The Devil's Messenger (1962) User Reviews

So-so horror omnibus

[Red-Barracuda · 5/10 · 25 May 2009]

This cheapo horror omnibus features Lon Chaney Jr. as the devil. He sends a young female suicide victim back to Earth on a series of interventions involving men destined for purgatory. The film is split up into three short stories within this framework.

The first story about an amoral photographer and a ghost has a reasonable premise but it isn't executed very well. The idea of the ghostly woman in the photograph advancing ever nearer is a little reminiscent of the central idea in Ring. And it's a good idea but there isn't enough time for the story to develop and the ending feels rushed.

Story two about the discovery of a prehistoric woman found in-cased in a block of ice is a complete washout. The lead character has an obsession with the ice lady that is never explained. He kills his colleague, the ice melts and the lady vanishes. It all seems a bit pointless.

The third story about the man who encounters the fortune-teller is probably the best, as it has more time to develop. However, despite an intriguing set up, the pay-off is distinctly uninteresting.

The Devil's Messenger is not terribly good but, as it contains three stories within a 75 minute film, it does at least move along at a brisk pace.

Hell On Earth

[sol1218 · 5/10 · 15 May 2004]

****SPOILERS**** The dynamic Mister "D", Lon Cheney Jr. is having serious problems in his underground domain with the population increasing and his real estate holding staying the same a major housing shortage has developed. Mr "D" could have come to the point right away in the movie about how to alleviate this nuisance but for the sake of the movie audience he padded the film with three episodes that really have nothing to do with his attempt to increase his land holdings. Getting a new tenant to his apartment complex, Satanya, who killed herself after her lover left her Mr. "D" gives her a chance to redeem herself by going upstairs and getting people to do things that would land them as new tenants down here with Mister "D".

The first story is about a sex-crazed photographer, Don, who's burning out from chasing the ladies. Don is advised by his friend Charlie to take a trip up north to New England to cool off his inflamed libido. Taking pictures Don noticed a women coming out of a house that he photographed and as if he were possessed he runs after her in the snow and ends up attacking and killing her. Back home one of the photos that he took of the house where the women came from begins to take on a life of it's own. The woman appearing in it seems to takes up all the space in the picture. Slowly going insane Don starts drinking and when he sees his friend Charlie at a local bar he goes nuts and belts Charlie when he tries to help him by having him get medical attention. Running back to his home he tears up the photo of the woman but she becomes alive and appears in the flesh which gives Don a heart attack and kills him.

The next story has to do with the discovery of a 50,000 year old block of ice with a woman in it. Dr. Sistrum who's examining it becomes obsessed with the Ice Queen and convinces himself that he and she were lovers from another time. Dr. Sistrum wants to continue that affair after he thaws her out. The doc is then overruled by Professor Olsen who's in charge of the ice cube and tells Dr. Sistrum that he's going to dissect the frozen mummy to see what made her tick.

Prof. Olsen catching Dr. Sistrum in the ice box with the frozen cadaver one night tells Dr. Sistrum to get out of there. Sistrum enraged attacks Olsen and after knocking him out freezes him to death by pouring water on him and then hiding his body. Now free to do what he wants Dr. Sistrum turns on the heat to free his long lost lover from her icy internment but what happens is that she drowns from the melting ice and turns to snow!

The third and last story has to do with Satanya's boyfriend who drove her to suicide, John, who's having nightmares about him going into a house and everything goes blank. Seeing the house that he saw in his nightmare one night John goes in and finds that it belongs to a Madame Germaine a local fortune teller.

Having his future told to him John finds out that he'll die at midnight and it would be Madame Germaine who kills him. John at first laughing it off begins to realize that what Madame Germaine told him about himself is coming true. She predicted that he'll go on a trip to Egypt and later he wins a free ticket to go there and that he'll meet a man with a deep scar just before he dies Later John sees a man with a scar on his hand, banging on the phone booth, as he's trying to get help by calling his doctor as well as the police to prevent him being murdered.

With nobody coming to his aid John then goes back to see Madame Germaine and plans to kill her before she kills him. After stabbing Madame Germaine and then pushing her down a railing John goes to see if she's alive but as he looks up he sees a statue of Madame Germaine, that was loosen when the railing broke, fall on him and crushes him to death. When the police find John's body they find that only he was killed and there was no Madame Germaine and the house that he was killed in was empty and condemned.

All three people in these episodes ended up downstairs with a little help from Satanya by planting items for them to help them get there, Mister "D"'s housing complex, somewhat faster. Back to the pit of fire John and Satanya together again are told by Mr. "D" that he has something for them to bring to the surface and give to the world powers to play with: The formula to build a 500 megaton nuclear bomb! With that we see the world explode in a mushroom cloud and with it getting as hot up there as it's down here with Mr. "D". With that Mr. "D" gets to control both upstairs and downstairs of the earth and his pressing housing problems are finally over.

Those three interesting but totally unrelated stories were in all probability put into the movie to make "Devil's Messenger" a full-length motion picture. Without them the film would have been about as long as a Pespi commercial.

"People ruin their own lives, we just help them a bit".

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 8 September 2010]

Yes, Lon Chaney does look old and worn out in this picture, but he's one of my all time favorites so I'm willing to cut him some slack. I've almost completed watching all the stories in my Twilight Zone Definitive Edition, and it struck me that the ones presented here could all have been reworked as part of the Serling legacy. They have just the right amount of irony with classic twist endings to justify consideration as TZ appropriate stories. My favorite was probably the ice block girl and the professor - come on, you just knew she was going to open her eyes at some point, didn't you? But gee, since when does an iceberg melt from the inside out? Good concept, but it just doesn't hold water.

Nor does the idea that the picture of the house in the first episode was the World Magazine guy's favorite, one of the best he's ever seen! What??!! IT WAS A PICTURE OF A HOUSE!!! I'm no expert, but I bet I've seen a dozen pictures today that looked better, and I'm not even trying hard.

OK, since I'm at it, I might as well mention the final story, probably the most Twilight Zonish if you will. Guy sees a fortune teller and her crystal ball and becomes convinced he's doomed. He would have been a lot better off if he hadn't stabbed the gypsy. Things like that never end well.

Well you don't expect much from these bargain bin flicks, but I have to say, this was better than what I was expecting. Chaney as Satan was the bonus no doubt, looking for a way to annex Earth for his domain to make room for more souls. On that note I'll finish up, I think it's starting to get hot in here.

"Screw it, I like to play the ponies"

[michaeldukey2000 · 3/10 · 27 December 2006]

I once asked John Carradine on the set of one of his last pictures if he or Chaney felt like they wasted their talents on flicks like this and in saltier language he Said "Screw it,I like to play the ponies and it beats watching TV." Aptly put. Early in 1960 Curt SIodmak( The WOlf Man ) and Herbert Strock ( I Was A Teeenage Frankenstein ) went to Sweden and filmed in English with Swedish Subtitles about a dozen half hour playlets for a TV series called 13 Demon Street.It was pretty awful from what I've seen and didn't get picked up for U.S. syndication. Each week Chaney would would spin a weird tale from his old curiosity shop and three of these are included here and made into a ersatz feature with a cheezy wrap around with Chaney as a very happy Satan.If you are a Chaney completist you have to have it and it's certainly not as bad as some low budget flicks of the early sixties but Little SHop Of Horrors it's not. Because Of Chaney's status The Devil's Messenger received top billing on a drive-in double bill with the far superior Carnival Of Souls.

Dancing with Mr. D

[wes-connors · 3/10 · 26 February 2009]

"Three macabre tales of terror are featured in this frightful thriller hosted by the incomparable 'Mr. D' (Lon Chaney Jr.). A psychotic photographer is faced with a beauty that haunts his pictures and dreams in one tale. A scientist becomes obsessed with a frozen 'Ice Princess' that leads to an unfortunate ending in another tale. Finally, a man fears his own death after a visit with a fortuneteller in the last of these horrifying stories," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

Although possessing three individual stories, "The Devil's Messenger" does have a unifying plot strand, featuring the character portrayed by Karen Kadler ("Satanya"). She has committed suicide, and is sent back to Earth, by Lon Chaney Jr. (as Satan), on various missions. Other than that, the stories don't have much to do with each other. Unfortunately, Mr. Chaney is an uninteresting devil. The first story, featuring John Crawford (as Donald Powell) is the best, with good photography and "A Most Unusual Camera" (Twilight Zone) worthy plot.

*** The Devil's Messenger (1961) Herbert L. Strock ~ Karen Kadler, John Crawford, Lon Chaney Jr.

Starring Lon Chaney as The Devil. That's all the motivation I needed!

[Coventry · 5/10 · 25 June 2021]

"The Devil's Messenger" is an obscure and low-budgeted horror omnibus that recycles three short stories from an even more obscure 50s TV-series named "13, Demon Street". The series was rapidly produced to cash in on the tremendous success of Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone", but already got canceled after one season. In an ultimate attempt to gain profit out of the investment, the three best (?) stories were bundled into an anthology movie.

Undoubtedly the best thing about this curious little film is the presence of Lon Chaney Jr., as the Devil himself, in the wraparound story. He sends a recent suicide victim - aptly named Satanya - back to the earthly surface to collect new souls for Hell. You guessed it; - the people whom Satanya are sent after are also the protagonists of the individual segments. Fallen horror icon Chaney ("The Wolf Man") was appearing in all sorts of inferior Z-grade movies and TV-series at the time. In this role, he at least visibly enjoys himself.

The first story is more than adequate, while numbers two and three are utterly weak and forgettable. The influence of "The Twilight Zone" is clearly noticeable in all three segments, but only the "The Photograph" comes somewhat close to copying the uncanny atmosphere and surreal mystery of Serling's landmark series. In this story, an arrogant photographer, who committed rape and murder whilst on an assignment in snowy Maine, sees his nameless victim inexplicably appear in the photos that he makes and slowly loses his mind. The other two are hardly even worth summarizing.

Satan tells it like it is...

[simeon_flake · 5/10 · 15 December 2017]

No. 13 Demon Street--sounds likes a nice place to visit & maybe I would want to stay. But seriously, folks, is there anything here of note beyond the presence of Lon Chaney as Satan. As far as Satan on the big-screen, what could have more fitting during this time than Mr. Chaney--who, unfortunately at this point in his career was probably getting by more on name value than anything else. Not to say the man couldn't act anymore, but I'm sure all the serious Lon fans know about the live tv drunk incident that sent his career to B-movie hell.

At any rate, Chaney does make a great Satan (shocker, I know). And that is pretty much the big draw for this film. Satanya is nice to look at, the stories in between Satan's segments passable entertainment & the closing reel is pretty good. Basically this is for the hardcore Chaney purists who will watch pretty anything the man did--even dreck like "La Casa Del Terror."

Hardly Worth the Effort

[Hitchcoc · 4/10 · 23 February 2007]

First of all, the use of a hell-like place is sort of fun. The problem is, it is handled so poorly and so dully by Lon Chaney, Jr. that is becomes pointless. More of a problem than that are a trio of pretty dull stories. They are highly predictable with weak endings. A decent writer could have been given these three premises and made them very scary. As it is, we start with the photographer who must be psychotic. He murders a young woman who doesn't want her picture taken. Then images keep reappearing. The second, and weakest, is about a deranged anthropologist who kills his rival so he can hook up with a woman, frozen in a chunk of ice. It doesn't get much more asinine than this. The most intriguing is about a man who is told by a fortune teller he will be killed by midnight "and by her." The setup is good. Things work their way out. But the ending is a real disappointment and fizzles. These are TV like and apparently were, originally. Chaney must have really fallen on hard times. He looks old and tired. But he does have a document for mankind at the end. They should have sent it back.

Quite an entertaining little horror film.

[rcslone5 · 7/10 · 9 June 2009]

The Devil's Messenger was a feature film cobbled together from three episodes of a failed TV series, "13 Demon Street" and later shot footage featuring Lon Chaney as Satan. Chaney offers a woman who committed suicide a chance to escape the horrors of hell if she agrees to run a few errands for him. That is how they tie everything in the film together, as she delivers items that are used in each story and is really the catalyst for the stories.

Story number one deals with a stressed out photographer in need of a break. He takes a vacation to the mountains, but lets his lustful ways get the better of him as he murders a woman he tries to make advances on. After he returns to the city, the woman suddenly appears in a photo he took. Every time he looks at the picture, the woman appears closer in the picture, as she is making her way towards him to take her revenge.

The next story is about a group of scientists who discover a woman frozen in a block of ice deep in a cave. One scientist becomes obsessed with the woman and will go to any length to free her and make her his own.

The final story concerns a man who has a series of dreams concerning his death. His doctor advises him to go to the building that is in his dreams, in hopes that this will bring him some sort of relief. Instead he finds a gypsy woman who has a vision regarding his death as well.

The series this movie derives from was another in a long list of Twilight Zone imitators that just didn't make it. Each story itself was solid and made with good production qualities. The performances were fine, and Chaney seemed to be having a good time in his role. Pick this title up if you happen upon it, as its a fine old horror film with a lot to offer.

Wow....does Lon Chaney Jr look horrible in this film

[christiangfarley · 1/10 · 27 December 2004]

My wife gave me this video for Christmas 2004 and I was stunned by how awful the production was. I noticed in the first story the man who later played Sheriff Bridges in the Waltons, John Crawford. Neat story. Beautiful woman in the photo by the way. But what makes this a good "awful" film is the macabre appearance of Chaney Jr. as the devil. His face is bloated like Ted Kennedy's. Shame he wasted away in his later years. Crappy quality on the same DVD as Vincent Price's "SHOCK", but worth a look if you like old films that have never played on late night TV. Cheesy special effects abound in this, as well as over-acting. But what the hell? Just because a flick doesn't win an Oscar doesn't mean it isn't watchable.

3 Segments of Cheesy Fun

[Rainey-Dawn · 8/10 · 7 January 2016]

Lon Chaney Jr plays Satan - the devil himself - in this fun, often funny, little film. There are 3 segments and in-between them you will see Satan (Chaney) giving Satanya (Kadler) her next assignment which leads to the next segment.

The first segment is about a photographer who is a sex pervert. He commits murder and a woman that helped him regrets helping him. There is a photograph that will "haunt" the photographer... he becomes literally scared to death.

The seconded segment is of some miners that discovers a whole and well preserved prehistoric woman frozen in ice. They get her out with ice still surrounding her. One man falls in love with frozen woman, he believes he was with her in a past life... he becomes crazy. (An excellent segment).

The third segment is of a man who keeps having a reoccurring dream, tells his psychiatrist and the doctor has the man to sorta play out the dream. The man ends up at a fortuneteller who sees his fate in her crystal ball - he will die at midnight by her.

The film is not scary but it is fun to watch in it's way.

8/10

Chaney as the devil

[kairingler · 7/10 · 14 October 2007]

I don't know why some people just don't like this film, i thought Lon Chaney Jr. was great in it; as the Devil, he sends a woman, Satanya to Earth to deliver objects to people he wants to see in hell, This movie was very creepy and entertaining, as well as engrossing. some people say they didn't like Chaney's face all bloated, so what, the acting was good, and he was very conniving as the Devil, I really didn't find too much wrong with the film except a couple of noticeable scenery that was obviously fake, but hey if that's all that's wrong with it then i have no problem with it. as far as taking the 3 installments from 13 demon st. i couldn't really tell. if they did it , then it was done very seamlessly. the movie reminds me of the old TV shows. Alfred Hitcock Presents. and Rod Sterling's .. The Twilight Zone.

Above average movie from left-over TV series

[mike1964 · 5/10 · 6 January 2002]

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** This movie is Herbert L. Strock's stitching together of 3 episodes from Curt Siodmak's disasterous TV series "13 Demon Street." The 3 episodes are stitched together with footage of Lon Chaney Jr and Karen Kadler. Chaney plays the devil and Kadler the Devil's Messenger. She has committed suicide and Chaney asks her to deliver 3 items to 3 people to help them get to Hell.

The first "episode" is about a photographer who kills a strange young woman while on vacation in Maine. He had photographed her exiting an old country house. When he develops the film, she is not in the picture. As the story develops, she appears in the picture and slowly works to the foreground. Eventually, she enters the photographer's study and strangles him.

Episode 2 is about a woman found frozen in ice at the bottom of a mine. A very odd scientist falls in love with the woman. To keep the frozen doll to himself, he kills his fellow scientist. The woman opens her eyes so our hero decides to thaw the ice. As he does, she mysteriously drowns! When the ice is completely gone, there is no woman.

At the start of the final episode, we find that the man in it is supposedly the lover of Karen Kadler who drove her to suicide. The episode has absolutely nothing to do with this of course. A man has a recurring dream and always wakes up prior to entering a mysterious building. He goes to his psych who recommends he face his fears by going to the place in real life. He does and meets a fortune teller inside. She tells him he will die at midnight and she will be the killer. He kills her first, but the fortune teller statue falls on him at midnight.

Now the man from the 3rd episode appears in Hell with Karen Kadler. He is a little slow in realizing where he is. Chaney tells both that together they will deliver his final "message." It is a megaton bomb that there are to deliver to the audience.

Actually, as hokey as this sounds, it is okay. The actors seem like amatuers and the sound quality isn't great. However, the stories are compelling and it's great to see Chaney at this stage in his career. I believe this was Kadler's only film appearance, but she is acceptable as the Devil's Messenger.

Sympathy for the Devil, Lon Chaney in the title role

[kevinolzak · 4/10 · 2 November 2014]

"The Devil's Messenger" may have been issued in 1962, carrying a 1961 copyright, but served as a feature compilation of a 1959 TV series shot in Sweden by writer/director Curt Siodmak, titled 13 DEMON STREET. Lon Chaney was imported as host, his minimal footage seen at the opening and close of all 13 half hour episodes, none of which were picked up by US television, but did play in Sweden. Producer Kenneth Herts hired director Herbert L. Strock to do what he could in providing a way for Herts to recoup his losses, and thus this feature film was born, incorporating three episodes with new wraparound scenes promoting host Chaney to Satan himself. Karen Kadler (Mrs. Kenneth Herts) had already appeared as a model in the episode "Fever," but here plays an entirely new character, appropriately named Satanya, newest arrival in Hell after a wrist slashing suicide, called upon by Chaney's Devil to carry out a special mission as recruiter for three separate characters. A camera provides the link to the first tale, "The Photograph" (reduced to 19 minutes), with veteran John Crawford as a womanizing professional photographer with a habit of bedding his models, who rapes and murders an unresponsive woman whose house was his primary subject, its image reflecting his dead victim at closer and closer intervals, one that no one else but her killer can see. Satan offers Satanya a pick, leading into the second tale, "The Girl in the Glacier" (reduced to 16 minutes), in which a mining expedition uncovers the perfectly preserved body of a naked woman in an icy tomb, transported to a Swedish museum for closer examination. One anthropologist becomes obsessed with her enticing presence (he names her Angelica), resorting to murder to prevent a rival colleague from despoiling his beloved. A crystal ball is the natural connection for story three, "Condemned in the Crystal" (reduced to 21 minutes), as Chaney's Satan proclaims: "some people say they can see things in a crystal ball, others say they can foretell the future, others say they can reconstruct the past, but they only see what we down here let them see because the crystal ball is the toy of the Devil!" Michael Hinn's John Radian, the man responsible for Satanya's despondent suicide (no connection whatsoever to the episode in question), is consumed by fears for his uncertain future, until a psychiatrist advises him to confront them head on by returning to a childhood haunt with a room he had been too scared to enter as a boy. Inside is a fortune teller, Madame Germaine (Gunnel Brostrom), who claims to know nothing of Radian but predicts that she will be the instrument of his midnight death. The newly filmed conclusion features Hinn, the only actor who repeated his series role for the added footage, joining Satanya in Hell for one final task, to deliver the ultimate weapon that Satan could devise, one that man knows only too well how to use. Lon Chaney is relaxed and confident as a smiling Devil, bringing a great deal of energetic humor to his role of genial host for a Hell he compares to being an exclusive club, one that requires more room for new members. With 10 1/2 minutes screen time, Chaney probably gets more footage than he did in all 13 episodes combined of the little seen 13 DEMON STREET, more in line with Boris Karloff's unsold THE VEIL than any actual show broadcast at the time. Some, though not all, episodes have found their way to YouTube, the entire series available in certain gray market packages. As a feature film (the only way many viewers have experienced 13 DEMON STREET), it served its successful purpose at the box office, though Curt Siodmak's name was nowhere to be found on screen, Leo Guild sole credited writer, Herbert L. Strock sole credited director. When Satanya asks what his purpose is in ruining lives, Chaney's exuberant Devil sums it up nicely: "people ruin their own lives, all we do is help them a bit!"

Nukes and Satan!

[BandSAboutMovies · 5/10 · 23 January 2019]

I know that Lon Chaney Jr.'s career highlight was being in the Universal monster movies. I realize that the end of his life seems sad - he suffered from throat cancer and heart disease after decades of hard drinking and smoking. In fact, Robert Stack claimed in his autobiography that Chaney and Broderick Crawford were known around the Universal lot as "the monsters" due to how much they drank and raised hell.

Despite living in his father's shadow, Chaney could be one hell of an actor. After all, he played Lennie Small in the original Of Mice and Men. You get reminded of that when you watch late period Chaney and he has to use his voice and body instead of makeup in films like Spider Baby (why I haven't reviewed that yet I have no idea).

That brings us to The Devil's Messenger, a 1961 anthology that takes three episodes of the Swedish TV series 13 Demon Street. From the tale of a 50,000-year-old woman trapped in ice bewitching scientists to a man who learns of his death in a dream to a photographer who attacks a woman in teh snow and can't escape her, these are some pretty decent stories. And oh yeah - there's a framing device starring Chaney, Karen Kadler and John Crawford that was directed by Herbert L. Strock (I Was a Teenage Frankenstein).

Guess what? Those three Swedish episodes - The Photograph," "The Girl in the Glacier," and "Condemned in Crystal" - were directed by Curt Siodmak. Who is that? Oh, only the guy who wrote the original The Wolf Man, I Walked with a Zombie, Son of Dracula and House of Frankenstein as well as directing Curucu, Beast of the Amazon and The Magnetic Monster.

Look, any movie where Lon Chaney Jr. makes good on Satan's plot to nuke the world is one I'm going to love.

TV episode anthology fails to delight

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 20 June 2016]

THE DEVIL'S MESSENGER is a film that isn't really a film. What I mean is that it's little more than the joining-together of three episodes from a US/Swedish television series called 13 DEMON STREET which was devised by the late, great Curt Siodmak, screenwriter of THE WOLF MAN and plenty of other classic '40s and '50s horror movies. Herbert L. Strock, who directed I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN among some other less well known B-movies, was the guy in charge of this production. By all accounts, the low budget of 13 DEMON STREET worked against it and what could have been some interesting TWILIGHT ZONE-style anecdotes turn into sleep-inducing amateur efforts and the TV series soon disappeared after just 13 episodes.

When I sat down to watch this film, I was hoping for superior anthology thrills in the style of Amicus productions like DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS or Mario Bava's film from the same period, BLACK SABBATH. What I got was a rubbishy amalgamation consisting of three very boring TV episodes with a wraparound featuring a bloated Lon Chaney Jr. hamming it up as the devil. All of the film's advertising focuses on Chaney but he's only in the movie for about fifteen minutes, never moving from a set supposed to depict Hell itself but which looks more like somebody's living room. I always like seeing Chaney on film, even in his later, sometimes embarrassing performances, because he was one of the horror greats – even if only for a brief period. But he has little to do here other than recite some inane dialogue and laugh maniacally. The lack of budget shows in Chaney's costume, consisting of a black shirt and tie – you wouldn't really imagine the devil to be this well dressed! There are three stories in the film and the first one is the most interesting. It concerns a photographer who strangles a girl in a fit of passion and then finds himself being haunted by her ghost which appears on some photographs he's taken of the scene. On each photo the girl seems to be getting closer and closer to the camera. Is he losing his mind or is she really back from the dead? Well, this episode will keep you guessing and ends with a good climax. It seems this later inspired a classic episode of Rod Serling's NIGHT GALLERY in which Roddy McDowall is haunted by a graveyard painting on his wall.

The second episode is the longest and less interesting, although the worst is saved for last. This one sees a block of ice uncovered in a cave, containing the perfectly preserved body of a woman. One of the scientists on the scene falls in love with her and soon commits murder in her name, but he's in for a nasty shock when he tries to free her from the icy block. The acting isn't so great in this episode but I did enjoy the twist ending which is fun in its own way.

The final episode is the most stultifying and tells the old, clichéd story of a guy who visits a gypsy fortune teller who predicts his death. It eventually transpires in a very uninteresting way. For twenty minutes we have little more than two wooden actors chatting in a room together and I could barely force myself to sit through it. Talk about ending on a low.

Chaney gets the final scene to himself in a twist that attempts to update the horror genre to the nuclear age, but this twist doesn't sit at all well with the genteel ghost stories that have preceded it. The decision to have the actors break the fourth wall by speaking directly to camera was also a poor one and ends up being laughable. THE DEVIL'S MESSENGER doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the other horror anthologies that came out in the '60s and '70s and should be a miss even for fans of forgotten B-movies.

A Pieced Together, Stinky Film

[gavin6942 · 4/10 · 23 January 2010]

The devil (Lon Chaney) is the host of a three-part film wherein we get some short tales of evil... people who will soon be joining the devil and his assistant Satanya in heck. The tales include a frozen woman, a murderous photographer, a fortune teller and some other stuff.

Why am i being vague? Because, frankly, this film was a pile of rubbish. It isn't even a real film but a compilation of three episodes of some older Swedish show. I mean, it's not bad, the stories are decent... but they're over a decade old. So yeah, you take a decade old television show and try to pass it off as a motion picture... you're going to fail.

The jacket that came with the movie also lied to me, saying the plot revolved around a plan to pass around the instructions of a nuclear weapon. That is not even in the film until the end and we never see where it goes... so that's such a misleading thing. I kind of wanted to know, but I guess I won't. And Lon Chaney... I mean, he's awesome, but this doesn't really showcase his skills at all... please, if you haven't, see "Spider Baby".

Lon Chaney's Satan looks like a used car salesman

[vampire_hounddog · 3/10 · 21 August 2020]

Several tales of death foretold in dreams, the appearance of a 500,000 year old woman in ice and world destruction.

A very low budget film that cobbles together three stories cut from a Swedish TV series, '13 Demon Street' that was never shown in the USA and framed with a lazy slapped together piece with Lon Chaney Jr. as a short sleeved shirt and tie wearing Satan. As an anthology the stories are good, but it suffers from its cheapo framing device and poor quality film prints.

Cheesy good fun...

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 26 July 2010]

This feature film is taken from three episodes of a Swedish TV series "13 Demon Street". Oddly, the show was made in the US in English and was then subtitled for Sweden! An odd pedigree, to say the least! While I have never seen the actual show (there's not a whole lot of Swedish television being shown here at the present time), it appears to have been a rather low-budget horror series. Whether or not it was all connected together by a demon (played by Lon Chaney, Jr.) in the show or just this movie is anyone's guess.

The show begins with Chaney on his throne in Hell--enjoying his job immensely! He summons a young suicide victim and gives her some assignments back on Earth. These assignments are the three segments taken from three separate TV episodes.

The first involves a sex pervert photographer. At first, he just seems really creepy but later when he commits a meaningless murder, you realize what sort of sick, twisted freak he really is. The woman, then, is the means of passing judgment on the guy--making him see visions in one of his photographs that literally ends up scaring him to death. Afterwords, the woman regrets her involvement in this, but considering how sick the man was, the viewer is left celebrating the death--and thinking perhaps this demon isn't such a bad fellow after all!

Next is a tale about the discovery of a prehistoric woman who is discovered frozen in ice. Naturally, this woman is the agent sent by old Mr. Diabolical himself and it is imbued with strange powers. Despite being in suspended animation, when men see her naked and encased in ice, there is a strange reaction within them--they are transfixed by her beauty and must possess her. As one of the workers talks to her and imagines a weird past-life relationship with her, you realize just how strange this particular segment is! And, by the end, the guy is a raving nut!

The third segment has this female agent of evil bringing a crystal ball to a fortune teller. It begins with a guy talking to a psychiatrist about some recurring dreams. The doctor gives a rather tenuous interpretation that the guy is dying to know the future--though the guy says he has no desire at all to know! But, following the doctor's advice, he seeks out a fortune teller. Looking into this evil crystal, she tells him he's about to die! And, it seems, she is fated to kill him! She says she has nothing against him and has no desire to kill him, but it WILL happen because the crystal ball says it must!

Despite the high 'cheese-factor' and low budget, I did enjoy the film. One reason in particular was due to Chaney. While he certainly was no thespian, here he is quite enjoyable because he gets into the part--laughing and playing it up quite a bit. He was very entertaining and it's among his better work. Plus, the stories were pretty good--and quite different from the stuff you'd see on "The Twilight Zone" or "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". I'd sure like to be able to see the rest of the series to find out if they're all as good as these selected episodes.

Don't shoot the messenger: she's already dead.

[BA_Harrison · 2/10 · 31 October 2020]

The Devil's Messenger is a feeble horror anthology comprising of three stories originally recorded as part of the Swedish/US TV series 13 Demon Street (1959). The trio of supernatural tales are tied together by a wraparound story involving a suicide victim called Satanya (Karen Kadler), who is to be spared the horrors of eternal damnation if she becomes 'the devil's messenger' (Old Nick played by horror legend Lon Chaney Jr.), delivering objects to the living to lure them to their doom.

Photographer Donald Powell (John Crawford) is the recipient of the first object, a camera. When Donald murders a woman who rejects his amorous advances, he finds her appearing in one of his photos, coming closer and closer each time he takes a look. It's a creepy premise worthy of an episode of The Twilight Zone, but coming from the pen of a writer nowhere near as brilliant as Charles Beaumont or Richard Matheson, it is quite lifeless.

Story number two, The Girl in the Glacier, sees the delivery of a pick to a miner, who uses it to excavate a glacier with the body of a beautiful woman trapped within. Scientist Dr. Ben Seastrom (Frank Taylor) becomes obsessed with the woman and, after killing another boffin who has different plans for the frozen female, thaws out the ice to bring the babe-sicle back to life. In a totally baffling ending, the woman appears to drown before turning into snow. Eh?

The last object is a crystal ball, delivered to fortune-teller Madame Germaine (Gunnel Broström), who tells John Radian that he will die before midnight - and that she will be the one to take his life. Dun dun dunnnnn! This third story is just as weak as the previous two, and it should come as no surprise to learn that 13 Demon Street only lasted for one series (rather appropriately, a total of thirteen episodes).

A country club that is easy to join

[nogodnomasters · 8/10 · 1 October 2017]

Lon Chaney Jr. after playing Wolfman, Dracula. Mummy, Frankenstein, now takes on the Devil...with a Rolodex. Satayana (Karen Kadler) a suicide victim has the option of delivering packages to individuals or go to hell. She chooses the packages which give us three film shorts including a 50,000 year old woman frozen in ice with plucked eye brows, mascara, and eye shadow. The very ending was typical of many sci-fi films of the era. Worth a peek if you got an hour. Available on numerous multi-packs.

the temptations of three people

[dbborroughs · 7/10 · 8 November 2009]

Lon Chaney is the devil in collection of TV episodes stitched together. The film has Chaney sending devils out to tempt people and to bring about the end of the world. Its a Twilight Zone like affair that for the most part works pretty good. probably the best of the lot is the story about a woman found frozen in a block of ice and how she causes one man's down fall. I don't know why that one story sticks with me while the others continuously fade from my memory, but thats the one I always remember. Actually I remember that story and Chaney sitting behind a table talking about his great plans. I've always liked this film and always wondered why the other episodes from the series have never really manged to materialize. Until they do I'm guessing this will have to do. Worth a look.

Not bad for a low-budget drive-in movie, would have bombed as a series.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 23 June 2015]

What on paper might have seemed like a good idea for a television series fortunately never made it that far, possibly playing in some second rate movie theater as part of a double bill with another piece of schlock. The premise has Satan himself (Lon Chaney Jr., that brilliant thespian of 1950's and 60's horror crap) sending the latest arrival in Hell back to earth to bring him more souls and ultimately go back one last time with the plan of obtaining more room, since hell is obviously running out. Looking like your local garbage man or mail deliverer, Chaney speaks his lines with an eternal grin, like the cat who swallowed tweetie bird with one gulp, seeming more like the prince of annoyance than the prince of darkness. The individual segments when Chaney isn't on actually rise this film's ratings up a bit and show a bit of creativity.

First, there's a segment involving a camera man who is being stalked by a picture of a mysterious house with a woman he is having a strange affair with seemingly getting closer and closer. When she does appear, she's strangely obsessed, but as she realizes that he's getting nuttier and nuttier by her presence, she prepares to go. Why this premise would lead him to a life of damnation makes no sense, but the plot line surrounding her picture shows that at least someone was thinking simply beyond the shock value of having a film of people being damned.

Next, is a tragic story, quite sad actually, concerning the discovery of a girl from millenniums in time found in a block of ice in a cave, and the efforts of a love-starved man to rescue her from her icy tomb. Finally, there's the story of a man who learns that he is to be murdered by a gypsy fortune teller at midnight and his efforts to prevent it from happening. Each incident has its own level of spookiness and certainly are better than any of the segments which feature Chaney at his most horrible. Chaney does of course get a twist at the end, and he overacts with relish. Filmed very cheaply, this has moments of gripping fear, but not everybody will be taken with the idea of Satan using an innocent woman (named Satana, no less...) to bring him more souls pretty much against her will.

The Devil's Messenger

[Scarecrow-88 · 4/10 · 9 July 2011]

Lon Chaney as Satan—how could I not watch this movie?!? Well, he's the best thing about this anthology directed by Curt Siodmak regarding Beelzebub's using a suicide victim, Satanaya(Karen Kadler) to bring him souls from earth, and in return he'll see about giving her a tribunal to reward her for doing his bidding. Don(John Crawford), a fine photographer but lout to women, "kills a woman" while on vacation in Massachusetts, his psyche slowly unraveling as the guilt begins to overcome him. Essentially, the first tale is about a man coming apart at the seams, his frailties as a misogynist getting the better of him as a photograph he took of the "murder victim" torments him. The second tale concerns a scientist, Dr. Siestrom(Frank Taylor), who becomes obsessed with an "anthropological find", basically a woman encased in ice, found in a mine, even murdering an anthropologist in charge of *studying* her, so he can have her all to himself. It will prove to be his undoing when attempts to melt the ice and release her from the icy tomb. The third tale follows a man who has been suffering nightmares about a building, visits a psychic informing him that she sees in her crystal ball that he will be dead by midnight. He wants to know the one who will commit this deed and she tells him it will be her! So he rushes out telling her she'll have to find him first! John Rainer(Michael Hinn) and the fortuneteller spend most of this tale discussing the murder that is supposed to occur in a manner of time, the supposed victim deliberating on how he'll survive (contemplating killing her in order to live). The final scene, after Satanya is successful in "luring" her former lover to hell, has Satan unveiling his plan to give us the atomic bomb to destroy ourselves so he can have more space (since hell is becoming crowded!). Chaney is a delight as a gleeful Satan, seemingly having a ball in the role, but this collection of Swedish television shows, edited into a movie format, barely linked together, are mostly dull, cheap, with a lack of real thrills. The third tale, involving Rainer's trying to escape a tragic fate foretold to him by a spooky psychic, is the most atmospheric while the second tale, regarding the scientist and the frozen girl he has become infatuated with, is the silliest. My favorite sequence of events comes in the first tale where every time John looks at a photograph, the girl he killed seems closer and closer; it's a simple but affective way of symbolizing death's drawing nearer and nearer. Before each tale, Satan gives Satanya an object (camera, crystal ball, etc) to take back to earth as a means to kick-start the proceedings. Chaney's eyes light up when his Prince of Darkness addresses Satanya's comments on having to return to participate in bringing him new victims as he mentions that they contribute to their own demise--he just assists them!

Decent little horror anthology

[gridoon2024 · 6/10 · 12 June 2016]

Apparently "The Devil's Messenger" was pieced together by joining three episodes of a "lost" one-season TV show called "13 Demon Street" with some newly-shot linking footage. The concept of that new footage needed a little more work ("Satanya" is supposed to be delivering objects to people, but they already seem to have them!), and the production values are pretty shoddy, but I would be interested in seeing more episodes of the original series if they were more easily available, because the stories themselves are intriguing, especially the first (which contains the genuinely surreal idea of a person moving inside a photograph) and the third (which is about a man trying to escape his fate and features a clever twist ending). Lon Chaney Jr. is fun as The Devil. **1/2 out of 4.