Continue with Google
>
More
Certified fresh picks
New TV Tonight
View AllMost Popular TV on RT
-
I Will Find You: Season 1
65% -
Widow's Bay: Season 1
98% -
House of the Dragon: Season 3
91% -
Sugar: Season 2
97% -
From: Season 4
96% -
Spider-Noir: Season 1
92% -
The Boroughs: Season 1
96% -
The Agency: Season 2
92% -
Cape Fear: Season 1
75% -
Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed: Season 1
93%
More
Certified fresh pick
Columns
Guides
-
Essential Survival Movies Ranked by Tomatometer
Link to Essential Survival Movies Ranked by Tomatometer -
Best New Action Movies of 2026
Link to Best New Action Movies of 2026
Hubs
-
Awards Tour
Link to Awards Tour -
What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming
Link to What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming
RT News
-
Weekend Box Office: Street Fighter Delivers a Knockout
Link to Weekend Box Office: Street Fighter Delivers a Knockout -
How Street Fighter (1994) Created One of the Strangest Cult Fighting Game Characters
Link to How Street Fighter (1994) Created One of the Strangest Cult Fighting Game Characters
The Devils Reviews
Because Redgrave and Reed are fine actors and because there is a story with credible dialogue, their movie is, perhaps, more sinister than horrifying.
Denying his characters so much, Russell denies himself nothing.
I'm not disputing Mr. Russell's undoubted talent, just wondering what sort of nuns he has met up with to get such a crazy idea of what makes them tick.
Some directors can get away with epic horror, but Russell doesn't know where to let up. His offense is less to good taste than to good dramatic sense.
The obscenity and torture are so overdone that they will either drive you from the cinema or reduce you to a state of numbness.
"The Devils" is a film you need a strong stomach to sit through and a stiff Scotch afterwards. But it's a very worthwhile film.
At times I found myself surrendering to Russell's excess and getting some sort of vertiginous cheap-thrill reaction to the carryings-on. Russell does know what he's doing and how to get what he wants.
The film is a garish glossary of sado-masochism.
Ken Russell's "The Devils" is a loathsome freak show of lust, perversion, masochism. If it's macabre, it's here.
To make anything less than hysterical the story of "The Devils" requires the chill genius of a Bunuel, not the heated indulgence of Russell.
Oliver Reed's performance is beautiful and dignified as Grandier.
Beyond a point, "The Devils" becomes a crying shame, and a sickening one at that.
It's a shocker. Most critics have called it obscene, sacrilegious, sensational and revolting. All this is true. In the opinion of this reviewer, it also is one of the best films of the year.
Director Ken Russell has mounted a rich, lush production here, full of magnificent sets and costumes and choreographies. But he has not allowed all the majesty to detract from the power of his story.
If Russell is prone to excess, he also is capable of excellence. "The Devils" has both in spades.
The Devils pretends to be a harrowing incision into sexual and religious hysteria in a 17th century convent, but is more like a freak show in an insane asylum that looks like the inside of the Lincoln Tunnel.
The shock value is clear enough, but for rhyme and reason and feasibility, Russell has gone completely over the brink.
It is a self-indulgent movie about a self-indulgent man, but the production is controlled. It is full of excesses, but they are consistently wrought.
Russell embroiders what may once have been some fabric of truth with such abandon, such wanton self-indulgence, that the original design is almost totally obscured by its embellishment.
Other than lavishly stage a horrible moment in church history, author-director Russell has done little -- or rather, tells little. He gives practically no insight. His characters are merely ugly cardboard dolls. There's no dimension to them.