After watching this I wondered if the director had actually ever seen a film before. Because this seems to ignore any and all of the conventions of film making we've come to expect. Plot, character development, subtext, all are dashed against the rocks of chaos here.

The movie starts with a mutant dressed in Nazi attire madly tearing his way out of a tent. We then have a prolonged shot of the victim of the mutant bleeding on the ground. Then as the mutant storms of into the woods to kill some one else his foot gets caught on the tent rope and he scuffles with it. Was that intentional? I don't know but they left it in. That question "Was that intentional?" is something I found myself asking a lot throughout the entire movie.

This is one of those film that has to be seen to be believed. There's a demonic cat that lives in the mountains. There's an old witch that controls the Nazi mutant. There's an old man with a shotgun that seems to have an endless supply of bullets. There's an Egyptian mummy that comes out of an old galleon which is magically drawn from the inside of a mountain by a devil horse.

I Liked it. Despite hearing myself sighing throughout I would definitely watch it again.

Searching round on Ebay for any French Horror DVDs,I was pleased to stumble on a near forgotten French zombie movie,which led to me getting ready to read the devils story.

The plot:

Getting out of a camping tent,a Nazi mutant kills a fellow camper and heads towards the main road.As the Nazi mutant heads towards the road,a young couple's car breaks down near an old dark house.Knocking on the door,the couple are welcomed to stay the night by the old couple living there.As they start to relax for the night,the old couple begin to reveal myths about a Nazi mutant and a mummy haunting the area.

View on the film:

For the screenplay of the film,writer/director Bernard Launois offers a delightfully deranged mix of mutant,supernatural and evil cat (!),with Launois going from a demon horse that no one is able to kill,to the evil kitties appearance leading to an extremely left- field ending.Kicking things off with the Nazi mutant grabbing a less than happy camper,Launois turns the creeping terror into something hilariously rubbish,thanks to Launois giving the mutant sound effects which make it sound like a blocked drain,and dragging the death scenes well past there sell by date,which leads to Devil Story showing that the Devil really has the best (unintended) Comedy tunes.

Also known as Once Upon A Time...The Devil, we have the almighty Vinegar Syndrome to thank for this movie being newly restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative. I've had a bootleg of this waiting to be watched for years because I knew someday that I would need to call upon its infernal power to save me from a week of stress, madness and ennui. This would be that week. And man, Devil Story is beyond up to the task.

Just a warning: my description of this film is going to sound stream of conscious at best but trust me, it's even weirder than my words. A mutant killer in an SS uniform is wandering the countryside and killing anyone unfortuante enough to get in his way. A couple's car breaks down and they have to stay in a Gothic castle. There's talk of an Equinox and a pirate ship that crashed into the rocks. Then we meet the mutant killer's mother, a gypsy who lives with a mummy. There's a horse that's either possessed by the devil or Satan himself. There's also a cat.

This is the kind of movie that's blessed with large quantities of gore, a woman walking hand in bandage wrapped hand through a cemetery with a mummy and that horse. That horse! Also, the film ends as only it can, with the earth itself opening to swallow a character out of nowhere.

Why are there Florida plates on that car? How much is the pirate ship a reference to The Fog? How did the mutant get kicked in the face by a devil horse, throw up blood for a way too long period of time and then just get back to business as if nothing happened? Why does the mummy have such a thick package and throw up blue goop?

There are movies that people think are weird and then there's Devil Story, a movie whose narrative changes, synth soundtrack and willingness to be a formless mess endeared it to me. I'm so used to the Jean Rollin classy French horror world and I'm so pleased to know that somehow there can be something like this, a movie that had to escape from some sort of parallel world where it was used as a form of image-based hallucinogen.