The Devil Rides Out (Duke de Richleau)

Product Information

According to the Harry Potter stories, Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, earned his reputation as a great wizard due, in part, to his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel.

The Duke measures a perfect circle seven feet in diameter, marking it in chalk and drawing a five-pointed star inside. It is done with geometrical precision, or else the pentacle could be dangerous. Inside the circumference he writes an exorcism, along with other ancient symbols including: “Cabbalistic signs taken from the Sephirotic Tree; Kether, Binah, Ceburah, Hod, Malchut,” the Eye of Horus and some ancient Aryan script.For those of you that haven't read the book, I urge you to do so. I also envy you as you still have the pleasure to come. Dennis Wheatley: A Letter to Posterity". BBC Four (bbc.co.uk/bbcfour). 2005. Archived from the original on 8 January 2006 . Retrieved 3 November 2013. Once again, the character outwardly appears to be English, whereas he is French in the book. And in complete contrast to the suave elegance and charm with which Charles Gray (who was 40 at the time) plays the part, Wheatley describes him as ‘a pot-bellied, bald-headed person of about sixty, with large, protuberant, fishy eyes, limp hands and a most unattractive lisp.’ These negotiations went on from 1963 until 1967 because, even though Stainer-Hutchins was willing to sell his interest, he wanted to work on the special effects. The problem with that, according to Carreras, was that they wanted more money than the budget allowed and weren’t particularly very good.

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.

Reviews

The second half of the film is where the female characters come to the fore. Tanith is a more complex character than Hammer’s usual fair and we are never sure which side she is on until the end. She is foreign, like many of the other Satanists, and more easily tempted by the sins of the flesh – unlike our thoroughly decent Brits! Tanith sensually writhes around in the hay, fighting Mocata as he strives to control her. She evidently isn’t innocent enough to win and perishes in the struggle. Rex and Tanith in the hay The iconic scene in the pentacle is very similar in both the film and the book. (Although instead of the film’s giant spider, they are menaced by a kind of demonic white slug – Mocata, perhaps?!) When the Angel of Death is summoned, de Richleau saves them by pronouncing ‘the last two lines of the dread Sussamma Ritual’.