Don't Deliver Us From Evil (1971)

[chainsaw midget]

I've heard about this movie so time back as having quite the reputation but have only just recently watched it and was wondering if anybody else here had ever gotten around to it and what are your thoughts.


The first thing I have to say is that it's in French.  I don't know why it's in French.  Do you know what kind of people speak French?  French People!  What did they ever do to deserve their own movie?

Getting past the language, the movie isn't really horror, or drama, it feels very slow and dreamy with an almost slice-of-life storyline.  The two leads play young teenage Catholic schoolgirls that decided to dedicate themselves to Satan and perform an increasingly disturbing series of crimes.  Yet despite setting fires to people property, performing black mass, killing people's pets, and other such activities, they're always presented in a cheerful almost innocent manner.  It makes the whole thing feel slightly unnerving, more so than if they had been shown as blatantly evil. 

The movie originally got an X-rating for depictions of adolescent crime and sexuality, and was marketed as "The French Film that Was Banned in France!" 

It's also somewhat based on the same true crime that Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures was based on.  I haven't seen that one either, but now I want to just to compare.   

[RCMerchant]

^ I've always been curious about it, if only for the cool title.