Retro Review: ‘Devil Story’

The shores of France are renowned for their beauty and heritage. One would can see why there are those who would shudder the thought of transforming such a place into a film set, much less for a Z-grade horror film. But in 1986, director Bernard Launois told those people to shove it as he was bound and determined to bring his grand horrific vision to life right there. Being, to this day, the only horror flick to ever film in Normandy, Launois held nothing back cramming Il etait une fois…le diable AKA Devil Story with as much terror as his meager budget allowed to create what many regard as French cinema’s equivalent to Plan Nine From Outer Space.

In the forests surrounding a small village a mutated Nazi trooper embarks on a murderous rampage. In this same village, a young couple experiencing car trouble decided to settle into a hotel for the night where they learn from the innkeepers that every equinox their community becomes an epicenter for all manner of evil supernatural things somehow related to a shipwreck on their shores. That night, the woman of this couple goes wandering outside only to discover the true horrors which await her in this community. Before long our unnamed main character falls into the clutches of the Third Reich’s monster and the witch he serves. As if that were not enough a mummy and a horse who is the embodiment of the devil also join in as well as the witch’s resurrected daughter. She finds herself running and screaming through a night of terror in a flimsy nightgown as she becomes the target of the town’s evil.

I can say one thing for sure, Devil Story has plenty going for it…..sorry…I mean plenty going ON. From a deformed Nazi to a mummy, a pirate ship and even a Satanic horse, there is little time for this flick to breathe as you are largely following the protagonist as she runs away screaming from a whole host of monsters looking to ruin her night. The immediate start of this movie follows the undead Hitler Heil-ing mutant on a killing spree set against dramatic music in a scene that starts before the opening credits and continues on even after they’re finished. Only after this do we finally meet the protagonists and the madness it kicked up to the Nth degree. It is like someone during production asked Bernard Launois “what horror element are you drawing influence from?” and his answer was “Yes”. It is too the point that he even chooses Toccata and Fugue in D, unironically at the reveal of the spooky hotel. Plot is sacrificed at the altar of trying to fit in as many genre tropes as a 76 minute movie can handle. It is an absolute mess of entertainment that has something anyone will enjoy. I personally giggle like a lunatic whenever the film cut away to the grouchy innkeeper recklessly firing his gun at the evil equine treating it like the Moby Dick to his Ahab.

Being a French film, I leave entirely up to you as to whether you prefer sub or dub when you decide to watch Devil Story. I will say the clumsy English translation we are subjected to only adds to the surrealness of this flick.