The Devil's Messenger
The Devil's Messenger
Lon Chaney Jr, the once star of Universal's The Wolfman, later in his career found work on television, with the Swedish/American television show 13 Demon Street from 1959. 13 Demon Street was aired in Sweden with English dialogue and Swedish subtitles. In 1961 Herts-Lion International Corp compiled three episodes with a refilmed wraparound scene to create a horror anthology film called The Devil's Messenger. The Devil's Messenger was directed by Herbert L Strock, and written by Leo Guild, Curt Siodmak, and Dory Previn.
The Devil's Messenger is a horror anthology film with three scenes: The Photograph, The Girl in the Glacier, and Condemned in Crystal. All three were directed by Curt Siodmak (the man who wrote The Wolfman), and Herbert Strock directed the wraparound framing story that brings the three stories together to create an actual film.
The wraparound framing story tells the story about a young girl who commits suicide and when she meets the devil he makes a deal with her that she must do three errands for him, and then after her final task, has one last ultimate task for her to complete. These segments star Lon Chaney Jr as The Devil, and Karen Kadler as Satanya (the girl who committed suicide). In The Photograph a womanizing photographer who is overworked, is told by his manager to go to Maine for a weekend to relax, when there he takes a photograph of an old house, and tries to ask the woman in front of the house if he could take her photo, she ignores him, and he sexually assaults her in the snow and leaves her dead body in the snow. Then she starts appearing in the photo and he realizes she is after him to get her revenge on him for his sin. The Girl In The Glacier is about a girl found in a glacier while some miners are digging, her icy prison is taken to a museum to study, and one of the scientists becomes obsessed with her. Then in Condemned in Crystal a man has a reoccuring dream about going into a building, and his psychoanalyst suggests that he goes to that place, and when he does he meets a fortune teller and she tells him that he will die at midnight, and that he will be killed by her. Then the Devil has his final task, one final message for Satanya to deliver, a task that will anex more room for Hell, which has been overfilled.
Overall for a film made from splicing together and adding scenes to three episodes of a television series it is a pretty decent film. The show is similar to the Twilight Zone, and the anthology format works really well in this film. Definitely not Lon Chaney Jr's best work, but he is still delightful in this film, and the overall quality of the film is definitely watchable. The Devil's Messenger has fallen into public domain and can be easily found online to watch for free, but it can also be found on DVD, and as part of those cheap horror movie collection DVDs, my copy is a double feature with The Last Man on Earth (which I will be reviewing when I do all three of the versions of I Am Legend). This is definitely not a must-see film, but one I do recommend checking out.
The Devil's Messenger is a horror anthology film with three scenes: The Photograph, The Girl in the Glacier, and Condemned in Crystal. All three were directed by Curt Siodmak (the man who wrote The Wolfman), and Herbert Strock directed the wraparound framing story that brings the three stories together to create an actual film.
The wraparound framing story tells the story about a young girl who commits suicide and when she meets the devil he makes a deal with her that she must do three errands for him, and then after her final task, has one last ultimate task for her to complete. These segments star Lon Chaney Jr as The Devil, and Karen Kadler as Satanya (the girl who committed suicide). In The Photograph a womanizing photographer who is overworked, is told by his manager to go to Maine for a weekend to relax, when there he takes a photograph of an old house, and tries to ask the woman in front of the house if he could take her photo, she ignores him, and he sexually assaults her in the snow and leaves her dead body in the snow. Then she starts appearing in the photo and he realizes she is after him to get her revenge on him for his sin. The Girl In The Glacier is about a girl found in a glacier while some miners are digging, her icy prison is taken to a museum to study, and one of the scientists becomes obsessed with her. Then in Condemned in Crystal a man has a reoccuring dream about going into a building, and his psychoanalyst suggests that he goes to that place, and when he does he meets a fortune teller and she tells him that he will die at midnight, and that he will be killed by her. Then the Devil has his final task, one final message for Satanya to deliver, a task that will anex more room for Hell, which has been overfilled.
Overall for a film made from splicing together and adding scenes to three episodes of a television series it is a pretty decent film. The show is similar to the Twilight Zone, and the anthology format works really well in this film. Definitely not Lon Chaney Jr's best work, but he is still delightful in this film, and the overall quality of the film is definitely watchable. The Devil's Messenger has fallen into public domain and can be easily found online to watch for free, but it can also be found on DVD, and as part of those cheap horror movie collection DVDs, my copy is a double feature with The Last Man on Earth (which I will be reviewing when I do all three of the versions of I Am Legend). This is definitely not a must-see film, but one I do recommend checking out.
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