YMMV / The Devil Rides Out

• Broken Base: Patrick Mower as Simon. People either find him wooden and impossible to sympathise with, or else found his performance better than expected. One reviewer even said he had James Bond potential.
• Catharsis Factor: After all the torture he put her through, it's very satisfying when Tanith takes control of Peggy from beyond the grave, destroys the whole cult and engineers things so that the Angel of Death takes Mocata's life in exchange for hers.
• Complete Monster: Mr. Mocata is a ruthless Satanist who runs a cult where innocents are sacrificed to the Devil and nobody ever gets to leave. When cultists Simon and Tanith attempt to escape, taking refuge with the friends of the heroic Duc d'Richlieu, Richlieu and Mocata engage in a battle for the souls of those involved. Mocata uses horrible mental torture on Tanith to make her try to murder everyone in the mansion and uses horrible illusions to torment Richlieu's friends to kill them as well before kidnapping their ten-year-old daughter to sacrifice her to Satan.
• Evil Is Cool: Mocata may be an evil devil worshipper, but damn if he isn't the badass. At one point he's able to hypnotise Marie and, by extension, take control of both Simon and Tanith. He most certainly would have won if Peggy hadn't walked in interrupting them.
  Nicholas: In the name of God, you daren't!^note Sacrificing Peggy on the altar.
  Mocata: Scarcely in the name of God, monsieur le Duc.
• Fridge Horror: Although Peggy walking in to stop Mocata's Mind Rape is relieving, it's probably that incident that told Mocata there was a child in the house and gave him the idea to kidnap her.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: It's quite amusing how tame the satanic orgy scene is - where all the characters are fully-clothed. This was made before Hammer featured as much T&A as it would later be known for.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some watch the movie to see Christopher Lee playing The Hero unambiguously. He himself called it one of his favorite roles, and said he'd have been happy to reprise it in a remake.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Charles Gray would become more famous for playing Ernst Stavo Blofield in Diamonds Are Forever or the Criminologist in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
  • Emmerdale fans will recognise a young Rodney Blackstock as Simon.
• The Scrappy: Richard proves completely useless throughout the whole ordeal. He's a skeptic that does nothing but question Nicholas. This puts him in contrast to Simon, who has the excuse of being young and a victim of Mocata (and even he tries something the third act). Likewise Marie is out of her depth but at least challenges Mocata and works with Nicholas rather than protesting.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • There is some truly terrible chroma keying for the scenes where Rex and Tanith are in the car. Parts of Tanith's hair don't seem to have been keyed in properly.
  • The scariest scenes are the suspense scenes. Every time we actually see a demon, it's a bit unconvincing. That being said, the only really bad effects shot is one where a Giant Spider is green-screened into the room. And the fact that it's a spider zoomed in might make it scary for some viewers anyway.
• Strangled by the Red String: Rex and Tanith rather suddenly hit it off halfway through the film, Tanith saying "I wish we had met differently" as if they've known each other for longer than just a couple of days. Most likely a holdover from the novel, where Rex and Tanith actually had met several times before, though always in passing, leading to Rex being utterly smitten of her.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: A few fans of the book have this towards the film's change of the ending. The events are roughly the same, but the circumstances are different. The book has it revealed that the climax happened while they were all asleep and they were transported to the astral plane. The film changes it so that everything happens and then time just gets reset.
• Tough Act to Follow: For some, this is considered the best Hammer Horror film, and the ones that followed (especially the Hotter and Sexier ones trying to compete with American productions) couldn't live up to it. When Hammer tried to adapt To the Devil, a Daughter (another Dennis Wheatley novel) - the results were disastrous.
• Values Dissonance: Mildly but when Tanith tries to jump out of Rex's car, he forcibly grabs her by the wrist and forces her back into her seat - with an angry "never do that again!" - which is simply an example of 1960s (or 1920s, as the film takes place in 1929) male dominance. Not helping matters is their next topic of conversation being the way Mocata controls her.
• The Woobie:
  • Tanith doesn't appear to have any family or friends of her own - and if she does, she's long been alienated from them. She's utterly terrified of Mocata and what he could potentially do to those who disobey him. What's more is that she is Mind Raped multiple times - one of which has her nearly murdering Rex under Mocata's control. He seems to enjoy torturing her more than Simon.
  • Simon is an orphan and, although he had some good parental influences in Nicholas and Rex, it's not unreasonable to assume that Mocata recruited him by acting as that father figure he was lacking (Mocata does call him "my son" multiple times). He's fully aware that the danger Nicholas, Rex, Marie and Richard are put in is all his fault - and he is horrified when he discovers that an innocent child like Peggy has been kidnapped. Because of this he tries to confront Mocata himself, despite being powerless. It's likely he knows this is a suicide mission and simply wants to be punished for everything he's put the others through.