More than 50 years after shocking audiences with this 1971 cult film, Ken Russell’s The Devils (A-) has lost none of its power to provoke, disturb and astonish. This restored version feels frighteningly relevant in an age when leaders weaponize religion, fear and public outrage. Oliver Reed delivers one of his finest performances as a charismatic 17th-century priest whose considerable appetites and resistance to authoritarian rule make him dangerous. Vanessa Redgrave is unforgettable as the sexually repressed nun whose obsession ignites an inferno of accusations, exorcisms and state-sanctioned cruelty. Her disciplined performance anchors material that frequently erupts into camp. Russell stages the film as a blasphemous fever dream. Derek Jarman’s dazzling white sets resemble an antiseptic cathedral from another universe, while every costume, gesture and grotesque image pushes the story toward delirium. Russell isn’t merely depicting hysteria; he places us inside it. The spectacle occasionally threatens to overwhelm the ideas, but Russell’s excess ultimately serves his message. The greatest obscenity here is neither sex nor sacrilege; it’s how easily powerful institutions manufacture guilt and call persecution holy. Russell’s film remains exhausting, audacious and impossible to forget.