie are fucking fantastic. A huge example of where practical shines the followers the way they look. Yeah. It's fantastic. Corbis' makeup when he turns into that goat devil thing. Yeah. It looks great. It's funny because Ernest Borden already kind of looks like a billy goat. They all just didn't really do anything. Glued horns to him and that's it. And when the followers are melting in the rain and stuff like that, oh, that's fantastic. It just looks so good. There's all that goop shit and with all that little mist and fog coming out of them. Like, oh, yeah. Globe that they find, which is the devil's reign. It contains all the souls of his followers. That looks fantastic too. You can tell there's like a camera in there that's projecting on like a glass globe. Yeah. But it looks so cool. Like it looks better than fucking CGI. Big time, yeah. And I love all the sounds in this movie too. All the moaning of the souls and everything. It's really creepy from the beginning all the way throughout the whole movie. Another neat thing about this, which any horror fan will notice, is that William Shatner, when his soul is taken or whatever by the cult and he's got no eyes, looks a lot like Michael Myers. Yeah. But it's pure coincidence though. It's been debunked by Shatner. Yeah. And it's because the Michael Myers mask was a Captain Kirk mask, which was, I think, in production probably even before this movie came out. I love how coincidental that is. And to boot, he does the Michael Myers head tilt. And he looks creepy. And it looks creepy. It's like, what's the chance that whoever was in the Michael Myers costume when they shot that scene, whether it's Nick Castle or whoever, happened to do the head tilt too? It's just like, did they watch Devil's Reign and kind of pick that up? Was it subconscious? Yeah. Or was it just pure coincidence? Yeah. My guess is pure coincidence, I think. Yeah. It's fun to talk about in debate though. Yeah. Wouldn't it be funny if it was actually William Shatner in the Michael Myers mask of himself during the film of Halloween? As a matter of fact, it was. How that would have turned out. Every time he takes battle damage. And this movie, for whatever reason, we cannot figure it out. It got Shad on. It got 17% on Rotten Tomatoes. 17%. Come on! And it got 5 out of 10 on IMDB. Now come on, it's better than that. Yeah. This movie is awesome. Yeah. I would say 8 out of 10, at least. Yeah, but it knows what it is. It's a fun 70s cult movie about a cult. Yeah. And yeah, it's a little silly at times, but it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be an outrageous movie about Satan worshippers. It literally lives up to its name. That's the payoff. The payoff is the devil's reign. That's right. And it's got some huge actors in it. And contrary to what everybody thinks, William Shatner does not go cheesy in this movie. Like, you know, oh, he's overacting. And I don't see it. He's maybe the screaming, but he's being tortured. A lot along the lines of the Omega Man. It's that 70s fun action movie about a cult. Exactly. What more could you want? A bit of Shatner, and we got that. Exactly. And Ernest Borgnine. Yeah. So come on. This movie is stacked. Stacked to the balls. And until next time, keep drinking. We forgot to mention Ernest Borgnine being in The Simpsons.