15 French Horror Films You Won't Forget In A Hurry

8. Don't Deliver Us From Evil (1971) Two young convent girls - Lore and Anne - spend their time at school playing childish pranks, which includes things like like spying on the nuns, getting a class mate into trouble, and reading a pornographic novel. The summer holidays roll around and the girls vow to spend it together. They forge an ever deeper allegiance to Satan and their behaviour degenerates. Lore and Anne sexually taunt a mentally deficient man and one by one kill his beloved birds. They take part in a Black Mass type ceremony to cement their ties to the Devil. Soon they're into arson and murder. This little gem of a subversive film did not go down well with the French authorities at its time of release due to its overall blasphemy and anti-clerical tone. It was duly banned in France and then paraded around the world as "The French Film Banned in France!" - of course, whenever I saw the poster advertising this fact, I became obsessed with finding the movie. This was back in about 1997, of course, when there was little information about the film online. It wasn't until 10 years later that I was able to get my paws on a Region 1 release. And I wasn't disappointed. The two lead girls are appropriately malevolent, poised against the gorgeous back drop of the French countryside. Their slide into Satanism is believable and deftly portrayed by director Joël Séria. The worst part of the film - for me, anyway - is the part where the girls killed the mentally deficient man's birds one by one. They were the only light in his life, and as a bird lover (I keep two budgies and two cockatiels), it disgusted and saddened me because I know that you can develop a strong bond with birds. The Satanism and blasphemy in the film didn't bother me at all.