THE DEVONSVILLE TERROR

A pre-credits prologue offers a glimpse of the small religious town of Devonsville, 300 years ago. Specifically, the date is 7th November 1683 and the witch finders are in town.

The torch-bearing locals cheer as a group of nubile women are accused of witchery. One is tied to a wagon wheel. When she refuses to confess to being a witch, the wheel is set alight and rolled down a hill with her on it (as seen on the DVD's front cover). Another, accused of killing her own child, is tied to the ground and fed to boars. And the fanatics continue to cheer (well, there was no television in those days).

But then it's the turn of a blonde temptress, callously burned at the stake. As she fries, a huge electric storm grows and her flayed visage floats in the sky cackling "damn you all".

Fast-forward to the present day (well, 1983) and we witness a community still deeply religious, and still all-too aware of their dark ancestry. The younger members of the small town are unsurprisingly more sceptical about the supposed curse hovering over their flock. But all that is about to change.

The catalyst is chubby bespectacled creep Walter (Paul Willson), who is the first to be visited by the blonde witch's apparition when he smothers his ill wife with a pillow. His behaviour becomes increasingly odd from hereon in.

Although in fairness, everyone in Devonsville is a tad peculiar. As Jenny (Suzanna Love) discovers, when she arrives in town as the new school teacher. First there's Ralph (Michael Accardo), a randy dandy who gives her a lift into town but later terrorises a local DJ. Then there's Matthew (Robert Walker Jr) who's friendly enough but looks older than his own father.

And let's not forget Dr Warley (Donald Pleasance). He's an ancestor of a certain instrumental family from 300 years ago, and from his great-great-grandfather's diary he's discovered that his family suffer from a curse of their own: being eaten alive by worms!

The worms have already started work on his arm (it doesn't stop him practising as a doctor though!) and he's deduced that the only way to reverse the curse is to clear the names of the women branded as witches three centuries earlier. So he's understandably obsessed with doing so. Matthew offers to help him, and begins by flogging Warley witchy memorabilia that he's pilfered from his mother's loft.

In the meantime, Walter has a vision of a topless Jenny and takes this as his cue to pop in on her and serenade her with his violin (!), while life in Devonsville plods along with each character - Ralph, Warley, creepy schoolgirl Angel (Angelica Rebane) - becoming progressively stranger.

But that's just the calm before the storm, as the curse starts to unfold big-time and before long the present day is mirroring the brutalities of Devonsville 300 years ago …

Surprisingly atmospheric for it's economic production values, THE DEVONSVILLE TERROR is an unassuming horror-thriller in the Stephen King mould that gets good mileage out of it's quirky characters and near-Hittite god-fearing isolation (DEADLY BLESSING also came to mind at times).

Performances are generally solid, with only Pleasance seeming a little too tired to give it his all. Love in particular is much more confident on screen here than she was in director/husband Ulli Lommel's earlier THE BOOGEYMAN.

Speaking of THE BOOGEYMAN, THE DEVONSVILLE TERROR has a very similar visual look and Roy Colcord's synth score is extremely reminiscent of the former too. Even the theme of mirrors as containers of former evils is briefly revisited. The on thing TERROR doesn't match THE BOOGEYMAN on is bloodletting (save for a couple of brief gore FX during the finale) - this is an altogether more Gothic-flavoured affair, striving - and sometimes managing - to evoke classic Hammer and even THE WICKER MAN. Either way, it builds to a genuinely delirious climax.

THE DEVONSVILLE TERROR may drag at times and does have serious script flaws (some of the dialogue is woeful; some scenes exist purely to exploit what resources were at hand at the time - the violin episode, for example). But overall it's a more accomplished and ambient film than THE BOOGEYMAN and, had it been treated better on DVD in the past, I'd say this could've attained a respectable cult following of it's own.

As it happens, the film's been treated like shit over the years with limited releases … and when someone did release it (Anchor Bay released an R1 double bill of this and THE BOOGEYMAN several years ago) the quality was appalling. Sadly, there's no change here.

The non-anamorphic 1.78:1 transfer presented here is simply horrible. Recalling really poor pre-certificate video, this transfer is overly dark and unbelievably soft. Colours bleed and grain flickers as the viewer literally struggles at times to see what's going on.

The English 2.0 audio is little better, with a muffled claustrophobia unfortunately preventing it from ever being problem-free.

There are no extras on the screener disc provided, nor a scene-selection menu (the film does have 11 chapters though). In fact, the promo disc viewed didn't even have a main menu page - the disc went straight into playing the main feature.

Terrible video quality, lacklustre audio performance and a general all-round lack of effort make this a DVD to avoid. Which is a pity, as the film itself is pretty good.

Review by Stuart Willis