Warner Bros. Clockwork’s upcoming 4K home-video release of Ken Russell’s The Devils draws on a reconstruction made possible by footage found in a can labeled “C Cut 89.” Mark Kermode, who worked on the reconstruction, says the can held 2 slightly different assemblies of the central “Rape of Christ” sequence, the charred-femur scene and other removed material.
Editor Michael Bradsell used pieces of the score to reintegrate recovered footage that had no soundtrack, Kermode says.
In the central sequence, naked nuns take down a large crucifix and act out a sexual assault on the statue of Jesus. Another restored scene has Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave) receiving Urban Grandier’s (Oliver Reed) charred femur.
Kermode says British censor John Trevelyan required the crucifix sequence’s removal in full before the 1971 release, and Warner wanted it gone too. Warner reportedly barred the 2004 reconstruction from the BFI’s 2012 DVD and required the sequence to be removed from its documentary extra, Hell on Earth.
Clockwork calls the 2026 4K restoration, made from the original camera negative, “the first publicly released version of the film as intended by the filmmaker.” It’s based on the cut reconstructed in 2004, which Clockwork says Russell and Bradsell supervised, with Kermode and Paul Joyce collaborating.
Describing the 2004 work, Joyce says Russell “had very little to do with the restoration,” but “didn’t see one bit that was out of place” when shown it.
The 2004 reconstruction had special screenings before the 2026 theatrical restoration. The home-video announcement was teased for November 10, but a disc street date hasn’t been confirmed.
