Who Fears The devil? in '70s Horror and Sci-Fi Forum

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Who Fears The devil?

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oglebee	Who Fears The devil?	Lead	[-]
Mar 4 12 3:01 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The Legend of Hillbilly John 1974, not a bad showing of the Manley Wade Wellman character, limited budget. Anybody like this, probably not a lot of love from the present fans of the '70's' genre films. Who Fears the Devil?
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Monsterpal		#1	[-]
Mar 4 12 11:40 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I do. The whole film is so much of its time, despite being based on old stories, and Ugly Bird is a lot of fun.
Koukol 5		#2	[-]
Mar 5 12 1:38 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've never heard of this film before. I'll have to look it up.
John Bernhard		#3	[-]
Mar 5 12 2:14 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	New to me as well, so I looked and found this...told me all I'll ever need to know
Shonokin		#4	[-]
Mar 5 12 4:09 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I have a love/hate relationship with it. I like the adaptations of The Desrick onYandro and O Ugly Bird. Gene Warren did the animation for the Ugly bird. The movie is mostly cheap looking and has a real 70s aesthetic. In that sense, it's a little too hippie for my personal tastes, but if it was ever released as a decent DVD I wouldn't hesitate to pick it up. I do wish there was a more updated and truer adaptation but I sure haven't heard of any. Not as a movie anyway, but Sequential Pulp is working on a comic with art by Thomas Boatwright. There is a recent reprinting of the John the Balladeer collection through Paizo Publications. I believe it uses the original magazine text (as opposed to the corrupted Arkham House text which Wellman disliked). -Shonokin The Pulp Reader
Koukol 5		#5	[-]
Mar 5 12 4:48 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Hmm, looks like it's based from a folk song.
Rick		#6	[-]
Mar 5 12 10:14 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	It's very hippie, yes, and pretty cheap. But somehow quite professional as well, with some terrific character actors, some really striking images, and, of course, Ugly Bird hisownself. It really is a thing all its own, and, while it does have a '70s aesthetic, it really is not quite like anything else I've ever seen -- in ways both good and not so good.
Monsterpal		#7	[-]
Mar 7 12 6:10 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	From the same director who gave us every single "One Step Beyond" episode and "Pigeons From Hell" on THRILLER, among other things.
Grant		#8	[-]
Mar 7 12 6:38 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Rick wrote: It's very hippie, yes, and pretty cheap. But somehow quite professional as well, with some terrific character actors, some really striking images, and, of course, Ugly Bird hisownself. It really is a thing all its own, and, while it does have a '70s aesthetic, it really is not quite like anything else I've ever seen -- in ways both good and not so good. Even though I think Hedges Capers does perfectly well as John, and also the lead actress (I can't think of her name), the character actors are reason enough to like it. I like Severn Darden in just about anything, but Harris Yulin stands out more than almost anyone else when he plays his sinister character. This is a very SLIGHT spoiler - As far as the ending, my attitude is, forget "Nixon administration," that ending could work during ANY given White House.
amarok		#9	[-]
Mar 10 12 9:41 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've read "Who Fears the Devil?" about a zillion times (and I sometimes thing the Arkham House version is as good as, if not better than, Wellman's original versions). Never come across this film, though. I've mentioned elsewhere that it showed up at one drive-in in Tulsa just as we were going to Grandma's for the weekend . . . and was gone by the time we came back. That bodes not well -- but I'd love to see it anyway. It adapts "Desrick on Yandro"? Did they get all the critters Wellman mentioned into the film? That would be a monster mash of DESTROY ALL MONSTERS proportions!
Grant		#10	[-]
Mar 10 12 9:51 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've read Desrick on Yandro and I've seen this film several times (I have an okay VHS of it) and I'm pretty sure it gets all or most of the names, though the creatures themselves are left to your imagination (unlike "Ugly Bird" later on). That's the Harris Yulin part of it I mentioned, and he's very entertaining in it. It also has Susan Strasberg, who I guess is nearly the only person in it who doesn't fall into the "character actor" category.
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Lawrence Fechtenberger		#11	[-]
Mar 25 13 2:51 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Finally caught up with this, via YouTube, and I am left wondering something about Hoyt Axton's song "The Devil" (referred to within the film as "The Defy"). Does anyone know if it was written for the film? On the one hand, some of the lines seem to refer specifically to elements of the film. "The devil deals in dying, and he travels in a hearse": one of the villains is an undertaker. "He treats you like a dog now, he'd like to treat you worse": the third and fourth stories deal with people who use their supernatural powers to make others work as slaves for them. On the other hand, the version that Axton recorded on one of his albums (and that Johnny Cash also recorded) includes a section that goes off on quite a different tack--the part that begins "L.A.'s in California, lord, I've been there many times/It is an education to be sure."
Lawrence Fechtenberger		#12	[-]
Mar 25 13 5:22 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	For those who want links. The entire film: (Do not be misled by the running time; there are several minutes of blank space at the end.) A glimpse of the Ugly Bird: Hoyt Axton's album version of "The Devil": ...and Johnny Cash's cover:
Monsterpal		#13	[-]
Mar 26 13 9:57 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	It's a unique film.
amarok		#14	[-]
Mar 27 13 8:00 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Koukol 5: Manly Wellman knew American folk songs and folk tales inside and out, but he also made up creatures, legends, and songs (or at least new lyrics) for his stories. It reached the point that even he couldn't recall if some details were made up or actually from some obscure Appalachian source!
timothymayer		#15	[-]
Mar 30 13 9:46 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	A good effort. Yeah, a better budget would have helped. "It's alive!" Z7 Headquarters
sillyhuron		#16	[-]
Apr 3 13 11:03 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Two shots kill it - 1.One of the bad guys convulsing, with a face that could fog film emulsion, and the camera appx. 6 inches from his nostrils. 2. The worst optical effect on the planet - when they try to make the actual film itself look like it's tearing in a projector! (on my VHS? The tape has perfs on it?) I laughed so hard, especially at #2, that I literally fell outa my chair.
Red Gargon		#17	[-]
Apr 13 13 5:29 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I like this one with all its faults, but imagine I'd like it a lot more if I didn't REALLY like the Wellman stories so much. John Newland's deft touch saved it from the total disaster it could have been. I think it needed someone a little more square-jawed and less "early-70s sensitive-guy" than Hedges Capers as John too.
Grant		#18	[-]
Apr 14 13 8:38 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Maybe I'm being difficult, but as much as I like "square-jawed" heroes in a lot of OTHER places, I think Hedges Capers' version of John worked very well. That projector foul-up certainly seems to be deliberate, to answer the question about it. I've always thought it was a clever way of telling you that "he" did something very big to John's grandfather, and "leaving to your imagination" at the same time. That leads to one of my questions. As famous a singer as Hoyt Axton was, did the grandfather really need to be dubbed by him? I mean, wasn't Denver Pyle at least a little well-known as a singer and musician? (I don't know them extremely well the way some people do, but I know he sang folk songs for instance in those Andy Griffith episodes.)
Jay Maggio		#19	[-]
Apr 14 13 5:24 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	was this supposed to be a remake of the Giant Claw?
Monsterpal		#20	[-]
Apr 14 13 10:22 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Jay Maggio wrote: was this supposed to be a remake of the Giant Claw? Ugly Bird's only in the picture very briefly, Jay, but there is a family resemblance.
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Who Fears The devil?

Who Fears The devil?