Director Ulli Lommel would bring The Devonsville Terror to life in 1983, a story about witches and prophecy, evil and reincarnation and he would do so with a good amount of horror and the talents of his wife Suzanna Love and the great Donald Pleasance.

It all begins with the arrival of three women to the town of Devonsville. Devonsville has a shady past due to its persecution of witches three hundred years previous and these women spark a bit of fear and distrust in the populace as the town’s past has never been forgotten. Neither, as it so happens, has the curse that was placed upon it when the last witch was burned at the stake. As it is, most of this fear comes from the menfolk who are not necessarily scared of the women but of the self-confidence that the women have and it makes those men feel small. In comes Pleasance as a psychiatrist who is obsessed with the town’s past and how he likes to explore it under hypnosis through repressed and inherited memories. Love’s character is discovered to be a witch because of this and soon the townsfolk are looking to put these women out of their misery, to make themselves feel better and rid themselves of any potential temptations.

Lommel crafts a sordid little movie, one featuring a seedy town filled with shoddy characters and even those who are supposed to be good, like Pleasance, have a touch of the unsavoury about him. It gives the entire movie a very tense atmosphere, one that feels as if anything can happen at any moment with the audience merely waiting until it does. One can immediately see from the second these women are introduced that something foul is going to befall them, it is only a question of when and where and even worse, of how and it keeps viewers glued to their seats because of it. Lommel builds it all up slowly, beginning with the execution of the original witches in Devonsville’s past and moving it forward with the introduction of each supporting character until those who were in the past are now present and when that finally happens, he begins to move towards what everyone knows is coming and it is both ugly and horrific to see just what man is capable of. There are some other odd bits like Pleasance pulling worms from beneath his skin which is never really explained, yet strange or not, it would add to the gloomy atmosphere pictured throughout.

When a film makes a person’s skin crawl, one can say that it has done its job and done it well and The Devonsville Terror is just such a movie. With creepy children and awful people, a backwards town and a brutal history, one has to wonder just why anyone lives there at all but it does make for good horror and given everything else as well, this is definitely a picture that will live in one’s mind at least for a little while after it is finished.

3.5 out of 5