THE DEVIL'S RAIN

Aaaaah, after the Exorcist brought us hell came bad movie heaven. So many shoddy flicks poured forth it’s literally difficult to catalog them all much less watch and comment on them. But one film you should go out of your way to comment on (if MST3K type viewing is your style) is The Devil’s Rain. 1. It’s a really cheap Satanic worship film made in the 70’s. 2. It stars William Shatner, Ida Lupino, Eddie Albert, Tom Skeritt, Ernest Borgnine and John Freakin’ Travolta!! Any movie that can command reminisces of Green Acres, Welcome Back Kotter, The Poseidon Adventure, Star Trek and Ice Castles…need I say more. 3. This is John Travolta’s screen debut in which he plays an eyeless minion of Satan and MELTS…YES TRAVOLTA MELTS ONSCREEN!!!!!

This film is wonderfully awful. Borgnine turns into a goatheaded demon in a makeup that is actually pretty cool and the film is directed by none other than Robert Fuest who is best known for the incredibly campy Phibes films he did with Vincent Price. Fuest even provides commentary here. Carny huckster turned self-proclaimed black pope Anton LaVey is shown in a short wedding ceremony newsreel featurette because LaVey was a "consultant" on the occult aspects of the film. Predictably those aspects have aged like fine cheese rather than fine wine but then again considering their source were lucky that LaVey was in charge. If Shatner had a say the whole thing might have been filmed in Esperanto like his other occult clunker Incubus.