Devil Story
1986 film
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Devil Story (French: Il était une fois... le diable, lit. 'Once upon a time... the devil'), is a 1986 French Nazisploitation[1] horror film written and directed by Bernard Launois. It is his seventh and last feature film.[2] An uneven mixture of the slasher and Euro-gothic genres, it was largely condemned by critics for its incoherent script and technical incompetence.[3] It has since gained a cult following because of its reputation as one of the worst films in history.[2][4]
Marcel Portier
Pascal Simon
Nicole Desailly
| Devil Story | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster | |
| French | Il était une fois... le diable |
| Directed by | Bernard Launois |
| Written by | Bernard Launois |
| Starring | Véronique Renaud Marcel Portier Pascal Simon Nicole Desailly |
| Cinematography | Guy Maria |
| Edited by | Raymonde Battini |
| Music by | Paul Piot Michel Roy |
Production companies | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 75 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
Plot
A seemingly deranged murderer in a Schutzstaffel uniform with a disfigured spine and pig-like[3] face terrorises a rural area of Normandy and slaughters whomever he encounters at random—first a couple of campers, then a man asking for directions to the nearest gas station.
A couple's car breaks down on the road, and they decide to stay at a nearby hotel until they can repair their car. The hotel is a modified old castle run by an elderly man and woman. The younger couple learn from their hosts that the place is cursed.
Reception
After initially released in 1986 in only a small number of theatres in French provinces, the film was shown in Paris as a double feature at Le Brady, under the title Il était une fois... le diable.[2]
In Spinegrinder: The Movies Most Critics Won't Write About, author and critic Clive Davies described the film as "75 mins [sic] of near-catatonic nonsense" with "a dumb, circular ending".[5] Scott Aaron Stine wrote in his The Gorehound's Guide to Splatter Films of the 1980s: "Despite the charming contrivances, [Devil Story] is just one more reason why French cinema rarely ventures or strays into splatter territory".[3] Lexikon des internationalen Films, a German-language reference work on all theatrical films and many television films released in Germany since 1945, noted the film's homages to John Carpenter's 1980 film The Fog.[6]
The film was featured on Red Letter Media's Best of the Worst. It was voted best of the worst. [7]
Home media
The film was released on VHS by a French company called American Vidéo in the late 1980s.[2]
The film was restored in 4K resolution from its 35mm original camera negative and released on Blu-ray by Vinegar Syndrome, an American home video distribution company, in 2021.[4][8] This restored version was screened at the Fantastic Fest, an annual film festival in Austin, Texas, US, in September 2021.[9]