I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Boring

A lot of fun.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

As the movie started I didn't think I'd make it through the whole thing: disturbing images, religion, 17th century. Nothing I'm particularly interested in (I downloaded the movie to watch Vanessa Redgrave, and oh she should have won 20 awards for this movie! So should Oliver Reed!!). Turns out it's an epic, powerful, and in some degrees heart-warming dramatic masterpiece. As a classic Ken Russell movie, it's packed with "fun":orgies, dances, dark humors. The lines are witty, the characters are vivid, the emotions are fiery. To my surprise it is also very relatable: it's about how the system deceives and tortures the people, it's about a man who stands for the truth. The executor scene brought tears to my eyes, and I had to take a few deep breathes afterwards to cool down. Ken Russell once proved that he does not only make "music video" movies, he's truly great story teller, and oh what a story!

I don't consider myself to be a particularly religious person so the controversial (anti-protestant) stance didn't really faze me (although I can easily understand if others are offended by this film). My main issues with this film extend to the following;This is quite a chaotic picture and it seemed to me that Russell was more bothered about causing controversy and shocking his audience at the expense of telling a potentially interesting true story. I must admit some of the early scenes were quite disturbing, but for the first hour it was just overkill as the film went from one over the top sequence to another. We're then treated to a lot of incomprehensible dialogue, ridiculous set-pieces, over the top acting. Lots of things happened in the first hour that seemed to do nothing to advance the story. Now I'm not the sort of person to pan a film just because it's controversial (A Clockwork Orange is a great film which also caused a lot of controversy in its day), but the thing that harms this film so much is that it's so boring. No matter how much I tried, I just could not get involved in the story - the shock factor is OK at first, but when there's nothing of substance to back it up, it grows repetitive and starts to feel like a bit of a gimmick.Russell does start to show some focus in the final 30 minutes or so, but even in these final 30 minutes we're treated to some rather formulaic plot twists that did nothing to improve my opinion of the film as a whole.Looking at the acting then again I'll use the words 'over the top'. Redgrave spends the whole time with her head cocked to the left and either speaks at about 3 decibels or shouts at about 300 decibels. Reed fared slightly better, although there were many occasions when he seemed to speak then shout when delivering his lines. The worst offender was Michael Gothard as Father Barre whose acting was embarrassingly bad.This is a shocking film, but there is one thing I can think of that is more shocking than this film and that is..... it's IMDb rating. 7.8 for this monstrosity is taking the proverbial. I found it boring, ridiculous and quite empty if I'm honest. A truly awful film that I have no desire to ever watch again.

I loved this film, greatly enjoyed itIt's got a good story, beautiful sets, great dialogue, amazing acting by the majority of the actors, especially by leads Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave. It's the kind of film that draws in and doesn't let go until its inevitable endingHaving said that, what surprises me most about this film is that it almost escaped my radar. It doesn't pop up in any of the disturbing movie sites I've seen or lists I've read of similar matter. If it wasn't for this random guy I came across surfing YT that briefly recommended this film to his viewers, I fear I would have never seen it, in my entire life, and that, to me, would've been a shame; yep, this film is that goodThough the moment the torture starts on Oliver's Grandier the movie slowly but surely descends into such savagery that may only appeal to psychos and very open-minded people (I'm one of the latter) from that point on. I mean, what was the point of seeing his blistering face as he burns to death? And his genitals getting crushed moments before this scene takes place. The only reason: to shock the audience, should've made do without it. It's not really a complaint, though, I'm open- minded, but it does make you feel like you're watching a completely different movie Still, the movie's solid, well made and enjoyable. It's actually funny, some of the stuff I found in this movie could compete with and even surpass that of Cannibal Holocaust's brutality. Yet CH's widely known, due to said brutality, and The Devils has almost sunk into oblivion, except to those that already know where it is!So try and become one of these and take a look at this powerful movieJaime A. De la Garza https://www.amazon.com/author/jaimeadlagarza

I saw this movie when it was first released with all the hoopla and X rating and I wanted to like it. I saw it six more times hoping that all the hype about Ken Russell's photographic genius would sweep me up and make me think this was an iconic piece of cinema. God knows we heard a lot of people say he was brilliant after Women In Love. But time does something to us with perspective and vision. And as beautiful as I think this film was shot... I just couldn't get past how indulgent and obtrusive Ken Russell's camera was to the story. He was so obsessed with creating a visual that story is lost.. emotion is lost.. we are completely extracted from anything that would make us feel "involved." I love Vanessa Redgrave and I think the role she had in this was brilliant if it had been in the hands of someone who made you care rather than someone more concerned about cinematic trickery. I hope at some point in time another director attempts to tell this story in a way that pulls us into it rather than pushes us out of it.