YMMV / The Devils

• Adaptation Displacement: You probably have not read Aldous Huxley's The Devils of Loudun or the John Whiting play The Devils, both used as sources for the film.
• Complete Monster: Father Pierre Barre is a ruthless inquisitor known for his horrific tortures in attempts to play exorcist to the supposedly "devil" possessed nuns. Forming a deep hatred of Father Grandin, Barre sets about engaging in horrific physical and sexual torture of the convent, but centers on Grandin as well. Having been responsible for countless executions, Barre sets fire to Barre before the executioner can arrange for his strangulation before giving one of his bones to the obsessed sister Jeanne out of pure spite.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Graham Armitage is a real scene stealer for his portrayal of King Louis XIII, leaning into the popular interpretation that he was a Camp Gay, and his memorable arrival in the exorcism scene where he tricks everyone with the Magic Feather.
• Fans Prefer the New Her: Grandier is shaved completely before his trial as another part of his degradation and shame, but Oliver Reed looks pretty good bald.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Pierre Barre is clearly mentally ill. His actor, Michael Gothard, suffered from severe depression for much of his life and ultimately took his own life.
• He Really Can Act: These days it's held up as the finest performance of Oliver Reed's career (or at least very close).
• Hollywood Homely:
  • Sister Jeanne states that most of the nuns came to the convent because they were too old and ugly to be marriageable, yet as Roger Ebert observes in the page quote, the nuns are all young and voluptuous.
  • Sister Jeanne herself. Even with the hunchback, she's still Vanessa Redgrave. It's possible this is mostly in her head, as the hunchback would have her pegged as deformed in those days, but in her fantasies she insists she's beautiful, and just prays for God to take the hump away.
• Jerkass Woobie: It would be very easy to write Sister Jeanne off as a despicable Yandere - which she is. But she's been born with a hunchback and feels she is ugly and deformed. It's hard not to feel sorry for her in her fantasy of being Mary Magdalene to Grandier's Christ — and her hump is revealed, causing everyone to laugh and taunt her. Indeed, she seems to realise how she's landed Grandier into it and tries to take it back, but it doesn't stop the witch hunt.
• Narm: The "exorcism" of Sister Jeanne is, on many levels, genuinely disturbing and intense as it's meant to be — true to Aldous Huxley's original novel, it's "nothing less than a rape in a public lavatory" — but for some bizarre reason, the music is a random cacophony of horns and crashing drums that sounds more like it should be soundtracking a cartoonish brawl in a Big Ball of Violence. It even ends with a perfectly and inexplicably-timed Rimshot:
  Baron Jean: Who is responsible for this evil possession, Sister Jeanne of the Angels?
  Jeanne: ...Grandier...
  Baron Jean: Grandier!
  (KRRDUN—KSSHH)
• Nightmare Fuel: The torture that Grandier has to go through — getting all his hair and eyebrows shaved off, having both legs broken and finally being burned at the stake. He even has to suffer through the whole burning, as the soldier who promised to strangle him as a Mercy Kill doesn't get there in time.
• Offending the Creator's Own: The religious right accused Ken Russell of making a film about blasphemy for exploitative reasons, even though Russell was a devout Catholic.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: Regarded by critics in an academic sense as a fine, compelling character drama about sexual repression and corruption within religious and political systems, but remembered by just about everyone else for its ludicrously debauched and blasphemous content (including a massive onscreen nun orgy amidst desecrated Christian iconography) as well as receiving more cuts than Julius Caesar. The fact that it's effectively impossible to find any fully "intact" version of the film that hasn't been censored in some way ensures that it will primarily be a movie most known as "the movie its distributors are hell-bent on making sure you DON'T see."
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Gemma Jones makes her film debut as Madeleine.
  • Adam is played by Brian Murphy, who would later be best known for playing George Roper in Man About the House and George & Mildred.
  • A nun is played by Doremy Vernon, who would later be best known for playing the Canteen Manageress in Are You Being Served?.
• Squick: Sister Jeanne's sexual fantasies, the exorcism sequences, the Rape of Christ... The exorcism in particular was described in Huxley's book as "equivalent to a rape in a public lavatory" and the film takes that sentence as stage directions.
• Stoic Woobie:
  • Grandier remains unbelievably stoic and strong, despite the sheer hell he's put through.
  • Madeleine too, considering she deals with forbidden love and wants to devote her life to God — but becomes the target of an angry Yandere like Sister Jeanne.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Right before Grandier's Traumatic Haircut, he asks for a mirror. Just because he wants to look at himself one last time as a free man.
  • At the very end, Madeleine walks through the ruins of the town past all the other people put to death because of the events of the film.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Sister Agnes is Richelieu's niece, who was sent into the convent undercover to gather information on Sister Jeanne, which is a very interesting plot point, but she doesn't factor into the story much.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The movie's main character is a shameless womaniser who discards his lovers in rather callous ways, and he's the lesser of several other evils involving the corrupt aristocracy and clergy trying to take control of the city, as well as the psychotic nun willing to ruin several lives over her fantasies. About the only truly sympathetic character is Madeleine, and she is left traumatized by the end.
• Vindicated by History: When it was first released, it was banned in some countries, boycotted in others, and given a rare zero star rating by Roger Ebert. It was re-evaluated in the 2000s and both Mark Kermode and Alex Cox included it in their lists of the ten most important films ever made. It's widely considered one of Ken Russell's best films, and Oliver Reed's strongest performance. It now has a 75% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

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