#land of the minotaur 1976

[awesomephd]

Watching Through My Collection: Day 8/36

Land of the Minotaur (1976) aka The Devil's Men

Day 7 / Day 9

Or, maybe it should be the other way. I was confused when I went looking for some trivia on this one and the Wikipedia article matched the name that I had, but IMDb had The Devil's Men.

Turns out I got the 86 minute US cut and not the 94 minute original European version in this box collection :c

Surprised I could even find gifs of this one. Guess we wait a while longer before I run out.

Peter Cushing makes a teen girl sacrifice two people before the title card which is probably the most metal opening I've witnessed thus far.

I wish I had the longer version to see what got cut. My version didn't even have end credit music, which apparently rocks hard in the original so now I'm really missing out.

Of the movie I did get to see, it was simple fun in a kinda cheesy 70's B-movie way. Close-ups of overexpressive faces, sudden screams, and wonderfully unsettling locals being weird. It feels like it would be at home nestled in the filmography of MST3K in the 90's.

I'm not sure if it's just my experience at having seen how crazy Donald Pleasence got in the Halloween sequels, but something about the way he plays his priest character just always feels a little unhinged. Even when he's completely vindicated in his satanic theories- he's always just a little bit more down for murder than he probably should be.

Which, honestly, works perfectly for a character that hears some of his parishioners haven't returned from a vacation to Greece and immediately jumps to the conclusion of Satanic sacrifices done by Greek pagans.

Sure, he's right, but it's still wild just how this guy never misses a chance to tell his investigating party that the island is crawling with filthy pagans.

Specifically, immortal Minoans, led by an English Baron, worshiping a Minotaur statue that shoots fire out of its nose and demands human sacrifices aligned with specific moon phases.

A Minotaur statue which Donald Pleasence exorcises with holy water, causing every adult cult member (presumably on the island) explode in a flurry of smoke and meaty chunks! But it's okay, 'cause all the children were spared because they're too innocent to be blamed for what they did under the command of the adults.

That island belongs to the children now, and since all pagan deities are just Satan in disguise, there is 100% assurance of no evil presence anymore :)

I wish I had gotten to listen to that end credits music, I need to find it somewhere...

[mariocki]

The Devil's Men (Land of the Minotaur, 1976)

"I'm worried, what's happened to Tom?"

"I think he... I think he's being held... captive."

"Captive?"

"By Satan. Mephistopheles, Lucifer; these are just three words for the same thing. A phenomenon that's older than mankind, a power without a face, a force that can make people do whatever it wants them to do. The devil, yes! Yes, Laurie! The devil. I believe the devil has taken possession of this village."

[moviesandmania]

THE DEVIL'S MEN Reviews and free to watch on Plex and YouTube

‘They were possessed!’ The Devil’s Men is a 1976 American-British-Greek horror film directed by Kostas Karagiannis (The Wife Killer aka Death Kiss; The Greek Connection) from a screenplay by Arthur Rowe (The Magnificent Seven Ride!; Zeppelin). Produced by British-based Cypriot Frixos Constantine. The movie stars Donald Pleasence, Peter Cushing, Kostas Karagiorgis, Luan Peters (Vampira; The Flesh…

[lobbycards]

Land of the Minotaur (aka The Devil's Men), US lobby card #7. 1976

[whitewaterpaper]

Här på W2P har vi fortsatt att se högoktanig skräpfilm för att bevara någon form av ovett att uppskatta dagens holllywoodrullar.

Darby O'Gill och småfolket / Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) Charmig liten film med snygga special effekter och en ung Sean Connery i en av de bärande rollerna. Men ack så tråkig.

Devil's Men, the / Land of the Minotaur (1976) Skräck.

Disappeared, the / My Daughter Is Missing (2017) Helt okej thriller som kunnat bli fantastisk med mer kunnigt folk i registolen och bakom pennan.

Doors (2021) Nä. "Smal SF" som vill mycket och berättar lite.

Frozen Alive / Der Fall X701 (1964) Vetenskaplig SF som leker med vad man i framtiden kanske kan göra.

Ghost Walks, the (1934) "Skräck".

Jagad av Rebellerna / Moonraker, the (1958) När man vill göra en Robin Hood-film utan att göra en Robin Hood-film.

Kolossen på Rhodos / Il Colosso di Rodi (1961) [🔁] Har sett den tidigare, hittar den dock inte i filmdagboken så det kan ha varit medan datorn var på rehab. Små trevlig liten äventyrsfilm med fond i antikens Grekland.

Last Starship, the (2017) [👎] Kul koncept men nä.

Manhunt in Space (1956) [🆓] Charmig Rocky Jones-film som antagligen är en av höjdpunkterna denna vecka. SF från en oskyldigare tid.

Oro Arrowhead (2021) [👎🆓] Skattletaräventyr på Jysk-budget. Har sina positiva sidor, men inga värd att sitta av nästan 2 timmar för.

Robin Hood (1973) [👍🔁] Disneyklassiker.

Solum (2019) Inte så pjåkig "Hungerspelen"/"Battle Royale"-film från portugal. Vill lite för mycket. Men klart sevärd.

Speed Cross (1980) [👎] Motorcross action. Filmen är ungefär lika bra som kvaliteten på den italienska dubben.

Väktarens hämnd / Leprechaun (1993) Warwick Davies i högform. Jennifer "Rachel i Vänner" Aniston före Vänner. Resten av filmen lämnar en del att önska.

Jag minns inte exakt vilka som finns på tuben, några av dem iaf. I övrigt är det kanske bara "Solum" denna månad jag skulle säga kan vara värd att slå ett öga på.

[sloshed-cinema]

Land of the Minotaur (1976)

Why are B-movies so good at stretching absolutely nothing out to feature length? I suppose it’s case in point that it’s easy to come up with a premise, but more difficult to turn it into a full-on idea. The opening two minutes are easily the best part of the British-Greek coproduction, aside perhaps from the campy bombastic fireworks of the finale. It honeypots the viewer with cult rituals and extravagant set design in some sort of grotto repurposed for pagan rites. People in troublingly Klan-adjacent garb, kids wielding knives stabbing randos, a minotaur idol with a whole dong situation… this is gonna fucking rip! Too bad the rest of this film is pretty much just people asking the locals the same five questions and getting the same responses, all while Donald Pleasence tries to figure out what an Irish accent sounds like. Spinning wheels in the mud for about 70 minutes to no avail. Thrills!

Perhaps redemption comes in a form in just how comprehensively inept the editing of the film proves to be: it’s just so bad as to be entertaining in its baffling nature. Everything that happens is apparently even more boring to the editor than to the viewer, as scenes almost without exception just end whenever the point has gotten across, and often several seconds before what might seem natural. Continuity and the 180-degree rule are completely out the window: when one woman’s bath is interrupted by black-hooded strangers, it would appear that this random inn bathroom has no fewer than a dozen doors and windows. Sequences intercutting a victim and a potential rescuer for suspense are rendered hilariously pointless when the victim just fucking dies well before they could possibly be saved even in the nick of time. And when the movie wants to generate some excitement? Well, it’s time to either snap-zoom to some shocked eyes or just randomly stutter-cut back and forth between two images. The final (literal) explosion is almost unearned because nothing has been remotely that bonkers, and we’ve had no hard proof prior that Fr Roche is actually some sort of badass exorcist/anti-Satan priest/whatever aside from his general curmudgeonly stubbornness. All the same, while this is no Halloween 6, it’s still some fun bonkers Pleasence. That he and Peter Cushing only get a couple of scenes together is a damn shame. This could have turned into an absolute goldmine if they’d been able to explore one another’s bodies even more than that one sacrifice scene.

THE RULES

SIP

The minotaur idol speaks.

Snap zoom on a face.

People in black hoods running.

Someone screams.

BIG DRINK

Owls!

Someone is sacrificed.

A creepy kid stares in a scene.

[head-vampire]

Land of the Minotaur (1976)

Art by Robert Tanenbaum

[robinlynnemabin]

Land Of The Minotaur (1976) Full Movie Donald Pleasence Peter Cushing Luan Peters from I AM STREAMING on Vimeo.

[weirdlookindog]

The Devil's Men (1976)

AKA Land of the Minotaur

[abs0luteb4stard]

W A T C H I N G

"The Old Customs Remain and the Ancient Gods Live On"

—Baron Corofax

▲▽▲▽▲▽▲▽▲▽▲▽▲▽▲▽

TRIVIA:

The above quote was sampled for this song by Blood Ceremony and also used in their lyrics.⛧

[70s-pop-80s]

Land of the Minotaur (1976)

[yourbespokeartisanalapocalypse]

The Devil's Men/Land of the Minotaur

I have just watched what Roger Ebert calls "Peter Cushing's worst film". A big claim but yes indeedy, he may well be right. It's 1976's truly awful The Devil's Men/Land of the Minotaur...

It takes a lot to put Donald Pleasance and Peter Cushing in a film and end up with something this bad. Unfortunately Peter Cushing's evil baron is so beige and barely in it that they might as well have spliced him in from other films. I warmed to Donald Pleasance's Irish priest but he loses screen time to a truly bad detective who I guess is there to do the (terrible) action sequences.

The plot is... something about a Minotaur cult killing young tourists but doesn't really develop.

BUT BUT BUT GUESS WHO DID THE SOUNDTRACK! Only flipping Brian Eno. And it's pretty atmospheric with lots of unnerving humming that definitely set me a little on edge.

Oh, and I quite liked the Scooby Doo-esque set up...

The Minotaur is a little...silly...

This particular scene in which our young heroine is chases by evil cultists? Our detective who is supposed to be investigating the cult, meets her at the edge of the wood and literally dismisses it as "probably a cow that got loose in the woods". One of the many times he refuses to investigate anything.

So yeah, pretty terrible film all round. Boo.

Apparently the director, Kostas Karagiannis, directed over a hundred films so he must have had an inkling about how to shoot a movie. Goodness knows what happened with this one.

[hellishposters]

The Devil’s Men/Land of the Minotaur (1976)

[lobbycards]

Land of the Minotaur (aka The Devil's Men), US lobby card #4. 1976

[queenlua]

so i finished reading The Global Minotaur

and i’ll blather about it in my Economics Shitposting Special Edition book post in April

but

can i please share with y’all Yanis Varoufakis’s Goodreads autobiography with y’all?  i have never seen a dude come across as such a wildly endearing little shit with such stunning form before (all emphases mine):

“Let me begin with a confession: I am a Professor of Economics who has never really trained as an economist. While I may have a PhD in Economics, I do not believe I have ever attended more than a few lectures on economics! But let's take things one at a time. I was born in Athens back in the mists of 1961. Greece was, at the time, struggling to shed the post-civil war veil of totalitarianism. Alas, those hopes were dashed after a brief period of hope and promise. So, by the time I was six, in April of 1967, a military coup d' etat plunged us all into the depths of a hideous neo-Nazi dictatorship. Those bleak days remain with me. They endowed me with a sense of what it means to be both unfree and, at once, convinced that the possibilities for progress and improvement are endless. The dictatorship collapsed when I was at junior high school. This meant that the enthusiasm and political renaissance that followed the junta's collapse coincided with my coming of age. It was to prove a significant factor in the way that I resisted conversion to the ways of anglosaxon cynicism in the years to come. When the time came to decide on my post-secondary education, around 1976, the prospect of another dictatorship haδ not been erased. Given that students were the first and foremost targets of the military and paramilitary forces, my parents determined that it was too risky for me to stay on in Greece and attend University there. So, off I went, in 1978, to study in Britain. My initial urge was to study physics but I soon came to the conclusion that the lingua franca of political discourse was economics. Thus, I enrolled at the University of Essex to study the dismal science. However, within weeks of lectures I was aghast at the content of my textbooks and the inane musings of my lecturers. Quite clearly economics was only interested in putting together simplistic mathematical models. Worse still, the mathematics utilised were third rate and, consequently, the economic thinking that emanated from it was atrocious. In short shrift I changed my enrolment from the economics to the mathematics school, thinking that if I am going to be reading maths I might as well read proper maths. After graduating from Essex, I moved to the University of Birmingham where I read toward an MSc in Mathematical Statistics. By that stage I was convinced that my escape from economics had been clean and irreversible. How deluded that conviction was! When looking for a thesis topic, I stumbled upon a piece of econometrics (a statistical test of some economic model of industrial disputes) that angered me so much with its methodological sloppiness that I set out to demolish it. That was the trap and I fell right into it. From that moment onwards, a series of anti-economic treatises followed, a Phd in... Economics and, naturally, a career in exclusively Economics Departments, in every one of which I enjoyed debunking that which my colleagues considered to be legitimate 'science'. Between 1982 and 1988 I taught at the University of Essex, the University of East Anglia and the University of Cambridge. My break from Britain occurred in 1987 on the night of Mrs Thatcher's third election victory. It was too much to bear. Soon I started planning my escape. But where to? Continental Europe was closed to non-native academics, at that time, and Greece awaited with open arms - to enlist me into its conscript army. No, thanks, I thought to myself. Even Thatcherism is preferrable. My break came shortly after when, out of the blue, I was invited to take up a lectureship at the University of Sydney. And so the die was cast. From 1988 to 2000 I lived and worked in Sydney, with short stints at the University of Glasgow (and an even shorter one at the Université Catholique de Louvain). In 2000 a combination of nostalgia and abhorrence of the concervative turn of the land down under (under the government of that awful little man, John Howard) led me to return to G”

goodreads cuts him off there.  there is a character limit.  this man has been on Goodreads for ages but just.  never fucking fixed his autobiography to fit within the limit.  god i want to be him

[shiningwizard]

Land of the Minotaur (Costas Carayiannis, 1976) promising title, decent enough movie. satanic cult making human sacrifices to appease a minotaur idol. there's some style and experimentation to it and brian eno does the soundtrack.