Blog Monster Movie Monday: Devil Times Five

Devil Times Five (1974)

Starring: Sorrell Brooke, Gene Evans, Taylor Lacher, Joan McCall, and Leif Garrett
Directed by: Sean MacGregor
Written by: Sandra Lee Blowitz and John Durren
Production Company: Barrister Productions Inc.

Sometimes I rent horror movies and don’t expect much. I rent them for various reasons: an actor or actress that I like is in it, there’s reports of gratuitous nudity, there’s something peculiar in the plot description, or simply because someone has recommended it. I always check reviews before I make the final decision to rent something and the majority of reviews had the same thing to say about Devil Times Five…”Slow”. Most comments I found about the movie was that it ends well, but it’s slow starting…so I wasn’t expecting much. Sometimes I’m wrong.

I’m not sure from where the description of the movie being slow to start comes. Three couples have gone on vacation at a winter resort. These couples make up to usual victims we’ve come to expect: an obnoxious father with delusions of grandeur and his trampy wife, his daughter and her not-good-enough boyfriend, and the milquetoast employee and his alcoholic, nagging wife. Throw in a mentally retarded handyman and we’re ready for the killing to begin.

The killers are five children who find the opportunity to escape and go on their killing spree when the truck driving them to a psychiatric hospital losses control and crashes. The children locate the mountain home and break in. But they know they can’t relax because they know they are being followed. The doctor driving them awoke and has been following them. He’s their first victim as he follows them down into the basement where they are waiting for him. Their first murder is nothing more than a mob beating as all five, with various implements such as a pitchfork, a hammer, a chain, and a sledgehammer, surround him and beat him to death. It’s a very brutal scene shunning the traditional gore in favor of a slow motion depiction. It is an effective choice as we cringe with each swing, knowing where it’s hitting and how painful it would be.

Then comes what several others seem to consider the “slow part”. First, we get some character development that, I feel, this movie really needed. Papa Doc, played by Gene Evans, is an egotistical, controlling man and his wife, Lovely, played by Carolyn Stellar, is a manipulative slut-bitch. These are the characters, along with Ruth Beckman, played by Shelley Morrison, that most horror movies have: The characters you want to see killed. Ruth, though, is a well-rounded character with whom we become sympathetic by the time of her death. We grow to feel sorry for her the same way we felt sorry for her husband, Harvey Beckman, for being mistreated by Papa Doc and for his death at the hands of one of the children he had been very nice to. Harvey’s death shortly after he finally gets up the nerve to stand up to Papa Doc makes his death all the more tragic. Rick and Julie, played by Taylor Lacher and Joan McCall, on the other hand, are our heroes. They stand up to Papa Doc from the beginning. Rick resists Lovely’s advances and Julie fights her in defense of her man.

Then the killing begins. The murders aren’t very graphic, but interesting. The murder highlight is the use of Papa Doc’s piranha.

Interestingly, while Devil Times Five does contain a couple of scenes with brief nudity, it’s actually not gratuitous and you could almost miss it if you’re not paying attention. The catfight scene between Julie and Lovely ends with Lovely’s robe slightly open revealing her breasts, and Lovely’s murder scene takes place in a bathtub, but we don’t get the flaunting breasts that most movies would provide.

I’m not going to say the acting was great, but it was certainly good enough. A well-written script helped the actors. It’s a movie I wouldn’t mind seeing remade, although I think it’s be interesting to see the movie take on a mysterious tone. There was little in the way of actual horror tension. There was little use of atmosphere or mystery, and it’s generally non-gory murders makes it a horror oddity, although, again, a good one worth seeing. But I wouldn’t mind seeing a remake where the children’s being the killers isn’t broadcast. So, you’d have to change the name, but Devil Times Five already has more the one name. It was also known as People Toys, alluding to the final scene, which provides one of the few creepy moments of the film, and The Horrible House on the Hill.

Not gory, not scary, not really shocking, and still an entertaining horror movie. They don’t make them like that anymore. It's worth a viewing.