Film

The Devil Rides Out

Hammer horror at its most stately and confident: Christopher Lee, cast against type as the hero, leads a small circle of friends against a charming Satanist bent on claiming a young man's soul. Terence Fisher directs with ritual solemnity—chalk pentacles, incantations, a genuinely eerie Angel of Death—delivering dread through conviction and craft rather than gore. For fans of old-school British horror who like their devil-worship formal, well-spoken, and deadly serious.

TMDb rating6.6

If you liked this

Rosemary's Baby1968

Same year, same terror of a devil-worshipping cabal hiding behind polite society, but turned inward—paranoia replaces pentacles. Mia Farrow's performance is one of horror's great quiet unravelings.

But Glacially slow by design, and the horror is all suggestion and dread rather than spectacle—expect no thundering hooves.

Rosemary's Baby poster

Night of the Demon1957

The film fans of this kind of story point to first: a rationalist skeptic squares off against a cult leader with real black-magic powers, decades before Fisher's film, with the same tension between science and the supernatural.

But The famous demon reveal was forced on the director by the studio and still divides audiences—some call it a masterstroke, others a mistake.

Night of the Demon poster

The Wicker Man1973

Christopher Lee again, gleefully leading a very different congregation. British folk horror at its sun-drenched, unsettling best, with a finale that still lands hard.

But No pentacles or Latin incantations here—it swaps gothic dread for folk-song creepiness, which is a real tonal shift.

The Wicker Man poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Häxan1922

Same fascination with rendering devil worship and black magic as visual set-piece, decades before a chalk pentacle stood in for centuries of imagined ritual.

A century before Hammer, this Swedish silent essay-film stages witch trials, black masses and devil worship with the same appetite for ritual spectacle—torture chambers, cauldrons, a genuinely unsettling Satan.

But Silent, intertitled, and structured like a lecture illustrated with dramatized scenes rather than a conventional story—patience required.

Häxan poster
More like this (7)

To the Devil a Daughter1976no page yet

Christopher Lee returns to Dennis Wheatley territory, this time playing the villain—a defrocked priest running a satanic cult—for Hammer's last real stab at big-budget occult horror.

But Wheatley reportedly hated the finished film, and its rushed, incoherent ending shows; a lesser cousin to its source material.

Witchfinder General1968

Same year, same England, but the devil here is entirely human: Vincent Price's witch-hunter is a portrait of real historical cruelty dressed up as righteousness.

But This is grim, unglamorous violence with none of the ritual pageantry or eventual triumph of good—a much bleaker watch.

Witchfinder General poster

The Exorcist1973

The genre's towering achievement in convincing you evil is real and specific, told with a seriousness and craft that turned demonic possession into an Oscar-nominated drama.

But Its reputation for terror is earned—this is a far more visceral, distressing experience than Fisher's stately British chiller.

The Exorcist poster

The Omen1976

Satanic conspiracy goes mainstream and international, with Gregory Peck investigating a prophecy instead of casting spells, and a body count that made it a huge commercial hit.

But It trades ritual magic and pentacles for creeping dread and elaborate 'accidental' deaths—a different flavor of devil-worship story.

The Omen poster

Dracula1958no page yet

Christopher Lee and Terence Fisher's earlier, definitive Hammer collaboration—see where the studio's gothic house style and Lee's screen authority were forged.

But It's a vampire film through and through, with none of the ceremonial black-magic set pieces that make this one distinctive.

Race with the Devil1975no page yet

Two couples on an RV trip stumble onto a satanic cult mid-ritual and spend the rest of the film being chased across Texas—pure drive-in pulp with a real sense of dread.

But This is B-movie exploitation, not gothic elegance—expect car chases and shlock rather than Wheatley's occult scholarship.

Hail Satan?2019

Same iconography—pentacles, devil worship, black masses—stripped of horror and turned inside out into real-world politics; the fear this film exploits, seen from the other side.

A wry, clear-eyed documentary about The Satanic Temple that takes everything this film treats as unspeakable evil and reframes it as free-speech activism—funny, sincere, and genuinely surprising.

But There's no ritual magic or supernatural threat at all—if you wanted more black masses, this trades dread for a very different kind of provocation.

Hail Satan? poster

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