Review: Devil Story (1986)
(aka Il était une fois le diable)
Directed by: Bernard Launois
Starring: Véronique Renaud, Marcel Portier, Catherine Day
Written by: Bernard Launois
Music by: Paul Piot, Michel Roy
Country: France
Available on: Blu-ray (Vinegar Syndrome)
IMDb
I know this guy Bernard Launois thought he was making a real movie — probably in perfectly good faith, too — but Devil Story is not a movie. At least not by any definition of “movie” stored in the gray matter of any human being that’s ever lived. I suppose cameras were used, a script of some kind was written, and these are actors (a term used more loosely here than a belt at Golden Corral). But what’s been captured on these 16 mm reels is the pure chaotic essence of an unmoored French psyche.
There is some kind of story here about a ghost ship, five mischievous brothers, a satanic horse, and a mother and her deformed cannibal son, but how that all fits together isn’t near the top of anyone’s concerns. What every soul involved in the production of this beautiful catastrophe was concerned about was making sure an old man had at least 36 hours and 700 shotgun rounds at his disposal during his futile pursuit of a godforsaken equine. At the core of this fever dream is a delirious grandpa pivoting in endless circles, firing wildly at a horse that seems to have been filmed in a completely different location at a completely different hour of the day. This central plot point is dressed up by the exploits of the deformed cannibal man, clad in SS regalia, as he randomly murders tourists; a retelling of the pillaging of a ship that may have never existed; the lengthy standoff between a woman and a cat and audaciously terrible lightning effects; and the listless wandering of a mummy and his mate with an oversized wig.
Launois commits nearly any crime against filmmaking your fancy imagination could concoct, from nonsensical writing to wooden acting to an impressive disregard for continuity in makeup, space and time, whatever. No one particular piece of this madman’s puzzle seems to have been filmed with any intention of interacting with other pieces. But in the process of his malevolent negligence, he put together something so uniquely and acutely disastrous that it shimmers bravely like a precious gemstone. What’s here is about the best we as a species could hope to approximate the dissolution of a tortured mind as the searing flames of hell melt it away into the sludge of oblivion. Nothing makes sense but it all does when you step back and appreciate the pandemonium from a safe distance. The broken toy orchestra bombast of Paul Piot and Michel Roy’s music adds another unsettling element to these doomed proceedings.
You can’t watch Devil Story with the expectation of coherence. But if you can properly disengage your frontal lobe and immerse yourself in this cauldron of absurdity, you might appreciate what is truly one of the most unhinged clusterfucks of cinema ever made. Everyone involved should be proud they helped pave the path forward in human evolution.
Overall rating: 8 out of 10
