Horror Obsessive
Every horror fan knows Michael Myers by that tilt of the head: the slow, birdlike cock to one side right before he strikes, the blank white mask catching the light just so. What almost nobody realizes is that gesture got a dry run three years earlier, on a different set, worn by a different actor wearing a lifecast of his own face. The Devil’s Rain, resurrected in a new 4K restoration from Severin Films, is the movie that got there first, and it is worth revisiting for that connection alone.
Released in 1975 and largely forgotten outside cult circles, The Devil’s Rain follows the Preston family, cursed for generations by the Satanist Corbis (Ernest Borgnine), who keeps stolen souls trapped inside an ornate vessel until he can hand them over to Satan himself. When matriarch Emma (Ida Lupino) and her son Mark (William Shatner) go missing, brother Tom Preston (Tom Skerritt), his ESP-sensitive wife Julie (Joan Prather), and colleague Dr. Sam Richards (Eddie Albert) go looking for them. The plot drops viewers in with little hand-holding, but the bleakness lands anyway.
A Lifecast That Outlived The Movie
Shatner appears in only the film’s first third and a sliver of its ending, but that limited screen time produced an outsized legacy. A lifecast made of his face during production was later used to sculpt the 1975 Captain Kirk mask, and a copy of that mask eventually made its way to the crew of Halloween, where it was reworked into Michael Myers’ blank, unreadable visage.
Watch the scene where an eyeless Shatner turns to study his brother through the Satanic haze clouding his vision, and there it is: the same slow head tilt that would define an entire slasher icon three years before Nick Castle ever put on the mask himself. It is a strange kind of trivia, the sort that rewards genre historians more than casual viewers, but it recontextualizes a forgettable performance into something genuinely foundational.
Practical Effects Do The Heavy Lifting
The real reason The Devil’s Rain has any cult reputation comes down to makeup artists Tom Burman and his brother Ellis Burman Jr. Borgnine’s horned, goat-like transformation into Corbis still holds up, and the climactic sequence, where cultists melt into multi-colored goop pouring from every part of their bodies, remains the film’s calling card. It is gooey, tactile, and unmistakably practical in a way modern horror rarely bothers with anymore.
That said, the film never quite earns its reputation as a lost classic. A windswept ghost town populated by eyeless, black-robed minions is a genuinely striking image, but the pacing sags in the middle, and sidelining Julie in favor of Skerritt’s blander Tom feels like a missed opportunity.
None of that undercuts what Severin has assembled here. The new 4K UHD and Blu-ray combo carries over the bulk of the extras from the studio’s 2017 release and adds a fresh 2026 commentary from film historian Stephen R. Bissette alongside the existing track from director Robert Fuest. Between makeup artist interviews and input from the Church of Satan’s past and present leadership on technical advisor Anton LaVey’s involvement, the supplements make a stronger case for the film’s importance than the feature does alone.
The Devil’s Rain will never crack anyone’s top ten, and it does not need to. What it offers instead is a direct line between 1970s Satanic panic cinema and one of slasher horror’s most recognizable faces, preserved now in a transfer sharp enough to make that connection impossible to miss. For genre completists chasing the roots of Halloween’s mask, this is essential viewing.
Quick Takes
- The Devil’s Rain (1975) stars Ernest Borgnine, William Shatner, Ida Lupino, Tom Skerritt, Joan Prather, and Eddie Albert.
- Severin Films has released the film in a new 4K UHD and Blu-ray combo edition carrying over supplements from its 2017 Blu-ray plus a new 2026 commentary from film historian Stephen R. Bissette.
- A lifecast of Shatner’s face made for the production was later used to sculpt the 1975 Star Trek II Kirk mask, a copy of which was reworked by the Halloween crew into Michael Myers’ mask.
- Makeup effects were created by Tom Burman and his brother Ellis Burman Jr., including a practical multi-colored melting effect in the film’s climax.
- The film marks actor John Travolta’s screen debut, with Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey serving as the production’s technical advisor.
