Unable to negotiate out of the deal, the majority of the film’s special effects were overseen by Stainer-Hutchins and both Stainer-Hutchins and Daws remained as associate producers. The only special effects Stainer-Hutchins didn’t work on, was the Angel of Death sequence which was overseen by Les Bowie, who also worked on other Hammer productions including Dracula (1958) and The Kiss of the Vampire (Don Sharp, 1963). Bowie was later part of the team that won an Oscar for the special effects on Superman (Richard Donner, 1978). Given the title of this novel, and the fact that the antagonists in the plot are Satanists, it seems incongruous that Wheatley puts into the Duke's mouth the claim, "There is no such person as the devil..." (Chapter 7). But that makes sense given the worldview he's taking here as his premise. Satan, of course, is a creature of God, a fallen angel who's rebelled against his Maker; he's not God's co-eternal and co-equal opponent. But Wheatley is consciously basing his picture of reality here, as laid out in great detail in Chapter 3, on the schema of Zoroastrian dualism (which he explicitly refers to there) with its co-eternal and co-equal powers of Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, perpetually warring for control of the universe and mankind. (With some writers of supernatural fiction, this would simply be a literary conceit, but Wheatley apparently actually believed in something like this.) All of his research --which was quite considerable-- into occultism and primitive/ancient religion is interpreted in that light, and all religions (including Christianity) are re-interpreted and homogenized into harmonious expressions of that idea. The goal of all "true" religions of "the Right Hand Path," supposedly (as he also states explicitly) is progress towards "perfection" through successive reincarnations. Not surprisingly, to paint this picture (through the Duke's lectures at various places in the book, which can have an info-dumpy quality), he misinterprets and garbles factual and historical material in significant ways, sometimes makes outright factual errors, and at times makes use of spurious or intellectually discredited sources. I did a lot of eye-rolling during this read, in quite a few places. He also treats astrology, palmistry (in which another character is conveniently but improbably well-versed) and numerology as legitimate sciences to be taken seriously --which I don't. To me, the rather long numerology lesson was particularly eye-glazing. Hinds next contracted Richard Matheson, whom he had met when he bought the rights to his novel, I am Legendin 1957. A respected science fiction and horror writer, Matheson had just completed the script for Hammer’s Fanatic(Silvio Narizzano, 1965). He already had a body of film work behind him having adapted his own novel, The Shrinking Man (1956), written scripts for The Twilight Zone (1959-2020) and Star Trek(1966-) and completed several Poe adaptations for American International Pictures. If we take the book’s explanation that, during their dream journey, they were ‘living in what the moderns call the fourth dimension – divorced from time,’ then we can assume that everything that takes place between de Richleau’s incantation in the face of the Angel of Death and him waking up again within the chalk circle as having happened on the astral plane, then the words of the Sussamma Ritual serve almost as cosmic book ends to their out-of-body experiences, brought about by the ritual itself. Christopher Lee in The Devil Rides Out 1968 Racism Iconic’ is a much-overused word (not least by me). The online Cambridge English Dictionary defines it as ‘very famous or popular, especially being considered to represent particular opinions or a particular time’, and chooses the following as its three illustrative examples: John Lennon achieving iconic status after his death, the gunfight as the iconic image of the Wild West and the characters, dialogue and music of the film Casablanca.

He was, therefore, cast as the Duke de Richleau and relishing the opportunity, read all the de Richleau books in preparation. The score was composed by James Bernard, who said in an interview that The Devil Rides Out was one of his favourite books. Bernard attended Wellington College, a private school in Berkshire which was also attended by Christopher Lee. An acquaintance of Benjamin Britten, Bernard studied at the Royal College of Music after serving in the RAF.I enjoyed the bizarre cast of characters very much even though, at times, I got confused as I felt that O’Grady assumed our previous knowledge of his many friends and rivals. It was interesting to find out who the legendary Vera actually is and how they met, and I loved reading about the many drag queens O’Grady came across in the few short years that this book catalogues, who, I suppose, became his inspirations for Lily (I think I have a slight drag queen obsession!). When adapting the novel for screen in the ’60s, screenwriter Richard Matheson could no longer have the heroes on a quest to prevent the Second World War as, even if they defeated Mocata, the audience would know that they ultimately failed. It was Matheson’s idea to focus solely on that ‘personal matter of protecting Simon’. One of the best occult horror novels that I have come across. If you are familiar with the Christopher Lee movie, it follows the book pretty closely, but where the movie ends, the book is just getting going.

O'Grady gets unsuitable job that he hates, falls in with a crowd at a gay bar, sees a drag act and thinks "I could do that". O'Grady quits job he hates, gets another, starts frequenting another completely different but somehow exactly the same bar in which there is a resident drag act, and thinks "I could do that, but BETTER". Repeat with interchangeable jobs, bars and 'larger than life' queens (again interchangeable) over a period of 6 years, until finally O'Grady (or Lily) decides to start his own act and.....it ends. After successfully defending themselves through the night the group find that Mocata has kidnapped the Eatons’ daughter. Simon exchanges himself for her. Mocata is using Simon to find the Talisman of Set, a powerful satanic object. The book culminates in a desperate chase across Europe to an abandoned Greek Monastery where Mocata is defeated. The group wake up in the Eatons’ home and realise that during the ceremony they entered the fourth dimension. Mocata is found dead outside the house. The Duc wakes up clutching the Talisman and destroys it. Tanith is found to be alive - Mocata’s soul has been exchanged for hers. If that isn’t enough, there is also cannibalism. Mocata and ‘half a dozen masters of the Left Hand Path’ sit at a head table before the Goat where they feast upon the flesh of ‘a stillborn baby or perhaps some unfortunate child that they have stolen’. The Duke’s suspicions are confirmed when a human skull is cast into a cauldron before the throne of the beast. Dennis Wheatley's hero the Duke de Richleau might represent England, Queen and country, with his stiff upper lip, and celebration of the British Empire, but his knowledge of Eastern magic seems impressive. He explains: Heaven and Hell are only symbolical of growth to Light or disintegration to Darkness,” de Richleau explains. “There is no such person as the Devil, but there are vast numbers of Earthbound spirits, Elementals, and Evil Intelligences of the Outer Circle floating in our midst. But anyone who accepts Satanic baptism does exactly the reverse. They willfully destroy the barrier of astral Light which is our natural protection and offer themselves as a medium through which the powers of Darkness may operate on mankind.”James Hilton, reviewing The Devil Rides Out, described it as "The best thing of its kind since Dracula". [2] The story follows five characters, their leader the Duke de Richeau, is pretty much Christopher Lee. Seriously. Take Christopher Lee, the most bad-ass Renaissance man alive and just call him de Richeau. Being that Wheatley wrote the character in the 1930’s we can assume that one of the following happened: A) Wheatley had access to a crystal ball and modeled the Duke after the future Lee, B) The universe was so impressed with what a bad-ass the fictional Duke was that it immediately aligned the stars to make a then 11 year old Lee into the Duke, or C) A young Christoper Lee read the about the Duke and said, “Holy shit, I’m going to be this guy,” and promptly succeeded at it. Given what I know about Christopher Lee and of Wheatley’s extremely thorough research into the occult, all of these are equally possible. In fact, Christoper Lee enjoyed the novel so much that he played Duke de Richeau in the 1968 film version when he was finally old enough to play himself. Mocata will stop at nothing to obtain The Talisman of Set and unleash the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on the world. According to the book, Simon was introduced to Mocata via a business associate, and his psychic powers saved Simon from potential bankruptcy when he predicted a financial crash. The more time he spent with Mocata, the more he fell under the Satanist’s hypnotic influence. Moreover, Mocata’s real interest in Simon lay in the fact that he is one of the rare people who were born ‘at a time when certain stars were in conjunction’, which makes him essential to Mocata’s invocation of Saturn coupled with Mars. Set threw a banquet for Osiris, invited the youngest nobles, presented the coffin as a gift and chopped his brother into pieces to ensure a perfect fit. Then Set scattered Osiris’ body across the kingdom. Isis, in great mourning over her one true love, was able to find all but the slain god’s penis.