The Devils (1971)

UK 117m, Colour
Director: Ken Russell; Cast: Oliver Reed, Vanessa Redgrave, Dudley Sutton, Max Adrian, Gemma Jones, Murray Melvin, Michael Gothard, Georgina Hale

With the flavor of a Monty Python sketch, The Devils is a wickedly offensive and visually striking film based on Aldous Huxley’s 1952 book The Devils of Loudun. At the center of the story is Urbain Grandier, an “innocent” 17th century Catholic priest who is accused of bewitching a sexually repressed nun and a number of others in her order. Filled with ridiculously satirical scenes of erotic ritual exorcism, The Devils leads to Grandier’s trial, and surprisingly dramatic scenes of his torture and eventual fate (Klaus Ming November 2016).