1970s Cult Horror Classic Being Forgotten Thanks To Streaming
Classic Euro-horror films are starting to make their way onto these services, but the absence of cult film The Devil’s Nightmare (1972) is one that should be rectified immediately lest it be forgotten altogether.
The abundance of streaming services has helped pull countless horror and science fiction films from the abyss of obscurity and put them onto the radar of a new generation of fans.
But as expansive as these platforms have become, the fading physical media industry has made it all the more important for these services to grow large enough to accommodate those films that haven’t been able to make the digital leap.
The Devil’s Nightmare
On the surface, The Devil’s Nightmare lends itself to being a typical Italian horror film, wrought with gory death scenes, gratuitous nudity, and an overwhelming sense of doom.
A cursed family is doomed to have a succubus born into it every generation after its patriarch made a pact with Satan generations ago in exchange for wealth and power.
After a group of seven tourists are stranded, the Devil-in-disguise directs them to lodgings at the aforementioned family castle.
Tourists And Painful Deaths
The tourists are welcomed by the Baron, who shares his family curse with the group. Though he denied ever having a daughter, a mysterious woman named Lisa arrives and appears to have the powers of a succubus.
As The Devil’s Nightmare continues, Lisa manages to inflict painful deaths on the tourists one by one.
The Seven Deadly Sins
On a deeper level, The Devil’s Nightmare is largely symbolic of the Seven Deadly Sins. The seven stranded tourists each represent a single sin, sloth, gluttony, lust, etc., and are killed in a manner befitting to the sin that they represent.
A woman having an extramarital affair dies after the act inside an iron maiden, a glutton gorges himself on food and wine until he dies from a heart attack, a poisonous snake bites and kills a slothful woman while she sleeps. . .deaths that continue until there is one man standing in a face-off between his faith and the Devil himself.
Perfect Late-Night Watch
The screenplay provided a great baseline for a riveting plotline. While the acting wasn’t anything remarkable, the brilliant shots of Satan in the distance and the cinematography surrounding each death scene are particularly noteworthy.
The Devil’s Nightmare is the perfect late-night watch for fans of Euro-gore and its twist ending is one that helps cement the gloomy hopelessness that these films are masterful at invoking.
Chills And Creative Storyline
The chills that The Devil’s Nightmare provides and its creative storyline are its most redeeming qualities.
While there are other gore films from that era that offer audiences more blood and guts, this film is a little less low-brow and successfully holds your interest well beyond the kill scenes and the sex.
One might even argue that not until the 1995 film Seven (Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey) has a film captured these particular sins in such a dark light.
No Streaming The Devil’s Nightmare
REVIEW SCORE
Sadly, The Devil’s Nightmare isn’t available to stream on any online platform and is not featured On Demand at this time. With a bit of luck, you can secure an out-of-print DVD or Blu-Ray of the film without spending too much out of pocket.
The 2019 Blu-Ray edition was a 2K restoration and has the two English-version trailers included.
