Tag: eerie

Ken Russell’s
The Devils

Ken Russell’s The Devils

Director – Ken Russell – 1971 – UK – Cert. 18 – 114m

*****

Restored. Remastered. Uncensored. Ken Russell’s notorious masterpiece finally reaches the big screen as he originally intended it to be seen – from the BFI London Film Festival 2026 which runs from Wednesday, October 7th to Sunday, October 18th in cinemas and on BFI Player, a new 35mm film print previews at BFI Southbank from Friday, October 23rd to Thursday 29th, and the film is out in UK and Ireland cinemas Friday, October 30th

NSFW.

To anyone who has seen the version of The Devils released theatrically in the UK with an X certificate in 1971, and put out on DVD by the BFI about ten years ago, watching this new version has about it the sensation of tasting forbidden fruit. (If you’ve never seen that version, all I can say is, start with this one: this is the version that Russell intended.) It’s perhaps instructive to look at what has changed, in other words those scenes which were considered by the BBFC and / or distributor Warner Bros. too shocking for inclusion back in the day.

Writing about the X certificate version on its DVD release, I noted that the four areas in which the film didn’t hold back were sex, religion, politics and torture.… Read the rest

Tags artistic quality, BBFC, BFI, blasphemy, British cinema, British Film Institute, Cardinal Richelieu, Catholic Church, Christian spirituality, Christopher Logue, church history, city walls, concession, convent, decadent, demon-possessed, director's cut exists, distributor, diversion, eerie, experimental, father, France, Graham Armitage, gratuitous, John Trevelyan, Ken Russell, knock down walls, LFF, LFF 2026, London Film Festival, London Film Festival 2026, Loudun, Louis XIII, modern city, Monarch, mother superior, nation, nudity, nun, nunsploitation, Oliver Reed, orgy, Peter Maxwell Davies, political history, politics, power, power base, priest, promiscuity, protector, public lavatory, rape, Rape of Christ, religion, restoration, score, self-governing entities, seventeenth century, sex, sexuality, sister, torture, total freedom, UK, UK censor, Vanessa Redgrave, Warner Bros., X Certificate

Features Live Action Movies

The Devils

Director – Ken Russell – 1971 – UK – Cert. 18 – 106m 41s (cut)

*****

UK DVD release date 19/03/2012, cert. 18, 107 mins plus extras, £19.99. Reviewed for Third Way

40 years after its 1971 theatrical release, the late Ken Russell’s key work reaches UK DVD in its original UK X Certificate version with a host of invaluable DVD extras. Although a more complete (2004 restoration) director’s cut exists, the nature of the excised material makes the current cut as complete as is ever likely to be released on DVD. In terms of controversy, the film has everything – sex, religion, politics and torture – and Russell’s original cut didn’t hold back in any of these areas. This presented headaches for not only the distributor Warner Bros. in terms of a mainstream US release but also the UK censor who questioned, as the BBFC’s secretary John Trevelyan succinctly put it, “whether artistic quality justifies total freedom.”

The plot concerns seventeenth century France where Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) is attempting to increase the Catholic Church’s hold on the nation by persuading decadent monarch Louis XIII (Graham Armitage) to knock down the walls surrounding cities that enable their functioning as self-governing entities.… Read the rest

Tags artistic quality, audio commentary, BBFC, BFI, blasphemy, British cinema, British Film Institute, Cardinal Richelieu, Catholic Church, Christian spirituality, Christopher Logue, church history, city walls, concession, convent, Craig Lapper, decadent, demon-possessed, Derek Jarman, Director of Devils, director's cut exists, distributor, diversion, editor, eerie, experimental, father, France, Graham Armitage, gratuitous, home movie, John Trevelyan, Ken Russell, knock down walls, Loudun, Louis XIII, Mark Kermode, Michael Bradsell, modern city, Monarch, mother superior, nation, nudity, nun, nunsploitation, Oliver Reed, orgy, Paul Joyce, Peter Maxwell Davies, Pinewood, political history, politics, power, power base, priest, promiscuity, protector, public lavatory, rape, Rape of Christ, religion, score, self-governing entities, seventeenth century, sex, sexuality, sister, statue of Jesus, torture, total freedom, UK, UK censor, Vanessa Redgrave, Warner Bros., X Certificate

Features Live Action Movies

Immaculate

Director – Michael Mohan – 2023 – US – Cert. – 89m

***

A virginal, American, novice nun cloistered in an Italian convent finds herself mysteriously pregnant – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 22nd

A young nun attempts to flee a convent in the middle of the night, but before she can gate the gate open with a key on a large bunch is caught by mysterious nuns with red coverings over their faces, and finds herself buried alive in a coffin. This opening sequence doesn’t bode well for any new nun entering the convent such as the novice Sister Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney, also the film’s producer, from Reality, Tina Satter, 2023), a young woman from a parish in the US that closed down, forcing her to seek a position elsewhere, and who believes God wants her to enter this particular convent, which doubles as a care home for ageing nuns run by Father Tedeschi (Álvaro Morte) and the incumbent Mother Superior (Dora Romano). The premises are built over a network of catacombs.

Before taking her vows on the day she arrives – of which she is told she could opt out beforehand if she doesn’t want to go through with them – Sister Cecilia is entrusted into the care of Sister Isabelle (Giulia Heathfield Di Renzi), an embittered type who doesn’t feel anything like a woman who has given herself to the service of God.… Read the rest