Don't Deliver Us from Evil

Don't Deliver Us from Evil
Directed by Joël Séria
Produced by Bernard Legargeant
Ken Legargeant
Romaine Legargeant
Joël Séria
Written by Joël Séria
Starring Jeanne Goupil
Catherine Wagener
Music by Claude Germain
Dominique Ney
Cinematography Marcel Combes
Edited by Philippe Gosselet
Production
company
Société Générale de Production
Productions Tanit
Distributed by Antony Balch Films (UK)
Release date
  • 5 April 1971 (1971-04-05) (Cannes)
Running time
 101 minutes[1]
Country France
Language French

Don't Deliver Us from Evil (French: Mais ne nous délivrez pas du mal) is a 1971 French film directed by Joël Séria. It is loosely based on the Parker–Hulme murder case of 1954.

Plot

Anne de Boissy and Lore Fournier are two adolescent Angevin girls who stay at a Catholic boarding school. Both have affluent and conservative families living in the countryside. Anne and Lore quickly become friends. They spend most of their time reading poems about the beauty of death, mocking their classmates and teachers, and engaging in vicious pranks and petty theft, believing that together they are special and untouchable, a fact that seems more and more true to them when they always manage to escape detection and punishment.

When Anne's parents take a long trip and leave Anne behind during summer vacation, Lore secretly moves into their château with Anne, where they become lovers and their pranks escalate. The girls set fire to the home of the local cowherd, Émile, as punishment for his sexual leering over schoolgirls, and they kill all the pet birds of their school's mentally-challenged groundskeeper, Léon. Stealing sacramental bread from church, the girls prepare the abandoned chapel at the château for a Black Mass in which they wed themselves to Satan, promising more wicked works in his name.

One night, a motorist runs out of gasoline near the château. The girls invite him in, offer him alcohol, and begin to behave seductively toward him. At first he is confused, then, as he grows more drunk, eager. Lore continues the seduction, only to be terrified when the motorist attempts to rape her. Anne walks in on the scene and murders the man, and the two girls conceal the body.

Police later find the motorist's abandoned car and suspect foul play. A detective arrives at the château to inquire if the motorist stopped there, but is suspicious when the girls behave nervously and refuse to tell them where their parents are. The girls in turn become convinced that the detective knows what they have done and plan a suicide pact, convinced they will go to Hell and be rewarded by Satan for their service. At a school recital, the girls read a poem by Baudelaire before lighting themselves on fire as the audience watches in horror.

Cast

See also

References

  1. ↑ "DON'T DELIVER US FROM EVIL (X)". British Board of Film Classification. 1971-12-01. Retrieved 2013-02-11.
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