It’s been more than five decades since The Devils first premiered in British cinemas but you won’t find Ken Russell’s controversial 1971 masterpiece on Netflix, Amazon Prime or Disney+.
Despite critical reassessment and a passionate cult following, the film remains unavailable for most audiences – largely due to the very controversy that made it famous.
Starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave, The Devils is a brutal, hallucinatory psychological horror-drama based on true events in 17th-century France. The film tells the story of Urbain Grandier, a Roman Catholic priest accused of witchcraft during a series of alleged demonic possessions in the town of Loudun. As the trial unfolds, it becomes clear that the true forces at work are sexual repression, religious hysteria, and political ambition.
Adapted partly from Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun and John Whiting’s stage play, the film was originally pitched by United Artists – who quickly backed out after reading the screenplay. Warner Bros. stepped in, but even they struggled with the finished product.
Russell’s vision included unflinching depictions of religious ecstasy, sadistic torture, and mass hysteria, all staged with operatic intensity. The infamous “R*pe of Christ” sequence, featuring naked nuns in a state of violent religious frenzy, became the main point for its reputation – and its censorship.
Upon release, The Devils was met with an X rating in both the UK and the US, and was outright banned in several countries. Even in Britain, despite approval from the British Board of Film Censors, 17 local councils refused to screen it.
Warner Bros. removed key scenes – including the entire “R*pe of Christ” sequence – for the U.S. version, leading Russell to call the American release “disjointed and incomprehensible.”
Still, the film received critical attention, winning Best Director at the Venice Film Festival and accolades from the U.S. National Board of Review.
Reed, defending the film’s raw brutality, told the Chicago Tribune in 1971: “We never set out to make a pretty Christian film. Charlton Heston made enough of those. The film is about twisted people.”
Director Ken Russell later reflected – in his 1973 biography – that much of the controversy stemmed from discomfort with the film’s combination of sex, violence, and religion: “The Devils is a harsh film – but it’s a harsh subject. I wish the people who were horrified and appalled by it would have read the book, because the bare facts are far more horrible than anything in the film”.
In 2002, a near-complete director’s cut was screened in London for the first time, but efforts to release this uncut version on DVD or digital platforms were quietly blocked by Warner Bros., who still hold the rights. According to Kermode, the studio rejected offers from respected distributors like The Criterion Collection, calling parts of the film “distasteful.”
Although edited versions have appeared on physical media in the past, the full, uncensored version has never been released officially on Blu-ray or streaming.
Yet film scholars and horror aficionados continue to champion it. With a Rotten Tomatoes critics score of 78% and an IMDb rating of 7.7, The Devils has undergone a slow but steady reappraisal.
In 2015, Time Out named it one of the 50 most controversial movies in history, and it consistently appears on lists of the most banned or censored films ever made.