Year: 1975
Runtime: 86 min
Language: English
Director: Robert Fuest
A satanist cult leader meets a fiery end at the hands of the local church, but not before cursing their descendants. He vows revenge, intending to enslave them all through the power of ancient blood contracts—agreements that bound them to the devil. The descendants must now face a terrifying supernatural threat and fight to break free from the pact made generations ago.
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As a centuries-old curse continues to exact its sinister vengeance on the Preston family, an ominous atmosphere envelops their ancestral home in colonial New England. This dark force originates from Jonathan Corbis, a Satanic priest whose relentless pursuit of a treasured tome has been driven by generations of betrayal from the Prestons. This cursed book, bound to the souls of Corbis’s followers through ritualistic signatures, contains the key to his infernal power.
When family patriarch Steve Preston](/actor/ernest-borgnine) falls victim to Corbis’s clutches, he seizes a fleeting opportunity to escape and urgently warns his wife Emma and son Mark. In his desperate attempt to protect them, Steve implores them to surrender the book, sealing his fate as he melts away like wax in a crucible of despair.
As the family’s world begins to splinter, Mark seeks advice from their family friend [John, urging Emma to hide the book and entrust it to a trusted ally. However, just as Mark prepares to confront Corbis, disaster strikes when they find themselves ambushed by the very cultists they had desperately tried to escape. In the ensuing chaos, Emma is kidnapped, leaving John terrified and bound.
In a stark desert wasteland, Mark musters the courage to challenge Corbis to a battle of faith, only to be drawn deeper into darkness. There, he encounters Emma’s horrifically transformed visage—her vacant eyes stand as a testament to her surrender to evil forces. Resolute in his refusal to succumb, Mark finds himself surrounded and overpowered by Corbis’s devoted minions.
As the authorities ignore John’s cries for help, Mark’s older brother Tom](/actor/tom-skerritt) and his wife Julie take matters into their own hands, venturing into an abandoned town to search for their missing family. Their journey leads them into violence when they are ambushed by Corbis’s followers, with Julie tragically falling into the hands of a sinister cultist lurking in wait.
Meanwhile, Tom disguises himself as a defeated Satanist to infiltrate Corbis’s lair. There, he witnesses the twisted ritual aimed at converting Mark into a soulless minion. Just as Tom narrowly escapes discovery, he reunites with Dr. Sam Richards, a psychic researcher familiar with dark arts. Together, they delve into the mysteries of the cursed book, discovering the source of Corbis’s power: an intricately crafted glass bottle known as “The Devil’s Rain,” said to contain the very souls of his followers.
This revelation uncovers Mark’s unwitting signature, a mark he never knew he possessed. Tom and Richards then infiltrate Corbis’s church, executing a daring plan to reclaim The Devil’s Rain from its ominous resting place. However, their stealth is quickly thwarted as Corbis’s cult descends upon them like a dark storm cloud. Overwhelmed, Tom and Richards hastily retreat with The Devil’s Rain, abandoning the ancient tome that once held its sinister power. Yet, Corbis takes the opportunity to claim the forsaken book, initiating a dark ritual to transform Julie into an otherworldly being stripped of mortal vision.
Sensing the gravity of the situation, Tom boldly interrupts the macabre ceremony, only to find himself captured by Corbis’s minions. At the same time, Richards is overpowered and loses control of The Devil’s Rain, which Mark seizes with unholy delight. As Mark gazes upon the cursed vessel, Richards urgently warns him to destroy it, cautioning that failure to do so would damn Mark eternally, forcing him to wander a barren expanse devoid of divine mercy or infernal judgment.
Undeterred by the threat of Mark’s soul being lost to nothingness, Corbis persists in his wicked intent, proclaiming that destroying The Devil’s Rain will unleash its malevolent essence on the world. Driven by a morbid curiosity, Mark ultimately decides to shatter the bottle, releasing a cataclysm of hellish energy that obliterates Corbis and his followers like wax in a fiery furnace, reduces the church to ashes, and sends Tom and Julie fleeing for their lives.
As Tom embraces Julie, he is horrified to realize that he has unwittingly clasped Corbis, whose soul has become ensnared within the new vessel of The Devil’s Rain.
Last Updated: November 17, 2024 at 18:17
Discover curated groups of movies connected by mood, themes, and story style. Browse collections built around emotion, atmosphere, and narrative focus to easily find films that match what you feel like watching right now.
Stories where ancient pacts and satanic evils lead to devastating, fiery conclusions.If you enjoyed the satanic dread and inescapable curse of The Devil's Rain, explore other movies with a similar feel. This selection features horror stories centered around demonic pacts, family legacies of evil, and bleak confrontations with ancient occult forces where victory is pyrrhic at best.
Narratives in this thread typically involve a protagonist or family discovering they are bound by a generational curse or satanic pact. The central conflict is a desperate struggle against a powerful, often organized, occult enemy. The journey is one of escalating supernatural threats, grotesque transformations, and a final confrontation that rarely results in a clean, happy victory, instead leaving characters scarred or the evil merely contained for another cycle.
Movies are grouped here for their shared commitment to a dark, hopeless tone, their focus on the tangible power of occult rituals and curses, and their tendency to deliver bleak or ambiguous endings that underscore the enduring nature of the evil faced.
A methodical build of dread where reality unravels into body horror and cosmic evil.For fans of the methodical, nightmarish dread in The Devil's Rain, this list collects horror films with a similar steady pacing and oppressive atmosphere. These stories feature a gradual unraveling of reality, building tension through supernatural threats and body horror until a cataclysmic finale.
The narrative pattern is one of inevitable decline. It begins with a seemingly manageable supernatural problem that progressively worsens, revealing its true, overwhelming scale. The pacing is deliberate, avoiding major lulls or frantic speed, allowing the dread to saturate every scene. The journey is characterized by a loss of control, psychological disintegration, and physical transformation, culminating in a confrontation that highlights the fragility of the human spirit against demonic forces.
These films are connected by their shared steady pacing, which creates a suffocating atmosphere, their high intensity derived from disturbing themes and body horror, and their consistently dark tone that offers no levity, making the descent into nightmare feel all the more real and inescapable.
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Track the full timeline of The Devil's Rain with every major event arranged chronologically. Perfect for decoding non-linear storytelling, flashbacks, or parallel narratives with a clear scene-by-scene breakdown.
Discover the characters, locations, and core themes that shape The Devil's Rain. Get insights into symbolic elements, setting significance, and deeper narrative meaning — ideal for thematic analysis and movie breakdowns.
Get a quick, spoiler-free overview of The Devil's Rain that covers the main plot points and key details without revealing any major twists or spoilers. Perfect for those who want to know what to expect before diving in.
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