The Devil's Men (1977)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A Masterpiece!

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The acting in this movie is really good.

I love the classic horror films like this one... they didn't have to show lots of blood and guts on screen back then, people were smart knew what was going on even if not shown directly on camera (this is when several things happened off camera was indirectly shown).We have Peter Cushing vs. Donald Pleasence -- two great actors in a good film, it's hard to get better than this! I'll admit that even if Cushing and Pleasence was not in this film I would have enjoyed it but to watch both of them in this film was a great treat - they were the icing on the cake! The film is about a satanic cult, they worship a Minotaur God, lead by Peter Cushing! It's strange to see Cushing as the "bad guy" he usually played the "good guy" in films - so that's another treat to watching this film. Donald Pleasence is the priest out to fight the evil when he learns about people missing in the area and about the cult itself.Great classic film! Lots of Gothic imagery with an interesting story and a good cast (not just Peter and Donald).8.5/10

A little-seen, little-known 1976 horror chiller boasting the tag-team pairing of big time horror stars, Donald Pleasence and Peter Cushing. With such a strong central casting (Pleasence symbolising good, Cushing evil) you would imagine that LAND OF THE MINOTAUR would be a lot more popular than it currently is (i.e. all but forgotten). On watching the movie the reasons become clear: it was shot in Greece, which, although picturesque, automatically gives the (already low budget) movie a rough, unpolished look, making it unpopular with critics at the time who universally panned it on release.In fact the movie is more interesting than its reputation would have you believe. Once you get over the endless scenes of characters walking around uninteresting locations with little purpose – a flaw which also surfaced in the similarly-themed INCENSE FOR THE DAMNED, made in 1970 and another British/Greek production – LAND OF THE MINOTAUR does actually have quite a lot of suspenseful sequences and a strong atmosphere here and there. The film itself is bolstered by heavy, oppressive music, all discordant chords and pretty unsettling with it. The sacrificial scenes taking place at the shrine of the minotaur – an elaborate and shadowy set, the centrepiece of which is a huge, strong, fire-breathing statue of the minotaur, an impressive sight – are expertly shot and pretty gruesome for the period, with bloody stabbings and solemn chanting.The film begins with such a scene, presided over by the gaunt figure of Peter Cushing, here resplendent in a gaudy red robe and hood. Cushing plays his character, Baron Corofax, with a steely determination. In his normal, everyday guise, Corofax is a polite and friendly character, if a little cold. But as soon as he gets on his robe he becomes a messenger of evil, chanting praise to the dark forces and with a glitter of evil in his eye. Cushing is typically excellent in the part but even so the role isn't much of a stretch for him, and indeed he is given little material to work with. All the script requires is that he stands around looking imposing, either in his costume or when wielding a shotgun, but with an actor of Cushing's calibre I would expect a lot more.After a young couple are sacrificed at the minotaur shrine, we're introduced to the nervous Irish priest, Father Roche, as played by Donald Pleasence in one of his rare earlier-than-HALLOWEEN turns as the good guy. Roche believes that a devil-worshipping cult are operating in the area, but the local police force (as represented by Fernando Bislani's Sergeant Vendris) are having none of it and refuse to investigate. This later makes sense when Vendris, along with most of the inhabitants of the village, turns out to be a devil-worshipper himself. A trio of hippies in a camper van arrive in the area to do some archaeology (?) and, despite mutterings and warnings from Father Roche, go on to stay near the Baron's castle. Unsurprisingly they are soon missing, so Roche calls in his old American friend Milo Kaye (Costas Skouras), a brash private investigator, to help. The pair are joined by Laurie Gordon (Luan Peters), the girlfriend of one of the missing hippies, and the newly-formed trio use the local inn as their base of operations as they search for the missing youngsters.Unfortunately after such extensive plot set-up, the film doesn't really progress anywhere after the first half other than to build the shocks and scares with lots of scenes of robed figures lurking around in the woods at night. Director Costas Karagiannis shamelessly shows his exploitation roots by shooting nearly all of his female cast members in the nude at some point, the most effective moment being when Laurie's bath is interrupted by some hooded guys lurking outside the window. Pleasence and Skouras spend most of their scenes wandering around in the dark and after far too long a time, Peters is kidnapped and the full moon rises, setting the climax in motion. The middle part of the film is enlivened by some excellent location shooting (making full use of a genuine ruined temple) and plenty of humour, both intentional and otherwise, from Pleasence. With an Irish accent that frequently appears and disappears and a typically emotive performance, Pleasence is without a doubt one of the film's strongest features.Said climax is rushed and poorly-edited, but nonetheless entertaining. It shows Pleasence entering the shrine of the minotaur and showering the devil-worshippers with a handy vial of holy water he has been carrying throughout the movie. This causes the bad guys to inexplicably explode with the aid of some ultra-cheap and cheerful special effects work. This climax recalls the unconventional ending of the previous year's THE DEVIL'S RAIN, and maybe the distributors thought so too when re-titling the movie for English-language release. And if that wasn't cheesy enough, somebody thought it was to have a dated pop song play over the closing credits! LAND OF THE MINOTAUR can hardly be called a classic but it remains enjoyable enough for the sympathetic viewer, and of course Pleasence and Cushing are always entertaining. It's a shame that the supporting cast are all pretty awful in their parts (with Costas Skouras totally unconvincing as the American; hmm, is that a hair-piece you're wearing by any chance Costas?) and the plot loses focus through the middle section, but nonetheless dedicated fans may get a kick out of this one.

Considering I got this film in a collection of 35 other films, I have to say it was not too bad. In fact, it was an interesting watch. Could have been better as I think they should have just did a full on R movie instead of a PG film; however, seeing two great horror icons battle each other made it a somewhat fun watch. It was slow for a couple of stretches and as I said it would have been more cool had there been some nudity and better kills, but overall for a film I got on the cheap it was not all bad.The story has a group of friends going to a place where two others recently went missing. A priest warns them not to go, but they do not heed his warning and soon end up going missing themselves. I was a bit surprised at this as they show a couple being sacrificed during the opening scene, so I figured this group of three we are introduced to are the protagonists of the tale. After they vanish, the priest (Donald Pleasence) calls an American and he also teams up with a girl who is looking for her boyfriend who was one of the ones who vanished. The town, though, seems to be harboring a terrible secret and a crazed woman seems to want to tell the two men what is going on and for reasons unknown the priest declines to take her up on her offer to learn the plot right away and would rather wait until later. A strange Baron seems to be in control of everything and during the night figures in black robes seem to stalk the group as they try to find out what is going on.Not perfect by any means as there were a lot of things that made little sense like Donald's character refusal to see the person that seemed to have answers. His character seemed to have a lot of angry outbursts for the good guy too. I also did not see why he called the one guy. Sure he was a detective, but they never really explained the two's relationship. Apparently, he may have lived in that town, but if so he did not seem to have a clue what was going on making him useless for anything but beating down a cop. Still, Peter Cushing was excellent as the sinister, but polite Baron and Donald Pleasence as the priest was good too. Seems he is either a villain who wears outlandish outfits, Dr. Loomis or a priest when he is in a film. An easy enough film to watch for their performance, so while not really good this film is also not really bad either.

Granted this was a good movie if you wanted to see a flick about cultists kidnapping and sacrificing folks. But it's pretty misleading.I'll never forget seeing it as a kid, I was so disappointed waiting for the 'monster' to show and finding out there was only a statue.That's it.. just a statue. No, not a possessed statue, not a supernatural statue, not even a moving statue. (unless you count when it was raised out of the ground mechanically) Just a statue.The poster was truly misleading on this one.Anyway, it's a nice setting and not a bad tale, worth a rent as long as you're not expecting a 'monster'.