MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological* I've heard that some of the "Mexican westerns" of the 1950s had metaphenomenal elements, probably mostly of the uncanny kind, where evildoers dress up like ghosts. A lot of American B-westerns played around with similar elements, but few of them were very noteworthy. DEVILS OF TERROR feels like a close emulation of those old B's, but this time, the titular "devils" are just a bunch of criminals riding around in devil-costumes for purposes of terrorizing a small town's populace. I'm not sure what they get out of it except in one case: they kill off a local landholder to get his ranch. But the man's pretty daughter comes to town to claim her inheritance, so she becomes the riders' new target. Fortunately, a two-fisted government agent named Gaston (Gaston Santos) comes to town and sorts the evildoers out after about an hour of messing around. This was about as routine an oater as one could hope to find. About the only thing was that unlike most horror-thrillers of the period, this was in very brilliant color. Why the studio did so for such an ordinary product puzzles me. But from what I can tell, the lead actor made a couple of other horror-westerns in color around that time-- THE LIVING COFFIN, THE SWAMP OF THE MONSTERS-- so maybe the studio involved thought Santos was going to justify the extra expense.
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