10 Small Movie Roles You Didn't Know Held Signifigance

The Devil's Rain has what is easily the best selling point of any cult film, ascribed to it by critic Michael Adams: "It's about a cult, has a cult following, was devised with input from a cult leader, and saw a future superstar indoctrinated into a cult he'd help popularize."

All of this, including the fact that a Halloween mask derived from the film served as the basis for Michael Myer's legendary mask, is terribly true.

As a film, The Devil's Rain is an unwatchable mess. Roger Ebert was right when he said its Satanic cult horror would have a pretty broad appeal...were it not so painfully dull.

Ostensibly, director Robert Fuest set out to make a Satanic horror film in the spirit of Race With The Devil, a similarly themed film with a name cast. Fuest had proven himself with The Abominable Dr. Phibes and And Soon The Darkness, but a tight shooting schedule that got interrupted by at least one Star Trek convention and a set plagued with eerie accidents destroyed his career. After The Devil's Rain, his most significant work was a made for TV sequel to The Stepford Wives.

But one cast member, whenever the film is brought up, will joke and smile, "That's a terrible movie! And there were so many big stars!" John Travolta unfailingly will say if you bring up The Devil's Rain. What he'll fail to mention is the extra onset who allegedly handed him his first copy of Dianetics, the infamous work of L Ron Hubbard.

And so the long, slow road to Battlefield Earth began...