The Devil Rides Out 1967

The Devil Rides Out was a hammer horror film made in 1967 and released in 1968. Hammer is a London based production and a legendary British film brand founded in 1934 and best known for its gothic horrors throughout the mid 1950's to the 1970's. As well al gothic horrors, hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir, comedies and later on, television series. 

A classic film from the hammer genre is 1968s The Devil Rides Out starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Charles Grey. It was made in England. Hammer often partnered up with Warner Bros to make their films internationally famous and therefore gain more success. The film was set in 1930s, and has a theme of Satanism and black magic running through it. The film opens with credits backed with images with satanic connotations such as the downward pointing pentagram and the goat of mendes. The music used in this part of the film is dramatic and booming, this makes the audience think something equally dramatic is going to happen in the film. The theme of the film is made clear from the beginning.  The film then goes into a scene of lots of people in suits, telling us they are posh. The two main characters find a room at the top of the house that has satanic imagery on the floor and a basket with chickens in it in the cupboard. This shows the owner of the house has an interest in black magic as the slaughter of the black cockerel and the white hen signifies this.

The main character then takes one of the men and hypnotizes them with a mirror and places the christian cross on them as a symbol of protection from black magic. The man who is hypnotized is then sent to bed, and starts strangling himself with the cross, suggesting he is being possessed to do this. The man then escapes and the removes the cross. As they have to go and look for him they are back in the room with the chickens and symbols in it. Smoke begins to come from the rams nose on the floor and the eyes glow red. A man them appears from the smoke and the main character says not to look into his eyes, so they other man does, naturally, and he becomes hypnotized. The main man does some chanting and the smoke man disappears. There is then mention of a devils baptism which is going to happen on a certain date and that is why all the weird stuff is happening. Throughout the film, very bright lights are used as hammer horrors are known for their use of bright technicolour, so because of this, hardly any shadows are used, but suspense and mystery is still present even with the lack of shadows, which is a dramatic contrast between earlier horrors such as Dracula which heavily relied on shadows to create atmosphere because of the amount of content they weren't allowed to add. 

Special effects are used in the film when the man appears from the smoke and appears to be floating. It is also used when all the people from the party at the opening scene go into the woods and sacrifice a goat and they summon the goat of mendes which is a symbol of the devil. The two main characters then throw a cross at it at it burst into flames. The sacrifice of the goat that they did shows that the devils baptism that they were on about has begun. There is dramatic music used which shows us that something significant has happened.