Overview: Roger Corman and his brother Gene founded The Filmgroup to distribute their own films. Occasionally they picked up projects by other filmmakers, such as The Devil’s Partner (1961), a macabre tale of an elderly man who regains his youth after making a deal with Satan.

This tale of folk terror from director Charles Rondeau stars Edgar Buchanan and Jean Allison.

Special Bonus Feature: Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961), Corman’s spoof of crime films where a gangster knocks off his crew members, blaming their deaths on a legendary sea monster. These two were often paired as a double-feature during the summer and fall of 1961. Beware of the creature with ping-pong ball eyes!

Blu-ray Verdict: Devil’s Partner is one of the few movies I have seen in a long, long time that still actually manages to creep me out! The way to see it is all alone in a darkened house in the middle of the night when you can really let its atmosphere sink in, trust me.

Indeed, there’s one scene in particular where someone turns out to not be whom he originally said he was, and under the right circumstances it will send shivers up and down the spine of even the most hardened horror movie fan.

It’s also deceptively tightly plotted. Turn away at the wrong critical minute and you might lose track of the plot as it arcs its way in and out of what now seems to be familiar material. The film even gives away it’s big secret within the first fifteen minutes, but still manages to hold viewer interest for another hour as it unfolds like a nightmare. And one with a creepy musical score played on what sounds like one of those Ondes-Martenot electronic keyboards!

True the low budget and television stock acting probably works against the overall effect, but if you look beneath it you’ll find a very demented little study on Southwestern American supernatural horror that would be revisited again and again: Race With The Devil (1975), Brotherhood Of Satan (1971), Enter The Devil (1972), The Devil’s Rain (1974) all took a cue from The Devil’s Partner.

Which was actually made just as the Italians were exporting their Gothic horrors from Mario Bava, Riccardo Freda, and Antonio Margheriti. The Europeans had their Gothic castles and misty cobweb filled catacombs, we had the equally Gothic arid, barren Southwest. It would be interesting to trace where the American horror tradition of Southwestern settings began, but I digress.

Others over the years have summed up the plot elements well enough: A youngish, super-slick and super nice guy drifts into a Death Valley town looking for his ne’re do well uncle and everything goes straight to hell, and quickly. What makes it work is the way the film was constructed, including the sharp black and white photography making the night scenes lit by the stark lighting more unsettling than it would have been in color.

I will also mention Twilight Zone because the pacing of the film is very reminiscent of that show, as are the themes of urban satire, ironic vengeance, and ironic justice.

Just watch the movie. It’s only 72 minutes long and having been a public domain title for so long you might be excused for believing if you saw it on an old TV back in the day, you have seen the best it can be. But now released as a wondrous 4K restoration by Film Masters, well, trust me when I tell you that you ain’t seen nothing yet!

Obviously, Creature from the Haunted Sea is much weaker, showing imperfections and a fairly wide range of inconsistency - where Devil’s Partner can look effective, bright with modest texture - if never stellar. Contrast is well rendered, no compression issues and there are day-lit instances of brief depth.

Bonus Materials:
TV Version of Devil’s Partner included
Theatrical Version of Creature from the Haunted Sea included
Extended TV Version of Creature from the Haunted Sea included
Full length commentary for Devil’s Partner
Full length commentary for theatrical version of Creature from the Haunted Sea
Inserted booklet with essays by Tom Weaver and Mark McGee
Hollywood Intruders: The Filmgroup Story: Part 3 by Ballyhoo Motion Pictures