The Devils

The Devils (1971) is Ken Russell's incendiary historical horror — watch online on iFILM, with Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed in performances that still unsettle half a century later.

The story is set in the walled French city of Loudun during the 1630s. Priest Urbain Grandier runs the city and refuses to bend to Cardinal Richelieu's orders to demolish its walls. A convent's hunchbacked Mother Superior, consumed by a delusion she can't contain, accuses him of witchcraft and possession. That accusation is exactly what Richelieu and his enforcers have been waiting for.

Russell drew from Aldous Huxley's historical account The Devils of Loudun and John Whiting's stage adaptation. The film was cut, banned, and suppressed in multiple countries; the full uncut version has rarely been seen in public. It's not an easy watch — the baroque excess is deliberate, the horror political as much as visceral. A film about how institutions weaponise hysteria. Stream The Devils (1971) on iFILM.