The Devils Returns: Ken Russell’s Restored Cult Film and the True History of the Nuns of Loudun

by vamzzz · Published 06/04/2026 · Updated 06/04/2026

Some films fade from cinemas, are forgotten, and survive only in archives and footnotes of film history. Ken Russell’s The Devils does not belong to that category. More than fifty years after its original release, the film about the Loudun possession case is still regarded as one of the most controversial, disturbing, and artistically ambitious historical films ever made.

The possession of the nuns of Loudun is one of the most intriguing cases in history, leaving many questions unsolved, despite many attempts to rationalize the events.

When?

The restored, uncut version had its world premiere in the Cannes Classics section of the Cannes Film Festival in May 2026.
It will subsequently be screened at the prestigious Il Cinema Ritrovato film festival in Bologna (June 20–28, 2026).
Warner Bros.’ new distribution label, Clockwork, has announced a worldwide theatrical rollout. October 16, 2026, has been set as the opening date for North America, with an international release planned to follow in other territories.

Ken Russell’s Underlying Vision

In its full restored form, The Devils reveals itself as far more than a sequence of shocking scenes. What was once dismissed by critics and censorship boards as provocation for its own sake takes on a deeper meaning within the film’s structure. The excesses of violence, religious ecstasy, and sexuality are not isolated sensations, but part of Ken Russell’s fierce indictment of institutional repression in all its forms.

The film resists forces that attempt to control human thought, emotion, and desire—whether those forces originate in the Church, the state, or cultural censorship itself.

Russell himself described The Devils as his most political work. The film demonstrates how religious and political authorities can weaponize fear, morality, and public hysteria to silence dissenting voices. More than fifty years after its premiere, that message still feels strikingly relevant.

In an age where debates about freedom of speech, religious authority, and sexual autonomy remain highly charged, Russell’s vision has lost none of its force.

At the Cannes Film Festival in 2026, the restored version made a powerful impression. Among a lineup of strong and socially engaged films, The Devils still stood apart as an uncompromising and audacious cinematic experience. Where many festival films invite reflection, Russell’s masterpiece demands confrontation.

It carries the same destabilizing energy as controversial festival landmarks such as Crash, Irreversible, and Antichrist—films that do not simply get watched, but actively shape public debate.

Although The Devils was never originally part of Cannes history, its 2026 screening felt like a historical event in itself. The restoration reminded audiences why the film has carried a legendary reputation for decades: not only as one of the most controversial films ever made, but also as a radical artistic defense of the freedom to think, believe, desire, and create beyond imposed boundaries.

The 4K Restoration of The Devils: More Than a Technical Upgrade

In 2026, Russell’s masterpiece returns in a long-awaited 4K restoration. A 4K restoration involves scanning and digitally reconstructing a film from the best surviving original materials, typically the original camera negative. The result is a resolution of approximately 4096 pixels across—four times sharper than standard HD—with significantly improved detail, contrast, color accuracy, and image stability.

For The Devils, this is especially significant, as the film has long circulated in inferior versions: damaged prints, censored cuts, television copies, and low-quality bootlegs.

The new restoration was created from the original camera negative, with sound newly remastered from original 35mm audio elements.

What makes this restoration particularly important is that it is also believed to be the first official public release based on the version Ken Russell himself considered his final cut. The reconstruction builds on the work done in 2004 by Russell, editor Michael Bradsell, and film historian Mark Kermode to assemble the most complete version of the film.

Russell’s Inspiration for The Devils: The Possessed Nuns of Loudun

For film lovers, this is major news. For historians, folklorists, and anyone interested in the history of possession, witchcraft, and religious hysteria, it is also an opportunity to revisit the real historical case behind the film: the infamous affair of the nuns of Loudun.

Most viewers know Loudun only through Russell’s explosive adaptation. But behind the hallucinatory imagery and controversial scenes lies a documented historical tragedy that unfolded in seventeenth-century France.

The story of Loudun is not Hollywood fiction. It concerns real people, real trials, real accusations of demonic possession, and an execution that would fascinate Europe for centuries.

With the arrival of the new restoration, it is the perfect moment to return to the original sources and ask: what actually happened in Loudun?

The Historical Loudun

Saint Ursula, painted by Benozzo Gozzoli (c. 1455–1460)

The story begins in the French town of Loudun in the 1630s.

France was experiencing a period of religious tension, political centralization, and ongoing power struggles. Cardinal Richelieu was working to strengthen royal authority and dismantle local power structures. Within this context, an event unfolded that would become one of the most famous cases of alleged demonic possession in European history.

At the center of the story stood the priest Urbain Grandier. Grandier was intelligent, eloquent, and popular among parts of the local population. At the same time, he also made many enemies. His independent attitude, his conflicts with local authorities, and rumors of relationships with women made him a controversial figure.

When a group of Ursuline nuns in Loudun began claiming that they were tormented by demons, it did not take long before the accusations turned toward Grandier. According to the nuns, he had used black magic to cause them to become possessed by demonic forces.

What followed was a series of public exorcisms that attracted enormous public attention. Priests, magistrates, citizens, and curious onlookers gathered to witness what appeared to be supernatural manifestations.

To contemporaries, Loudun represented a battlefield between Heaven and Hell. For modern researchers, it is better understood as a fascinating intersection of religion, psychology, social pressure, and political interests.

Grandier was arrested, tried, and executed

The accusations against Grandier grew increasingly serious. During interrogations, the nuns claimed that demons inhabited their bodies and that these spirits identified Grandier as the person responsible for their condition. Documents were produced that supposedly proved the priest had made a pact with the devil. Today, such documents are almost universally regarded as forgeries or the result of a heavily manipulated legal process. In the seventeenth century, however, they were considered convincing evidence by many.

Grandier was arrested, tried, and ultimately found guilty. In 1634, he was burned alive at the stake. Even at the moment of his execution, he maintained his innocence.

The great irony is that, after his death, his accusers were in effect left empty-handed. They believed that executing Grandier would stop the phenomena, but the cases of possession continued, along with the obscenities displayed by the nuns during exorcisms.

As a result, the exorcisms continued for years, and the case developed into an international scandal. Pamphlets, chronicles, and reports circulated across Europe. Loudun became a name synonymous with possession.

This was not because the Loudun case was unique. On the contrary: between roughly 1550 and 1650, Europe experienced a veritable epidemic of mass possession in convents, especially within Ursuline communities in many parts of Europe. The list is too extensive for this article, but you can find a detailed overview here: Convent Possession in Europe (1500–1700) – Loudun Was Far from the Only Case

From History to Legend: Aldous Huxley’s Study of the Loudun Case

The events of Loudun remained a subject of debate for centuries. As early as 1632, they were recorded in a three-volume account. (See The History of Devils of Loudun in the final section of this article.)

In the twentieth century, the story reached a new audience through the British writer Aldous Huxley. His 1952 book The Devils of Loudun was not a novel, but a deeply researched historical study. Huxley combined archival research with psychological and sociological analysis. He viewed Loudun not only as a religious incident, but also as an example of how systems of power operate.

His work ultimately became the primary inspiration for Ken Russell.

Urbain Grandier as the perfect scapegoat

According to Huxley, Urbain Grandier stands at the center of the Loudun affair—not because he was necessarily guilty of the accusations of witchcraft and demonic possession, but because his personality, lifestyle, and political position made him the ideal scapegoat for an explosive combination of religious hysteria, personal revenge, and state power.

Huxley portrays him as a complex and contradictory figure: at once brilliant and arrogant, genuinely gifted as a preacher, but also vain, impulsive, and often his own worst enemy.

Grandier arrived in Loudun as a young priest and quickly gained a reputation as an exceptional orator. He was attractive, intellectually accomplished, and possessed a charisma that made him popular with part of the local population. But these same qualities also brought him into conflict with church authorities, rival clergy, and influential citizens.

Armand Jean du Plessis, 1st Duke of Richelieu (1585 – 1642), commonly known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a French Catholic prelate and statesman who had an outsized influence in civil and religious affairs.

According to Huxley, Grandier had a sharp tongue and a near-reckless tendency to offend powerful figures. His success with women also made him notorious. Although he was a Catholic priest, he rejected clerical celibacy in his writings and maintained relationships with several women. His affair with Philippa Trincant, the daughter of an important magistrate, turned a former ally into a bitter enemy.

The famous possession affair began in the Ursuline convent of Loudun, where the prioress Jeanne des Anges developed an obsessive fascination with Grandier, despite never having actually met him. His reputation as an attractive and somewhat scandalous priest had already turned him into something of a local legend.

When Grandier refused an invitation to become the convent’s spiritual director, admiration, according to Huxley, turned into resentment. Jeanne then turned to individuals already hostile toward Grandier, and gradually a narrative emerged that the priest had possessed the nuns through demonic forces. What began as a series of individual visions and outbursts developed into a collective drama in which more and more nuns claimed to be tormented by demons.

Huxley emphasizes that Grandier was initially only marginally involved in the events. His name was only later systematically attached to the alleged possessions. According to him, this was not only driven by religious belief, but also by a carefully constructed coalition of opponents who saw an opportunity to remove him permanently. Local clergy, offended notables, and political authorities found in the possession case a means to attack a man they had long despised.

Politics instead of demonology

For Huxley, the true significance of Grandier’s role lies not in demonology, but in politics. At a time when Cardinal Richelieu was centralizing the power of the French crown, Grandier had opposed the dismantling of Loudun’s fortifications, making him suspicious in the eyes of central authority. The possession affair offered a perfect opportunity to eliminate a local opponent under the guise of religious justice. Huxley describes how the case thus transformed from a convent scandal into a state trial.

During the trial, Grandier was accused of making a pact with the devil. The court accepted testimony from allegedly possessed nuns as evidence, and even documents supposedly signed by demons were taken seriously.

Huxley points out that the usual criteria for genuine demonic possession were in fact absent. The nuns spoke no unknown languages, displayed no supernatural knowledge, and possessed no extraordinary abilities. Nevertheless, their testimony was considered convincing because the outcome of the trial had effectively already been decided.

One of the most striking aspects of Huxley’s portrait is that he does not idealize Grandier. He acknowledges his moral flaws, sexual escapades, and arrogance. Grandier was no saint and, according to Huxley, often not even a particularly sympathetic man. But precisely for that reason, the tragedy gains additional weight.

The priest was not condemned for the faults he actually committed, but for a crime that was almost certainly fabricated. In Huxley’s interpretation, he became the victim of an interplay of personal vendettas, collective fantasies, and political interests.

Ultimately, Urbain Grandier appears in The Devils of Loudun as a tragic figure: a man whose own character made many enemies, but who was destroyed by forces far greater than himself.

The possession of the nuns of Loudun, according to Huxley, was not so much a story about demons, but about the human tendency to mix fear, desire, religion, and power.

Grandier became the focal point where all these tensions converged, ensuring that his name would remain permanently attached to one of the most famous cases of alleged demonic possession in European history.

Ken Russell and the Birth of a Masterpiece

When director Ken Russell decided in the early 1970s to adapt the story of Loudun for the screen, he did not choose a traditional historical reconstruction. Russell was known for his visual excess, his provocative style, and his fascination with the boundary between religious ecstasy, sexuality, and madness.

Instead of a conventional costume drama, he created a film that feels like a nightmare. The stark, white, futuristic sets designed by production designer Derek Jarman appear at once historical and timeless. Religious rituals turn into grotesque spectacles. Mysticism and politics constantly overlap and collide.

The role of Urbain Grandier was played by Oliver Reed, while Vanessa Redgrave delivered an unforgettable performance as Sister Jeanne des Anges, the disfigured and obsessive nun at the center of the accusations. Their performances remain among the highlights of British cinema.

Why The Devils Became So Controversial

Upon its release in 1971, The Devils immediately caused a sensation. The film combined religious symbolism with sexual imagery in a way that was unprecedented at the time. Some scenes were regarded by critics as works of artistic brilliance, while others saw them as outright blasphemy.

Censorship authorities intervened. Scenes were cut or removed. In some countries, the film was banned entirely or partially. Other distribution versions differed significantly from Russell’s original cut.

This created a peculiar situation. Although The Devils was widely recognized as an important film, many audiences were unable to see it as Russell had intended for decades. As a result, the film developed an almost mythical reputation. Among collectors and cinephiles, stories circulated about lost scenes and alternative versions. Each new screening became an event in itself.

This raises a second, important question: how does Russell’s film relate to historical reality?

Like any historical film, The Devils takes creative liberties. Characters are simplified. Events are condensed. Symbolism takes precedence over documentary accuracy. Yet the core remains surprisingly close to the historical record:

The exorcisms did take place.
The accusations against Grandier are historically documented.
The political context involving Richelieu and the centralization of the French state played a real and significant role.
Even many of the bizarre descriptions of often sexualized demonic manifestations can be found in contemporary accounts.
Those who read the original documents discover that reality is sometimes barely less strange than the film itself.

Why Loudun Still Fascinates

Urbain Grandier

Nearly four centuries later, Loudun continues to resonate—whether one interprets the case as demonic possession, political persecution, collective hysteria, or a combination of all three. One thing is certain: the events have not lost their power.

Not because modern audiences literally believe in demonic possession, but because the underlying mechanisms remain recognizable. We still see, in daily news cycles, patterns that resemble forms of collective psychological contagion driven by media narratives, political agitation, and institutional messaging. The medieval demon has, in a sense, been replaced by something far more pervasive: the screen.

Societies continue to search for scapegoats. Public hysteria still emerges and persists, because politics—especially within neoliberal systems—often relies on carefully orchestrated narratives and manufactured consensus.

Just as there is no serious evidence that Urbain Grandier was responsible for the alleged possessions, modern societies still construct and maintain large-scale narratives that function as instruments of influence and control. When those narratives collapse, so do the systems built upon them.

The events of Loudun remind us how easily human communities can be carried away by beliefs that, at the time, appear self-evident. That is what makes the story timeless.

This raises a deeper question: should possession be understood as occult or paranormal, or as mass psychology? Or is there, beyond both interpretations, a deeper layer that connects them as a kind of meta-cause? See Benjamin Adamah’s essay on egregores.

Watching the Film, Reading the Sources

For many viewers, the restored version of The Devils will be their first introduction to Loudun. But the film is only one interpretation of a much larger history.

The original chronicles, trial records, testimonies, and pamphlets offer a unique window into the seventeenth century. They show how contemporaries understood, described, and experienced these events.

Where Russell transforms history into visual spectacle, the sources bring us directly into contact with the voices of those who were there.

In 2017, VAMzzz Publishing released a new edition of The History of the Devils of Loudun – After the Original Report of 1634. It presents a revised edition of the original three-volume account of this historic case of mass possession, translated from the French original of 1634 by Edmund Goldsmid.

Seventeen Ursuline nuns were said to have been taken over by demons and entered into a prolonged state of sexual and blasphemous hysteria. The work also describes the trial of the notorious local priest Urbain Grandier, accused of summoning these demons by “throwing a bunch of roses over the convent wall.” Amid a web of jealousy and political intrigue, he was eventually convicted of witchcraft and burned at the stake on August 18, 1634.

Ironically, after the original account was first published in France in 1634 and Grandier had died, the possessions of the nuns reportedly continued for another three years.

“They threw themselves back till their heads touched their feet, and walked in this position with wonderful rapidity, and for a long time. They uttered cries so horrible and so loud that nothing like it was ever heard before; they made use of expressions so indecent as to shame the most debauched of men, while their acts, both in exposing themselves and inviting lewd behaviour from those present, would have astonished the inmates of the lowest brothel in the country.”