A deformed Quasimodo type in a tattered military uniform stalks the French countryside, slaughtering any poor soul who gets in his way. A young couple’s car breaks down dangerously close to the mutant and, after an inexplicable hallucinatory experience, the wife convinces her husband that it would be in there best interest to vacate the premises. By nightfall they find shelter from a raging storm in a suspicious gothic manor. The inhabitants, an old husband and wife, are equally strange and attempt to put the perturbed guests at ease by explaining the monster’s existence. The story is as unbelievable as it is fascinating. Supposedly, a few centuries ago, an English ship returning home from India was carrying some very strange cargo from a stop in Egypt. A ghastly storm took the crew by surprise and conditions being as they were, the ship crashed into a nearby cliff. No one knows what exactly happened to the cargo, but the ship’s descendants are said to be cursed. Not surprisingly, the monster and his mother are descendants of the ill fated ship’s crew, and legend has it that great catastrophes will seize the countryside on the equinox, the same time the fated ship crashed.

One of European horror cinema’s most unapologetically perplexing and slap-dash efforts, DEVIL STORY entertains nonetheless. Packed into this Eurocine film’s scant 75 minute running time are more plot contrivances, gory murders, and unsavory shenanigans than a handful of Franco films. Perhaps this is so simply because of the time frame the film finds itself in. Filmed in 1986, the film shares many traits of similar genre efforts of the time, being self-conscious and calculatedly overwrought. It could also be a real possibility that director Bernard Launois felt an obligation to live up to the famously eccentric excesses of past Eurocine´ efforts such as VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD. Or maybe Launois was inspired by the US’ equivalent genre studio, Troma, and that company’s insistence to release contrived, self-serving b movies. In fact, the monster in the film bears quite a resemblance to that company’s mascot, Toxie. Whatever the case, DEVIL STORY is a stunner. The first quarter-hour of the film is nothing more than a spectator’s sport of gore sightseeing. The unnamed monster shambles about the countryside splashily slaughtering his victims. The plentiful opened arteries squirt like super-soakers, strongly recalling the vivacious bloodletting of the LONE WOLF AND CUB series.

But once we first steal a glimpse at the mansion (and its inhabitants) things take a turn for the surreal. The film’s self-conscious angle is no more apparent than here, where the proverbial "dark, stormy night" is punctuated with Bach’s most famous organ work. The film’s strangest (and lengthiest) sequence also occurs during the couple’s stay at the mansion. This sequence, concerning the monster’s burial of his sister, is an astonishingly contrived, puzzling and bizarre piece of filmmaking. What begins as a midnight burial concludes with the ghost ship emerging from the jagged rocks, a mummy breaking from its sarcophagus, and the dead rising from their graves. While even these occurrences may seem somewhat acceptable, it’s the way in which they are presented that lends the film its essential absurdity. The film appears to have been edited with a hacksaw, as it skips inadvertently between these seemingly unrelated vignettes. But the disparate elements (the ghost ship, the mummies) do meet halfway, as the mummy resurrects the monster’s sister, creating another horror standby, the zombie. By far the strangest indulgence Launois allows himself is the long cutaways to the mansion owner’s never-ending mission to hunt and kill the monster’s horse. This mundane hunting sequence occurs again and again throughout the film, often for no apparent reason! It’s also a truly surreal sequence because of the maddening contrivances: why, for example, can’t he kill the darned thing, since the horse is rarely more than ten feet away from his shotgun? Most head-scratchingly mysterious of all, however, is when he attempts to clunk it over the head with his shotgun, which is fully loaded! These scenes are played straight-faced, and it is indeed difficult to discern Launois intentions: is he being humorous, or is he hinting at some overly nebulous concept? Most perplexing of all, however, is how the heroine dispatches of the monster. She coats him in gasoline and sets him ablaze. This may sound logical, but she soon remembers that she needed that very gas for her car in order to escape!

Hopefully the viewer will catch on early enough that to try to scrutinize the film makes as much sense as riding a bike without a seat. If they don’t, they will be ill equipped for the bewildering conclusion, which practically undermines the entire film! DEVIL STORY certainly isn’t for everyone (even some genre enthusiasts) because of its screwy, disorienting logic, but for some truly adventurous viewers, it will prove a truly nutty ride.