Shuttered Room, The (1967)

The Shuttered Room, by all accounts, should have been much better than it was. Carol Lynley and Gig Young star in this piece based on a Lovecraft/Derleth short story, but the film leaves behind its Mythos roots in favor of a more conventional mystery plot: Susannah Whateley (Lynley) returns to her rural childhood town with her rich husband to use her long-deceased parents' old mill as a summer cottage. A family curse is supposedly afoot, and a mystery lingers about what horror lurks in the shuttered room connecting house and mill. Lynley, an actress I've never really cared much for, plays the part no different from what I remember in other pictures - fragile, doe-eyed, stilted. Young plays her rich, older (MUCH OLDER) husband who has a Thunderbird and a knack for karate - this sounds like it ought to contribute more camp factor than it does, but sadly it does not. A somewhat redeeming factor is a pre-Devils Oliver Reed (employing his dreadful American accent) playing a lascivious country boy hellbent on getting with Lynley... whom I believe was also his character's first cousin. Basil Kirchin's jazz-steeped score is unsettling and interesting if not a bit out of place at times (he would go on to use a similar style to much better effect for Robert Fuest's camp masterpiece The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971) starring Vincent Price). While the production is pretty slick, the reveal at the end is rather unexciting - especially for those expecting something Lovecraftian - and getting to that point is a bit of a chore. I would only recommend this one to die-hard Oliver Reed fans, or Lovecraft cinema completists.

5/10

Devils, The (1971)

Ken Russell's controversial film is brooding and powerful. The Devils depicts the downfall of charming priest, Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed). At the beginning, he is concerned with earthly pleasures--sex, power, vanity--but as the film progresses and the Church and government tighten their grip on Grandier, he reveals despite his faults, he was not completely bad. The film is famous for having graphic scenes depicting violence and nudity, including scenes of torture and hysterical "possessed" nuns masturbating and having an orgy. These scenes were certainly shocking, but they were often overly self-indulgent. Really, the film is the most interesting whenever Reed is on screen. The other performances were fantastic all around, with Vanessa Redgrave as the neurotic Sister Jeanne and Michael Gothard as the over-the-top "rockstar" witchhunter/exorcist. The art direction and sets are gorgeous, and curiously, completely removed from 17th century setting. The film punches hard showing the extent that man is willing to go to corrupt political and religious institutions to his will, and comes highly recommended if you've got the stomach for it.

9/10