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Released by: Mondo Macabro
Released on: February 7th, 2023.
Director: Joël Séria
Cast: Jeanne Goupil, Catherine Wagener, Gerard Darrieu, Bernard Dheran, Michel Robin
Year: 1970
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Don’t Deliver Us From Evil – Movie Review:
Don't Deliver Us From Evil is a very loose adaptation of the notorious story of Pauline Parker and Juliet Hammond, the two murderous maids who also inspired Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (still arguably his best film… Hobbits and giant apes be damned). While there are some similarities between the two films, Joël Séria's take on the story, his feature film debut, is very different in tone, execution, and theme as it manages to bring a far more blasphemous interpretation of the events into play.
Anne (Jeanne Goupil) and her best friend Lore (Catherine Wagener) are two pretty but very mischievous girls enrolled in a Catholic school. These two entertain themselves by arousing the priest with phony confessions and exposing the nuns who, shall we say, indulge each other a little more than Brides of Christ are normally supposed to. The girls also really dig evil, in all its forms, and delight in the forbidden pleasures they find from reading erotic literature together under the covers in the convent, and in committing various sacrilegious deeds all the day long.
When school is let out and they head home for the summer, Anne's parents leave her alone for two months with only the groundskeeper to look after her. This allows Anne to spend as much time as she wants with Lore and with no one around to reel them in, they find themselves getting into a little bit of trouble here and there. The girls are also planning to realize their commitment to their dark lord in a sort of impromptu black mass ceremony that they organize to take place in the family chapel that's on Anne's family property - no one will ever know, it's not been used in twenty-five years.
It all starts to go south when the girls decide to tease the local cow herder, which results in Lore being sexually assaulted by him. They escape, but they don't learn their lesson and go so far as to murder the groundskeeper's pet birds and start fires around the countryside. Eventually, while out riding their bicycles, they come across a stranded motorist and take him back to Anne's house under the false pretense of wanting to help him, but what he doesn't realize is that these two girls have pledged their allegiance to Satan in a black ceremony only recently and are sworn to uphold his evil ways. There's no way it's going to end nicely… in fact, the ending is likely to stick with you for some time and you won't see this one coming.
Don't Deliver Us From Evil works really well thanks to the performances of Jeanne Goupil and Catherine Wagener who deliver their devilish dialogue with the utmost sincerity. When these girls utter their proclamations, you'll believe that they mean it which gives the movie a very eerie feeling - something just isn't right. Add to that the fact that although both girls were legal adults when the movie was made they look far too young to be as promiscuous as they are in the film and you've got yourself a seedy yet sophisticated film that rarely feels aged or campy as so many seventies Satanist movies tend to.
In addition to the performances, the movie also boasts some excellent cinematography and, to be blunt, it all just looks really good. The scene were Anne is in the church imagining the priest wearing nothing but his birthday suit is really well edited and the camera work during the scene where the two girls try to dump the priest into the swamp near the house is tense and claustrophobic, taking place in the thick of night but lit well enough so that we can see exactly what is going on.
Ultimately the film works not because of the sex and the violence (there really isn't that much of it in here, to be honest) but because of the way that it tackles its subject with style and intelligence. The movie makes us think a bit: did the girls travel the path they chose because they were predisposed to that type of behavior or was it rebellion against the Catholicism that was crammed down their throats? The girls state at one point in the film that their parents don't care about them and the interactions we see between the girls and their families show cold and uncaring relationships. With that in mind, and the girls left to their own devices by way of parental neglect, is it any wonder they turned out the way they did? Some of the sacrilegious dialogue and blasphemous imagery might put off a few viewers here and there and, in fact, it was this content that got the film into trouble when it first came out, but without it the movie would lose much of its impact - as it stands now it's a powerful and well-made film well worth seeking out.
Don’t Deliver Us From Evil – Blu-ray Review:
Don’t Deliver Us From Evil arrives on a region free 50GB disc and is taken from a brand new 4k restoration of the original 35mm negative. The AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer is framed at 1.66.1 with the feature using up 29.7GBs of space. Picture quality is very nice, the image is typically really clean, showing very little print damage while retaining the natural film grain you’d want it to. Detail improves considerably over the previous DVD edition, while colors look nice and natural throughout. Black levels are nice and deep but the image avoids crush, while skin tones appear nice and natural throughout. There’s good depth and texture to take in here as well.
The original French language option is offered up in a 16-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Mono track. Optional subtitles are provided in English only. Audio quality is fine. The levels are balanced properly throughout and there aren’t any problems with any hiss or distortion to note.
Extras start off with a new audio commentary by Kat Ellinger that discusses the transgressive elements of the film, how the film tends to defy genre, French genre cinema in general, the way that the movie deals with the sexuality of the two teenage girls in the movie, the themes of oppressive Catholicism and its effects on female sexual freedom, Joël Séria's career, details on the different cast and crew members that worked on the picture, where the movie borrows horror film elements like the ideas of Satanism and occult practices, where the movie dabbles in nunsploitation film elements, thoughts on key scenes in the movie and how they serve as catalysts for what comes later in the movie, how Séria's work compares to that of Jean Rollin, what the movie says about the effects of literature and lots more.
The disc also includes a new interview with writer/director Joël Séria. Here, over twenty-two minutes, he talks about getting his start by making short films before then going on to discuss moving into doing feature work, where he got the ideas for the movie from, his own issues with the church and how this shaped the characters in the movie, what it was like on set, casting the movie, dealing with censorship issues, how the film was received by critics, plans to make a sequel and why that never happened, seeing the film restored, other film projects he's worked on and more.
The interviews from the 2006 DVD release are also included here, starting with a chat with Séria, clocking in at roughly fifteen-minutes. He talks about some of the problems that the project ran into, the issues that the French censors had with the material, and where he came up with the idea for the movie in the first place. Séria tells us how this was his first feature film and manages to do a pretty good job of filling us in on the back story of this odd production.
From there we're treated to a talk with Jeanne Goupil for roughly twelve-minutes in which the woman who played Anne in the film talks about her work. She covers about her experiences on the set, how she feels about the film and the character that she played, and where her career went after the production was finished. She covers working with Catherine Wagener, how her own inexperience as an actress came into play, and what it was like on set.
The documentary entitled Hellish Creatures features Paul Buck (it runs for about twelve-minutes), a British crime expert, who fills us in on the real live events that inspired the film (as well as Heavenly Creatures). What we learn from this documentary is that the filmed version on this DVD is only marginally connected to the way things happened to Pauline Parker and Juliet Hammond in real life. Séria took many liberties with his adaptation of the story and Buck examines them pretty thoroughly here.
Finishing up the extra on the disc are a Mondo Macabro promo reel, menus and chapter selection options.
Don’t Deliver Us From Evil - The Final Word:
Don't Deliver Us From Evil is an atmospheric and intelligent film that works really well thanks to some solid cinematography and excellent lead performances. Mondo Macabro continues their tradition of excellence with this new Blu-ray edition, presenting the film in a great transfer and with a nice selection of extras both old and new.
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized Don’t Deliver Us From Evil Blu-ray screen caps!
