Dir. Bernard Launois









Trash cinema is an acquired taste. It’s not fun for everyone. What some see as singular visions from outsider artists, or happy accidents of low budget incompetence, others (most people) just see as boring or offensive or both. But occasionally there are films so uniquely batshit, so compellingly alien, so hilariously baffling, that they are accessible to trash aficionados and casual viewers alike. I like to call these films ‘face-melters’; movies so kinetically entertaining that you just can’t help love them as they strap you into a roller coaster that goes off like a bullet train to Awesometown. Films like Raw Force (1982), Death Spa (1989), Miami Connection (1987), Lady Terminator (1989), Ninja III: The Domination (1984), Chopping Mall (1986), etc. Then there are films called ‘brain-melters’; movies that are so inept, so bizarre, and so glacially paced that they feel like you’re watching someones fevered nightmare more than you’re watching an actual movie; films like Things (1989), Beyond the 7th Door (1987), Alien Beasts (1991), Violent Shit (1989), anything by Neil Breen. Of course the two genres are loosely defined, and aren’t mutually exclusive; you’ve got Troll 2 (1990), The Room (2003), Birdemic (2010), Mystics in Bali (1981), films that straddle the line and can be argued to melt both your brain and your face. It’s really a matter of personal preference. I’d like to think that Devil Story (1985) straddles that line, but if you asked most people, it’s probably more of a brain melter.





We open on a serene shot of a forest only to be immediately set upon by a ghoul emerging from a tent where he’s just killed an unfortunate camper. The ghoul’s face looks like Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein (1974) left out to rot for a few years and he grunts and growls much the same way too. He’s wearing an SS uniform for no discernible reason and in a minute he’s gonna kill the campers girlfriend by punching her in the face with a spiked glove. It’s fucking awesome. And it’s here that I think I’m gonna be watching something like Ogroff (1983), a loosely strung together series of murder vignettes. We do get another randomly murdered couple, one of the people getting blasted in the face with a shotgun by the ghoul. Again, awesome. But the movie shifts as the “story” proper sets in. It’s more like Ogroff by way of Jean Rollin. Or it might be more apt to say it’s a Jean Rollin film by way of N.G. Mount. A young tourist couple drive along a costal road when a tire pops and the car is stopped. The woman walks off and has a hallucination in which she’s attacked by a black cat, mangling her hands. The man finds her and reassures her that he loves her and her hands. Later they experience more car trouble and end up at a castle on a stormy night a la Rocky Horror. But instead of a bunch of sexy perverts, they only find an old couple living at the castle. They tell the young couple the legend of a ship being swallowed by the land after wrecking hundreds of years ago. They then mention that one of the descendants of the men who caused the shipwreck lives in town with her “idiot” son. Later that night the young woman is awakened by a braying horse that may or may not be the devil and she goes off on an odyssey of wtf delights, or pointless banality depending on your perspective.





The woman ends up in a cemetery after being menaced by the devil horse and runs afoul of the ghoul and his mother. The ship from the old woman’s story emerges from the earth and drops a crate that opens and releases a mummy. There’s a scene where the ghoul pukes up blood for like two minutes. The young woman screams a lot. A LOT. There’s a lot of time devoted to showing the old man in a field firing a shotgun (not a rifle) in random directions in an effort to kill the horse. A LOT OF TIME. If it feels like I’m just describing the film’s plot and giving highlights more than I’m giving a review, that’s because there’s not much else to describe. Devil Story runs on a nightmare logic, or lack of logic, that’s best to just experience for yourself. So I’m gonna quit here. To reveal any more would be a disservice to the beautiful ugly insanity blooming from this hidden gem of batshit. Best to just let the film grab hold of your senses as the madness unfolds in front of you and thank your lucky stars that some French weirdo made this weird-ass movie.