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The story follows five characters, their leader the Duke de Richeau, is pretty much Christopher Lee. Seriously. Take Christopher Lee, the most bad-ass Renaissance man alive and just call him de Richeau. Being that Wheatley wrote the character in the 1930’s we can assume that one of the following happened: A) Wheatley had access to a crystal ball and modeled the Duke after the future Lee, B) The universe was so impressed with what a bad-ass the fictional Duke was that it immediately aligned the stars to make a then 11 year old Lee into the Duke, or C) A young Christoper Lee read the about the Duke and said, “Holy shit, I’m going to be this guy,” and promptly succeeded at it. Given what I know about Christopher Lee and of Wheatley’s extremely thorough research into the occult, all of these are equally possible. In fact, Christoper Lee enjoyed the novel so much that he played Duke de Richeau in the 1968 film version when he was finally old enough to play himself. Clearly, the risk of the Sussamma Ritual was very real indeed, and in speaking it de Richleau has torn apart the fabric of space and time. Upon waking, the protagonists wonder if they have experienced some kind of shared dream. The implication seems to be that, during their pursuit of Mocata across Europe, the five main characters were, in fact, astrally projected versions of themselves. Fortunately, they succeeded and were successfully returned to their physical bodies. For Simon is the key to an evil ritual, and Mocata will never let him go. And the duke must convince his friends that magic is real.
Osiris’ wife, Isis, managed to find thirteen of those parts and successfully restored Osiris to eternal life. The missing fourteenth part? Osiris’ phallus. Yep. That’s what Mocata is searching for – an Egyptian God’s penis! Racism and awkwardness aside, I thoroughly enjoyed The Devil Rides Out. I even used some of it in my Call of Cthulhu games. I recommend it for anyone that enjoys classic horror or might be interested in something a bit different than the standard tropes we find in today’s Horror and Urban Fantasy stories.
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Casting began in 1967 and Christopher Lee did not want to take the role of Mocata: ‘I told Hammer, ‘Look, enough of the villainy for the time being, let us try something different and let me be on the side of the angels for once.’
for Light typifies Health and Wisdom, Growth and Life; while Darkness means Disease and Ignorance, Decay and Death. The Devil Rides Out, Chapter III, The Esoteric Doctrine After successfully defending themselves through the night the group find that Mocata has kidnapped the Eatons’ daughter. Simon exchanges himself for her. Mocata is using Simon to find the Talisman of Set, a powerful satanic object. The book culminates in a desperate chase across Europe to an abandoned Greek Monastery where Mocata is defeated. The group wake up in the Eatons’ home and realise that during the ceremony they entered the fourth dimension. Mocata is found dead outside the house. The Duc wakes up clutching the Talisman and destroys it. Tanith is found to be alive - Mocata’s soul has been exchanged for hers. Wheatley’s Sabbat of saturnalian depravity appears onscreen as little more than a rave, its participants remaining clothed at all times and doing little more than eating and drinking. (Although, admittedly, some of them are drinking the blood of a sacrificial goat – and animal which, funnily enough, does not appear in the novel.) Bernard starts the opening credits of The Devil Rides Out, with a five-note refrain, that builds to a crescendo, itself repeating five times. Like the score for Dracula (1958), the five notes spell out the title of the film in musical syllables. His score retains a sense of threat, with an almost constant rumble of drums and an eerie string section. Bernard was so proud of the score, that he requested some of it be played at his funeral. The film adaptation is one of Hammer’s best movies. It’s my personal favorite Hammer film but I probably can’t separate the love I had for the book since I secretly read it at seven. Although Wheatley was also pleased with it and Christopher Lee said in interviews that it was one of his favorite onscreen performances. That could be because he was the anti-villain rather than the villain. The Devil Rides Out was directed by the legendary Terence Fisher, who made The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula(1958), The Hound of the Baskervilles(1959) and The Mummy.Dooku: I was curious to see that the 1968 film was made so close to the original text, describing as it does the paganist ceremonies. I do not propose to discuss with you the rights and wrongs of practising the magic art. I will confine myself to saying that I am a practitioner of some experience. Mocata, modest as ever One of the reasons ‘The Devil Rides’ was not adapted for screen for more than 30 years was because of how taboo the subject matter of Devil worship was in England in all that time. Even by the film’s release in 1968, certain elements of the story were still considered controversial and either omitted or substantially toned down. Two weeks before his death in November 1977, Wheatley received conditional absolution from his old friend Cyril ‘Bobby’ Eastaugh, the Bishop of Peterborough.
On a scholarly note, the book is also a good way for a materialistic person to contemplate on the works of great writers of Theology & Philosophy. Although I myself am very much a reader of the fantastic, I realized through the 'The Devil Rides Out' that there were many works I still needed to get my hands on & read. The information in the book is a guaranteeing antidote to a person who likes a bit of mind work in his fiction. Dennis Wheatley's hero the Duke de Richleau might represent England, Queen and country, with his stiff upper lip, and celebration of the British Empire, but his knowledge of Eastern magic seems impressive. He explains: Birkenhead, 1973. The eighteen-year-old Paul O'Grady gets ready for a big Saturday night out on the town. New white T-shirt, freshly ironed jeans, looking good. As he bids farewell to his mum, who's on the phone to his auntie, and wanders off down the street in a cloud of aftershave, he hears her familiar cry: 'Oh, the devil rides out tonight, Annie. The devil rides out!' Hammer’s special effects budget was so low that they used an asthmatic horse with one lung, to carry the Angel of Death. Lee often spoke of how he would like to remake the film, using modern technology. Christopher Lee as the Duke de Richleau — an utterly inspired piece of casting. It seems that Wheatley and Lee knew each other well, that Lee shared Wheatley’s interest in the Occult and that Wheatley had pressed for Lee to be cast in the role of the duke. Lee himself was not keen on playing the Mocata role, it seems: “I told Hammer, ‘Look, enough of the villainy for the time being, let us try something different and let me be on the side of the angels for once.'” Casting Charles Gray — smooth, suave, debonair — as Mocata was also an excellent decision, a deliberate move away from the repulsive Mocata of the book. The oddest piece of casting is perhaps that of the opera singer Leon Greene as Rex; he has the chiselled good looks and the action-man physique but it was decided that his voice needed to be dubbed.Fisher’s outlook in The Curse of Frankenstein and his subsequent films draws heavily on conservative Christian themes. Fisher believed that life was fundamentally about Good versus Evil, which he described as a truism and he attempted to underline this conflict in every film. His heroes are often sexless or pure, as opposed to his villains who are ruled by their baser desires. Although Fisher attempts to show the lure of villainy, in the end, innocence is rewarded and good always triumphs. This ethos gels perfectly with Wheatley’s Manichaeism, which also divides the world into a struggle between spiritual light and material darkness. The Devil Rides Out, therefore, punishes the sins of the flesh and rewards the pure of heart, both symbolically and through its characters. Terence Fisher and Christoper Lee on the set of The Devil Rides Out This was the first time I came across a book by Dennis Wheatley & I am glad to say i was not disappointed.
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