"The restoration…is a stunner, in particular sharpening the film’s stylized black-and-white-and-blood-and-mud color palette to glistening effect, and the film, well, remains like nothing you’ve ever seen before…. The great joy of The Devils remains how ripe and camp and sensual and funny it is, qualities indulged at full tilt by Russell (not a director who even knew the meaning of ‘half’) in all aspects from performance to production design to orgy choreography." —Guy Lodge, Variety
An enduring masterpiece of cinema starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave, Ken Russell’s The Devils is a prescient epic of obsession and corruption — and a defining work of art from seminal filmmaker Ken Russell. Ken Russell’s The Devils is the uncut and unfiltered theatrical experience that Russell always envisioned — and the first time the film will be presented restored.
In 17th-century France, Father Grandier (Oliver Reed) is a priest whose unorthodox views on sex and religion influence a passionate following of nuns, including the sexually obsessed Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave). When the power-hungry Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) realizes he must eliminate Grandier to gain control of France, Richelieu portrays Grandier as a satanist and spearheads a public outcry to destroy the once-loved priest's reputation.
The Devils was infamously rated X, banned, censored, recut in many territories for decades, and is still controversial for its depictions of religious hysteria — which includes several writhing nuns defiling a crucifix — and its body horror. This director’s cut restores Russell’s original intent. Alternately hailed as a masterpiece and derided as pornography, its anti-authoritarian outrage and critique of institutional hypocrisy feel more urgent than ever.