Ken Russell’s 1971 THE DEVILS remains one of cinema’s most transgressive and incendiary provocations, a feverish account of the Loudun possessions witchcraft trial in 17th-century France. Oliver Reed stars as Urbain Grandier, a wildly charismatic libertine priest who defies Cardinal Richelieu’s consolidation of power. Vanessa Redgrave’s Sister Jeanne is a sexually repressed, hunchbacked Abbess obsessed with Grandier with an intensity that ignites accusations of demonic possession among her convent’s nuns. Already a target for reprisals due to his political resistance, Grandier’s promiscuity eventually lands him on the wrong side of a powerful family.
THE DEVILS was infamously rated X, banned, censored, recut in many territories for decades, and is still controversial for its depictions of religious hysteria and body horror. This director’s cut & restoration restores Russell’s original vision.