the
•
atantc creen
An Illustrated Guide To The Devil In Cinema
Nikolas �c�reck
CREDITS
The Satanic Screen
An lllustrated History Of The Devil In Cinema 1896-1999
Nikolas Schreck
ISBN 1 84068 043 1
CREATION CINEMA COLLECTION, VOLUME 17
© Nikolas Schreck 2000
First published 2001 by:
CREATION BOOKS
All World Rights Reserved
Design/layout/typesetting:
PCP International
Design technician:
Bradley Davis
Photographs:
By courtesy of the author, BFI London, Kobal Collection (page 225), and the
Jack Hunter Collection. All stills are .authorised publicity shots and used here
as originally designated.
Author's Acknowledgements:
Russell Massina, Helene Boullet, Simone Lohmeier
In Memoriam for the Sea Wolf.
For my wife, Zeena, with love eternal.
CONTENTS
Prologue: Darkness Visible
5
1. Through The Devil's Looking Glass
11
2. When Satan Was Silent: 1913-1929
23
3. The Depression And Its Demons: The 1930s
49
4.
War Is Hell: The 1940s
61
5.
Atom Age Antichrist: The 1950s
79
6.
Sympathy For The Devil: The 1960s
93
7.
Deluge And Backlash: The 1970s
143
8.
Raising Hell In The Reagan Years: The 1980s
193
9.
Even Hell Has Its Heroes: The 1990s
217
Index of Films
239
"The Devil hath power t'assume a pleasing shape
-William Shakespeare
...
"
PROLOGUE:
DARKNESS VISIBLE
According to tradition, the Devil has always been a celebrated patron of the arts.
Quite apart from the vague and somewhat contradictory references to his
personage found in the B i ble, Satan has maintained a long and distinguished
presence in Western culture. Indeed, it is as a constantly sha pe-shifting entity of
the creative imagination that Lucifer has been most enlivened in mankind's
consciousness.
Mephistopheles was the muse of such composers as Liszt and Paganini,
whose virtuosity inspired rumours of pacts with the Devil. Opera houses still
resound to a repertoire of infernal arias. Medieval nun Hi ldegard von Bingen's
Sequentia included one of the Devil's earliest appearances as a musical character,
a heritage continued more recently in the Satanic pieces of Penderecki and
Maxwell Davies. Dante's Inferno, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Goethe's Faust count
among the masterpieces of their respective national literatures, each conveying
an indelible Satanic vision whose influence has lasted centuries. The Prince of
Darkness was praised in the litanies of Baudelaire and the hymns of Carducci,
among countless other bards drawn to sulphurous verse. Ever since the Everyman
plays of the Middle Ages, the Devil has strutted the boards of the world's stages,
from Marlowe's Doctor Faustus to Shaw's Don Juan In Hell. Satan has been an­
obliging model for artists of the calibre of Durer, Bosch and Goya, later
materializing on the decadent canvases of many great Symbolist painters. The first
sculptures of the Devil were seen in 1 2th century churches, and secular Satans of
stone were molded by the romantic Rodin.
These demonic apparitions in the arts have all been exhaustively
chrohicled, bearing witness to the immense magnetism the Devil has exercised on
the creative impulse. Considering this, it's strange that Satan's impressive showing
in the seventh art of cinema has gone almost entirely unexamined until now. For,
as one looks back on the first century of film, it becomes apparent that the
movies have been the Devil's domain from the very beginning. The Prince of
Darkness stars in one of the very first narrative films, France's LA MANOIR DU
DIABLE ( 1 896} by cinema p ioneer Georges Melies. Germany's DER STUDENT VON
PRAG (1 913}, recognized as the first cohesive feature-length p icture, tells the tale
of a Faustian pact with the Devil, a theme that would be reinterpreted again and
again in the next nine decades. Throughout the entire development of the motion
picture as art form and entertainment in the 20th century, the figure of Satan
stands firmly in focus, a mirror of changing times and cultural tides.
Extending its scope far beyond the predictable handful of films that might
first come to mind, this study of the Satanic cinema reveals that Beelzebub is
invoked to interesting effect in a kale idoscopic array of pictures, striding across
genre lines into often unexpected territory. In this, the first filmography of the
Fallen Angel, it becomes evident that the Satanic archetype knows no boundaries.
Here are toe-ta pping Satanic musicals like DAMN YANKEES (1958) and avant garde
underground experiments, such as INVOCATION OF MY DEMON BROTHER (1 969).
Satan is summoned in the salacious hardcore pornography of THE DEVIL IN MISS
JONES (1972) and the wholesome Disney fare of FANTASIA (1 940). There are sci-fi
films positing the Devil as an extra-terrestrial, and Blaxploitation flicks placing Hell
right in the hood. The Devil rides the range in the Satanic western THE DEVIL'S
6 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
Hiixan.
M ISTRESS ( 1 966). Such works as F.W. Murnau's FAUST (1 926) and Richard B u rton's
DOCTOR FAUSTUS ( 1 967) give us Archfiends suited for the salons of high classical
culture. Despite such lofty forays, Satanas is no snob, equally at home in any
number of Z-grade grindhouse q uickies. Consequently, I've cast as wide a net as
possible, as the cheapest exploitation film tells us as much about our shadowy
subject as any of the more refined infernal essays.
Tracing the evolution of the Satanic archetype on film, one q u ickly
d iscovers that n o character has inspired such wildly differing interpretations.
Charming rogue with impeccable manners; slavering monster of bestial aspect;
seemingly in nocent child; seductive woman; unseen metaphysical force: these are
only some of the contradictory depictions of the Devil offered by the Satanic
cinema. With so many film-makers centring on this mercurial figure through the
lenses of so many cultures and times, a n u npredictable procession of shifting
images appears. The enigmatic nature of Lucifer has u nleashed the cinematic
imagination to intensely individual expression. It's rather odd to note how rarely
film-makers have presented the Devil as the trite emblem of pitchfork-bearing,
cloven-hoofed fiend. Subversive visions of the Devil as dark anti-hero collide with
the traditional cliche of Satan as a one-dimensional Christian bogeyman.
These disparate filmic portrayals of u ltimate evil's primary symbol reflect
the rapidly changing swing of the 20th century's societal pendulum back a n d
forth between transgressive impulse a n d safe conservatism. True to its mirroring
nature, the Satanic cinema has often portrayed the Devil as whatever force was
perceived by consensus consciousness as embodying cosmic maleficence at the
time. Satan has been portrayed on film as being in league with such divergent
social scarecrows as Saddam Hussein, the 1 960s hippy counterculture. Nazi
Germany, the legal profession, heavy metal music, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the
PROLOGUE: DARKNESS VISIBLE
•
7
President of the Un ited States.
Above and beyond any of these strictly temporal anxieties, the Satanic
cinema has most often associated Lucifer with the intoxicating and subversive
power of Eros. As film after film testifies, Satan is seen as presiding over the
eternal rites of sex, most effectively through his principal agent on Earth,
womankind. Tertullian wrote that "Foemina janua diabuli"- Woman is the gate
to the Devil - and this dictum has been hammered home in hundreds of diabolical
films. Depending on the climate of the times, Satanic sexuality and feminine
eroticism has been celebrated (H AXAN, 1922), exploited (BLOOD ORGY OF THE
S H E-DEVILS, 1 972), and condemned to death (THE EXORCIST, 1 973), sometimes a l l
a t the same time. The demonic Other i s very often simply the other woman,
causing enchanted hearts to stray from the bonds of holy matrimony. In those
films produced in prurient and Puritan Hol lywood, a strong streak of misogyny has
informed these portrayals of the female as accomplice of Satan. Such pictures echo
the words of Kramer and Sprenger, those Papal inquisitors who wrote the Malleus
Ma/eficarum: "All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women
insatiable ... wherefore for the sake of fulfilling their lusts they consort even with
devils." This hatred and fear of the flesh was far less pronounced in European
Satanic fi lms, which generally paint a more positive image of Luciferian lust.
As a necessary adjunct to the history of the Devil on film, I account for
cinematic depictions of his adherents, the practitioners of Satan ism and the adepts
of black magic. In covering this subgenre of the Satanic film, I focus on the
previously obscured interplay between the burgeoning cinema and the actual
black magical revival, two unprecedented 20th century phenomena that often
intertwined. Like rivers linked by unseen subterranean streams, the nee-magical
renaissance and the cinema fed each other in synergetic fashion, parallel cultural
developments occasionally interlinked. Aleister Crowley, the most notorious
occultist of the century, exercised an influence on a veritable cottage industry of
magical films, including the silent classic THE MAGICIAN (1 926) and Kenneth
Anger's Thelemic underground cycle. Several British horror films were also inspired
by the B east's darker elements. Other occult Orders have played a far more di rect
role in the production of Sata n ic films. The obscure magician Albin Grau was
involved with NOSFERATU (1 922) and other classics of the silent era. The
screenwriter for THE SEVENTH VICTIM attended a 1943 meeting of New York
Satanists while researching the film. Cameron Parsons, an artist/sorceress
legendary in magical circles, can be seen in several films. Michael A. Aquino,
founder of the Temple of Set, was the first practising Satanist to serve as technical
adviser on a film in 1 972. And in 1 975, Anton Szandor LaVey, principal purveyor
of Satanism as showbiz, was hired by director Robert Fuest to add a sense of
realism to a drive-in Devil flick known as THE DEVIL'S RAIN. The films covered in
this volume not only drew on actual magical practice, their powerful fantasies
often inspired neophytes to experiment with the Black Arts- especially during the
occult time warp of the late 1 960s and early 1 970s.
On its most elemental level, the Satanic cinema forms an arena of war
between two violently contradictory impulses, the stasis of the known vs. the
eternally transforming Other. At one extreme, a certain number of these films
express an unre l ieved fear of the Devil as embodiment of all that is hidden,
unfamiliar and threatening to the status quo of fami ly, relig ious orthodoxy and
sexual repression. At the opposite pole, Satan is depicted as a mysterious but
desirable liberating force, breaking the bonds of normative consciousness, and
8
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Tbe Magician.
freeing up possibil ities that allow for unlimited expansion of the self. At the heart
of the dramatic conflict in almost every diabolical film is the relentless battle
between the socially defined mass mind and the self-defined individual
consciousness coming into being of its own accord. Power, knowledge, adventure,
eternal life, erotic license; these are the temptations the Devil offers to the
dramatis personae of the Satanic cinema. Of course, the lion's share of film­
makers ultimately opt for a reversion to the tribal good, quashing the dangerous
rebellion of Lucifer in the final reel. However, we will also consider those
intriguing works that allow the "evil" Other - the untrammelled independent self
- to triumph over the herd.
As for the archetype of the Devil, it actually extends far beyond the
lim ited framework of Judaeo-Christian mythology. The Aztec deity Tezcatlipoca,
the Egyptian war god Set, Grecian Prometheus, Islamic lblis, and Indian Kali are
only a few of the culturally determined faces of the Devil, an archetype of truly
cross-cultural dimensions. The ever-changing Satan of the cinema is in fact a
mythical alloy composed of many strands of legend and folklore. NIGHT OF THE
DEMON (1 957) is one of the few films that suggest the universal ity of the Devil
in any convincing way.
The casual viewer of the Satanic cinema will tend to dismiss diabolical
doings on screen as nothing more than monster movies with theological
trappings. However, I have added another point of view to the consideration of
these films. After all, Satanism and the veneration of the Devil are not simply
figments of screenwriter's imag inations. The practice of the Black Arts is a real
PROLOGUE: DARKNESS VISIBLE
•
9
and flourishing phenomenon, reflected both in an arcane magical subculture and
in the omnipresence of Satanic symbolism in different strata of pop culture.
Satanism's sensational aura may draw customers to the box office - the most
compe lling motivation of any producer - but I have also examined these films in
light of the authentic black magical tradition they occasionally make reference to.
That tradition - almost entirely obscured beneath the detritus of popular notions
of Satanism - is the spiritual methodology known as the left hand path.
Although THE DEVIL RIDES OUT (1 967) is the only film that actually refers
to the left hand path by name, it is this system of metaphysical initiation that
underlies the entire Satanic mythos which these films address. From a left hand
path perspective, the metaphysical concepts of Satan and Lucifer have nothing to
do with the Judaeo-Christian u nderstanding of these cosmic principles. In fact,
Satan ism itself represents just one narrow element of the left hand path, which
is, above a l l, the exaltation of the self through magical means. The magician of
the left hand path seeks to separate her or his psyche from all that is unessential
to it, embracing and integrating the Other as a key to achieving an immortal god­
like state of consciousness. Seen through the magical worldview, the Satanic
cinema's conflict between the Other and the social vector can be defined as the
battle between the left hand path and the right hand path, its eternal adversary.
The right hand path can be defined as an alignment with cosmic conformism, a
subm ission of the self to group consciousness.
This imported esoteric phrase "left hand path" has been used rather
inexactly by many modern black magicians, who usually ignore the Eastern Tantric
tradition from which this terminology originated. The sexual magic intrinsic to the
authentic Indian left hand path has also largely been ignored by prudish
contemporary Satan ists, who sepa rate sexua l ity from spirituality just as much as
any Christian. In India, the left hand way - Varna Marg in Sanskrit - can also be
translated to mean the way of Woman, a fact which underscores the feminine
essence of the left hand path. The cosmic Feminine Daemon ic, mysterious, lu nar
and nocturnal, is usually stamped out in the Satanic cinema by the stolid male
hero of the right hand path. The frequent cinematic portrayal of the Devil as a
beguiling female is interesting in this regard.
In viewing even the most marginal entries in the Sata nic cinema, it
becomes apparent that cinema is truly the folklore of the 20th century, working
on the same unconscious level of myth and dream. Just as certain iconic figures
and themes recur in dreams and mythology, so does the diabolic film consistently
present symbolic leitmotifs. Of these recurring images, perhaps one of the most
frequent is the Double. Vexing the Sata nic cinema with its confusing presence
from the earl iest days of the movies, the Double sometimes ill ustrates the simple
Man ichean notion of good and evil by splitting one character into a purportedly
good Jekyll and a Satanic Hyde. Reflecting a basic cultural distrust of women, this
doubling often takes the form of the nice girl and the libidinous seductress,
played by the same actress. Such twin n i ng can be most effectively seen in
METROPOLIS (1926) and LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIC (1 960). Often, the Double
is evoked in a more subtle manner by the use of a Satanic mirror, reflecting a
reality unseen by unillumin ated mortals.
Many of these films can be viewed as initiatory quests, in which characters
embark on a magical journey which transforms their identity, or brings them into
contact with hidden aspects of Self previously unknown or forbidden to them. The
mythic power of the cinema is such that even a film with absolutely no other
10
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
ambition than the financial can un intentionally project a mythic resonance that
tells us something about the primordial archetype of the Devil. Just as seemingly
trivial dreams may possess uncanny force and meaning, film can be a kind of
waking dream, touching deep chords in the subconscious.
On a more mundane level, there is un questionably a subtext of class
confl ict in many of these pictures. According to F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous quote:
"The rich are not like you and I" In the Satanic cinema that's certa inly true. In the
majo rity of these films, the rich customarily worship the Devil. Money, in the
theology of the cinema, is second only to female sexual ity as a depraving Sata nic
influence. Film audiences are consistently offered images of Lucifer's minions as
conspicuously moneyed snobs, symbols of class envy and suspicion taken to the
furthest extreme. In the mass psyche's wish-fulfilment fantasies, the unbrid led
erotic decadence presumed to typify the upper class leads directly to consorting
with Satan. A standard location in almost every film concerning Satanism is the
opulent chateau concea ling unholy rites behind its civilized facade. In keeping
with this well-heeled undercurrent, there have been a surprising number of
celluloid Satans played by actors with upper-class British accents. This trend,
particularly evident in Hollywood productions, seems to symbolize some a rchetypal
recognition that the Devil, despite his poor reputation in some circles, is essentially
a gentleman. After all, an entity sporting the honorific title of Prince of Darkness
must be a noble of some kind. In Das Bose In Kino, Hans-Joachim Neuman
observes that "the cinema Devil is ... a thoroughly polyglot, often elegant, urbane
and, above all, well-spoken apparition. His terror is the terror of a provincial
public before the seductions of the great wide world."
Other curious patterns will be seen to rise and recede as a century of
screen Satans unreels in these pages. Certa in ly, I have allowed my own eclectic
tastes to decide which episodes in this 1 04-year journey should be emphasized. It
would require an encyclopedia to chronicle every diabolical production, and
limitations of space simply forbid listing them all. As I'm convinced that the
homogenized steril ity of 1 980s and 1 990s culture marked a dismal nadir, the
reader will notice that I've been far less exhaustive in covering that aesthetically
void era. When possible, I've tried to illuminate the darker, more obscure corners
of the Sata nic cinema. Consequently, influential but forgotten early figu res like
Georges Melies, Hanns Heinz Ewers, and Hans Poelzig have been afforded more
space than some well-known contemporary players. I make no apologies for my
adm itted prejudice against big-budget Hol lywooden product in favour of less
publ icized independent productions.
Now that you've been warned, it's time to let the ushers escort you to
your seat. The shadowed screen that stands before you promises strange
pleasures, serendipities and more than a few fascinating failures. As with every
branch of the Black Arts, true masters of the Satanic cinema are rare, and
transient pretenders are the rule. Its artistic ach ievements have sometimes been
entirely accidental, although a select company of authentic visionaries have let
their cameras peer into the darkness. The odd body of work we will observe veers
madly between extremes, sometimes provoking the senses with Dionysian
challenge, and then retreating into purblind conformism. These films talk loudly
about all those topics forbidden to polite conversation: Religion, sex, politics. As
such, even the most trivial of their number serve to reflect discomforting g l impses
of the mutating culture that produced them.
Xeper and Remanifest -Niko/as Schreck, Berlin, 30 April 2000 CE
THROUGH THE DEVIL'S
LOOKING GLASS
The history of the Satanic cinema truly begins with the magic lantern spectacles
of the seventeenth century, which delighted and frightened pre-cinematic
audiences with elaborate illusions of light and shadow. These dramatic
demonstrations, foreshadowing the cinema to come, were vivid entertainments
projected in the dark to the amazement of spectators. By shooting a stream of
light through images wrought on coloured g lass sl ides, impresarios disp layed the
mirage of glowing, realistic phantasms floating over onlooker's heads. The
impress ion of movement was produced by inserting a second or third glass frame
into the light. In this manner, a gaudily painted jester could be seen to dance a
jig, or sunny clouds would suddenly darken with storm and l ightning.
Fascination with the new entertainment was not l imited to any one
stratum of society. Aristocrats invited noble guests to view this latest diversion,
converting their ballrooms or private theatres for the use of magic lantern
projection ists. Customarily restrained ladies of the court were reported to cry out
in wonder when they witn essed the ·alarming sight of radiant images moving
above them. To these refined patrons, the magic lantern was presented by
entrepreneurs as a genteel art form. In contrast, commoners were crowded into
darkened tents in seedy fairgrounds and circuses to behold the magic lantern.
Such d ifferentiations antici pated the art house film and the exploitation movie of
centuries hence.
Some awe-struck spectators screamed with
delight at the
technically created marvels, often reaching out to touch the phantom images,
believing them to be real. The superstitious crossed themselves, fearful that such
sights were the artifices of the Devil.
Hovering ghosts materialized and dissolved in the darkness. Flying pixies
and fays g littered with magic dust. Other inhuman creatures, both benign a n d
malevolent, terrified a n d encha nted t h e viewers o f these sorcerous light
exhibitions. Naturally, because of the fantastic, dream-like effects artisans could
create with the new medium, the Devil was a lways a popular theme in the
phantasmagoria of the Laterna magica.
Brightly coloured flames of hellfire fl ickered around the cloven hooves of
winged demons. While many black magicians had strived in vain to conjure the
Devil to visible appearance, the Laterna magica had succeeded. Such malefic
a p p a ritions were the precursors to the Satanic cinema, offering the mythological
images of embodied evil as popular entertainment. The Satanic amusements
pouring forth from the magic lantern were noted with alarm by the agents of the
Church. Always the first to condemn any new technical innovation, ecclesiastics
swiftly inveighed against the magic lantern as an infernal contraption.
Despite such admonishments, more pragmatic evangel ists did not fail to
recognize in the public's fascination with the magic lantern a possible weapon
against the Archfiend. In 1671, the Jesuit priest Kaspar Schott wrote in his opus
Magia optica: "It is but that these pictures and shadows in dark chambers are
much more frightening than those made by the sun. Through this art god less
people can easily be kept from the commitment of too many v ices, if one created
on that mirror images of the Devil and ban ished them to a dark place." Fire and
b rimstone sermons hammering on the dangers of Satan, and the terrors of H e l l
that awaited sinners, could be effective when delivered b y theatrically gifted
12
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
First illustration of the magic lantern, from Ars Magna Lucis El Umbrae (1671).
preachers. However, innovative clergymen found that their congregations could
be even more persuasively frightened into godl iness if their exhortations were
illustrated with the realistic moving images of the Devil's pomps streaming from
Magic lantern slides c. 1800.
THROUGH THE DEVIL'S LOOKING GLASS
•
13
Robenson's Pha,lasmagon·a c. 1830.
the Laterna magica. This churchly utilization of the new machine to keep
parishioners in line were the seventeenth century equ ivalent of such hysterical
cinematic sermons as THE EXORCIST (1973) and THE OMEN (1976).
Less pious results were aimed for by the Belgian magic lantern operator
Etienne
Robertson,
who
presented
his
elaborate
and
world-famous
Phantasmagoria in the Paris of the early 1830s. In a macabre theatre appointed
with human skulls and tomb-like appurtenances, Robertson projected artistically
rendered images of the bat-winged Devil and his minions on moving mirrors,
producing terrifyingly realistic i l l usions that created an international sensation.
Hellish sound effects and sinister voices complemented the infernal images, which
were created by a panoply of inventive prisms and optical effects. It was said that
Robertson's more delicate customers ran screaming from these Satanic spectacles,
which brought the diabolical possibilities of the magic lantern show to an
unprecedented state of the art level.
Another i mportant forerunner to the Satanic cinema proper was the
extravagantly mounted grand i l l usion of fin de siecle stage magic. Steeped in
diabolical imagery, practitioners of this art went to great lengths to suggest that
the beguiling power of their sleight of hand was due to collusion with black
magical forces. These stage magicians' colourful posters often depicted the Devil
as the i l lusionist's invisible cohort, performing m aleficent miracles before the
unbelieving eyes of their audiences. It was not uncommon in the late nineteenth
century for grand illusionists to let it be known that their skills were the result of
a pact with t h e Prince of Hell. Elephants appeared and vanished with the wave
of a
hand, exotic princesses and fairy tale beauties were sawn in half or
gu illotined, only to be resurrected. If credulous audiences imagined that these
wonders were the result of the mag ician's Satanic alliance, then so much t h e
better Perhaps t h e Great Dante, aswirl in t h e infernal, brought t h i s Luciferian
lineage to its greatest lustre.
14 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
·;;.:."·:�· -
til··{·:
In Paris, where a certain penchant for diablerie had always been
pronounced, one of the most popular of these wizards was Georges Melies. Like
many a celebrated stage magician of his time, Melies affected a deliberately
Satanic appearance, sporting a barbed goatee, garbed in the dapper formal wear
and red-lined cape in which the Devil was usually seen in opera or theatre.
Dubbed " Meph isto-Melies" by his admirers, this Satanic showman of th e Victorian
THROUGH THE DEVIL'S LOOKING GLASS
•
15
age was soon to perform one of the greatest tricks of a l l time. For it was Melies
who pulled the Satanic cinema out of his sleeve.
The City of Light was an elegant bastion of the Prince of Darkness in
Me lies' time, and the suave and mysterious stage magician was knowingly catering
to public tastes. Ever since the days of Louis XIV, whose beautiful mistress
Madame Montespan regularly celebrated the Black Mass at the royal palace, the
Devil was chic in the French capital. Even His Grey Eminence, Cardinal Richelieu,
secretly studied the Black Arts, despite the risk of Papal persecution. Baudelaire's
im passioned Satanic poetry was followed by Joris-Karl Huysmans' 1891 novel La­
bas (Down There). Based on the decadent author's experiences with a
contemporary congregation of Luciferians, the book revived serious interest in
Satanism, particularly among the bohemian circle of Symbolist artists. Among
these visionaries was the mystic painter Jean Delville. His g igantic canvas of a
beautiful fallen angel, Tresor de Satan, enraptured its observers with an intensity
the new cinematic art had not yet achieved.
A perfumed taste of the exotic Satanic vogue sweeping through Melies'
1890s Paris is distilled in these lines of Verlaine: "In a s i l k and gold palace in
Echbatan, Beautiful demons, youthful Satans, To the sound of Mohammedan
music dedicate their f ive senses to the Seven Sins." Parisians attending Me lies'
m a g i c shows could have intensified the evening's theme by sl ipping off at
midnight to any of the risque Black Masses celebrated throughout the city. Paris
was so associated with Satanism in the 1890s that the more spurious and
commercial of these ceremonies were even listed in tourist gu ides. What better
place than Paris, where the Devil was the stuff of popu lar entertainment, high art,
and esoteric study, for the Satanic cinema to take its first cloven steps?
Despite this long-simmering fascination with black magic a l l around him,
it should be pointed out that for Georges Melies, Satan was simply the stuff of
entertainment. Born in 1861, Melies' background was completely devoid of magic.
As the son of a prosperous shoemaker, he was expected to take up the family
trade. To this prosaic end, he was shipped off to London to perfect his English for
business purposes in 1884. When he attended a traditional English pantomime,
Melies was enchanted by the mythical fairy-tale atmosphere. His imagination
inflamed, he never really set foot on earth again. Surrounded by the pseudo­
pharaonic splendour of Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, he beheld the extravagant magic
shows of the conjurer Maskelyne. The young Frenchman was taken under
Maskelyne's wing, where he learned the closely guarded secrets of the art of
stage m a g ic. Returning to his homeland, he purchased the famous Parisian home
of stage magic, the Theatre Robert-Houdin. There, he devised i llusions that
astounded even the most sophisticated audiences.
As one of Paris' most celebrated entertainers, the magician was invited to
the Lumiere B rothers legendary exhibition of the
Cinematog raphe on
28
December 1895. He was riveted by the wondrous sight of photographs that
actually moved. Melies' m a g ically oriented mind perceived instantly that the
moving picture was really a fabulous form of legerdemain, a grand il lusion that
could be applied to his stage show to marvellous effect. The magic lantern and
stereopticon, technical adjuncts he had previously util ized to create uncanny
effects
in
his
act,
were
now
instantly
archaic.
With
this
new-fa ngled
Cinematog raphe, Melies saw that he could execute a kind of magic that would
completely transcend the old-fashioned grand illusions of the stage. This
technologically produced i l l u m inated fl ickering of sequential photographs was a
16
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Georges Melies.
trick that even the great Mephisto-Melies, with all of his devilish dexterity, could
not achieve.
At first, he thought the invention would be a great attraction for his
theatre, so he built and patented his own camera, the Kinematographe Robert-
THROUGH THE DEVIL'S LOOKING GLASS
•
17
Houdin. Brief film clips were incorporated into his act, adding a dash of nove lty
and razzle-dazzle to his usual Abracadabra. As Mel ies enthusiastically
experimented with the gadget, he accidentally discovered one ofthe cinema's first
special effects. While filming traffic in La place de I'Opera, his camera temporarily
jammed, then started again. When he saw the developed film, he was delighted
to watch a bus transformed magically into a hearse via stop motion. This trick
photography was used to show the old disappearing lady trick with far more
effectiveness than he could ever realize with theatrically bound stage magic.
His obsession with the poss ibilities of using film as magic led him to
abandon his successful stage act altogether. Melies refurbished the venerable
Theatre Robert-H oudin into one of Europe's first movie theatres. Other film
pioneers around the world were tinkering with the new technology of the
Cinematograph, but they were primarily using the camera as a clinical instrument,
recording real events in a documentary manner. The Lumiere Brothers, for
instance, were producing the equivalent of newsreels, early exercises in cinema
verite. It was the proto-surrealist Melies who used the cinema to transcend what
the Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau dismissed as "the wretched reporting of
positive facts"
Jaded aud iences of the twenty-first century, bombarded as they are by
a constant barrage of media images, may find it difficult to comprehend the
visionary qua lity of Mel ies' genius. The magician was the first to grasp the
medium's abi lity to tell fantastic stories in artfu lly contrived images. He set to
il lustrating archetypal myths of the imagination with moving pictures that fooled
the mind into suspending disbelief, allowing for the acceptance of the unreal as
the actual. In the darkness of his theatre, audiences saw the impossible come to
life. While others were content to record mundane events for the sheer novelty
of it, Mel ies was creating his own bizarre and personal enchanted worlds. H e
advertised these early fantasy films a s scenes a transformation. Reca lling the bias
for naturalism early cinema viewers held fast to, Melies said, "the audiences of
that day imagined that it was impossible to photograph anything but real
objects" Cinema's first sorcerer dazzled his viewers, revealing unexpected artistic
possibilities in his creations, stamping them with his id iosyncratic personality.
Melies' productions became more and more complicated, quickly
progressing from the filmic recreation of grand illu sions to actu al narratives. A
one man show possessed of unflagging energy, he constructed and painted the
first sets in a special film studio, designed and fabricated costumes, and handled
the actual photography and editing of hundreds of short films.
Naturally, Mephisto-Melies seized upon the chance to conjure his favourite
mythical su bject, His Satanic Majesty, with the new magical device at his disposal.
Melies' 1 896 LA MANOIR DU DIABLE (THE DEVIL'S MANOR), so far as I can
ascerta in, is the oldest Satanic film still extant, and certa inly one of the very first
presentations of the Devil in the new medium of the cinema. (A short film telling
the s_}ory of Faust was reportedly shown around the same time by the Lumiere
Brothers, but details concerning this seemingly lost production are scarce.)
Clocking in at an epic three minutes and fifteen seconds, the story is simple. A
j u m bo-sized bat glides into a trompe-l'oeil medieval castle hall set, painted in flat
theatrical style. The bat flaps around menacingly before transforming into a
traditionally attired Mephistopheles, none other than Melies himself. When a
cavalier flourishes the despised crucifix, the Devil vanishes in a sulphurous puff of
smoke. Fin. Essential ly, the Devil is portrayed as a styl ized grand illusionist, an
18
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Qualre Cents Farces Du Diab/e.
alter ego of the film-maker. LA MANOIR DU DIABLE achieves Melies' goal of using
trick photography to create deceptions far more convincing to the spectator than
old-fashioned stage magic. Enervated as we are by a century of special effects, it
is easy to forget how unprecedented Me lies' devilish cinemagique was in its time.
THROUGH THE DEVIL'S LOOKING GLASS
•
19
I suspect that in far less time than a century, the vaunted digital effects of the late
twentieth century will seem equally outdated, albeit retain ing none of Melies'
charm.
From then on, the magician indu lged in a veritable Mephistomania, an
obsessive marathon of Satanic film-making the likes of which has never been seen
again. The three minute LE CABINET DE MEPHISTOPHELES (1897) found Satan
recreating the director's old magic act for posterity. In 1898, there was FAUST ET
MARG UERITE, a brief episode from the Doctor Faustus legend, and an excerpt
from Berlioz's opera DAM NATION DE FAUST, only the first of many treatments of
the enduring tale of the infernal pact. His most elaborate Faustian film was to be
1 904's ambitious DAMNATION DU DOCTEUR FAUST which told Goethe's tale in
twenty vivid scenes, including the Walpurgis night rites and a procession of
h istory's most celebrated beauties.
Melies d irected himself as the Devil again in 1 899's LE D IABLE AU
COUVENT (THE DEVIL IN A CONVENT) in which a bat-winged Beelzebub appears
in a column of smoke, tempting nuns into sin while masquerading as a priest at
the pulpit. The blasphemous mockery is very much in keeping with the anti-clerical
humour then prevalent in Parisian culture. 1 903's LES FILLES DU DIABLE (THE
DAUG HTERS OF SATAN) was quickly followed by CAKE-WALK INFERNAL, the turn
of the century equivalent of a music video. In an attempt to capitalize on the
cake-walk dance craze sweeping through Paris, the magician set two black cake­
walk dancers in Hell, where they give a command performance for Satan.
Melies turned to Satanic su bjects more times than can be listed in the over
500 short films he made for his Star Films company. By 1 906, he had refined his
photographic trickery far beyond the primitive level of his first Devil f ilms. That
year's QUATRE CENTS FARCES DU DIABLE (FOUR HUNDRED PRANKS OF THE DEVIL)
boasts a host of pioneering special effect transformations manipu lated by the
Devil's magic. Among the film's many mock-sin ister pha ntasms are an alchem ist's
workplace replete with giant ovens and retorts and the spectral ride of an
apocalyptic Devil's coach, trailing comets and suns as its drawn by a skeletal horse
through the stars. Satan magically materializes in a church, swaying a virginal
young woman from her prayers. It concludes with a tableau of the Devil roasting
in Hellfire, accompanied by an infernal ballet. The last scene was originally hand­
tinted by Melies in vivid reds and yellow, bringing to the cinematograph one of
the favoured motifs of the magic lantern shows of old.
We are lucky to have the opportunity to view any of Melies' early
experiments in diablerie. After World War I, new in novations in the cinema left
the pioneering cinema wizard penni less, and he was forced to sell all the
costumes, scenery, a n d props he had created for his fantastic tableaus. Unable to
rent storage space for the negatives of his films, he destroyed many of them. Only
a m i n uscule fraction of his enormous output survived. Innumerable copyists
plagiarized Mel ies' work, and he was eventually bankrupted. After years of
obscu rity, in which he survived as the proprietor of a small magic and novelty
shop, this forgotten cinema spearhead found late acclaim in the 1 920s. When
Melies died in 1938, a ward of the state, the ingenious godfather of the Sata n i c
cinema was recognized for his historic contribution to the seventh art.
The Parisian magician's distinctive legacy can be traced through many
future appearances of the Devil in French cinema. As we examine Lucifer's
man ifold filmic guises, it becomes clear that the Gallic interpretation differs
markedly from the image preva lent in Anglo-Saxon films. Once Hol lywood's
20
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Quatre Cents Farr::es Du Diable.
stra nglehold on the world film market was secured, the Devil was almost a lways
i n carnated as a forbidding figure of terror, a sometimes intriguing but ultimately
destructive monster reborn from the medieval imagination. In sharp contrast,
French films of the diabolique are inclined to play Satan as a rather charming and
romantic personage. To varying degrees, the Fallen Angel's Gallic man ifestations,
in Marcel Carne's LES VISITEURS DU SOIR (1942), Rene Clair's LA BEAUTE D U
DIABLE (1949) a n d Claude Autant-Lara's MARGUERITE D E L A N U IT (1956) reflect
the character's seductive and attractive side. Such whimsical Princes of Darkness
make for a refresh ing change from the parade of relent lessly grim Archfiends that
h a u n t the Puritan collective consciousness of the American film industry. From its
inception as a branch of Georges Mel ies' legerdemain, the cinema of the sinister
has retained its original magical characteristics. Harkening back to the occult
associations implicit in the magic lantern show, the new art of film displayed
e lements of ritual, simulating - and often stimulating - the same trance states,
h a l l u cinations a n d visionary experiences aimed at by the esoteric practice of
occultists. Nin eteenth century ceremonial magicians, at the time of the cinema's
dawning, cla imed to travel to what they quaintly termed "the astral plane" The
cinematograph, in the hands of a magician like Me l ies, seemed like a n instrument
that's cold g lass eye could eventually rival the visions received in such astral
journeys. In the twentieth century, building· on the trickery of Melies, filmmakers
would attempt to limn the dreamscapes once espied only by initiates. Almost
every film-maker of the fantastic owes a great debt to Mel ies, who discovered
such essentials of film illusion as the fade, mattes, superimposition and the freeze
frame. Rene Clair, who contributed LA BEAUTE DU DIABLE to the Sata n i c cinema
in 1949, saluted his i l l ustrious predecessor by observing that Melies "produced as
if from a hat a surreal world that prefigured ... the distortions of Caligari"
THROUGH THE DEVIL'S LOOKING GLASS
•
21
Visiting t h e darkened realm of any of the new movie theatres springing
up, one might as well have been stepping foot into a mage's shadowy ritual
chamber The rite began with the dimming of the l ights, a llowing the celebrant
to break with familiar consciousness. The opening of the curtain parted the veil
to the un known mag ical universe. The screen replaced the scrying instruments of
tradition. In the darkness, the enchanted moonbeam of the projector allowed the
viewer to see other worlds far beyond the ken of normal consciousness. The early
Christian historian Athanas ius, describing the hallucinatory phantasms with which
the Devil was said to torment St. Anthony asserted: "Now it is very easy for the
Enemy to create apparitions and appearances of such a character that they s h a l l
be deemed r e a l a n d actual objects." T h i s power t o create realistic il lusions was
on ly one of many attributes Satan had in common with the latest art form.
Considering this early Christian assumption that realistic "apparitions a n d
appearances" were t h e Devil's work, it's n o wonder that t h e new-fangled motion
picture projector - like the magic lantern before it - was instantly attacked by
m i n isters around the world as "the devil's looking g lass" Early cinema patrons
were warned by clerics that the delusive dream worlds produced by this nefarious
device would surely cast a dangerous, seductive spell upon them. For these moral
guardians, a// movies, any movies, were potentially threatening to one's spiritu a l
welfare. Even with the most mundane film, the hypnotic effect o f t h e dancing
shadows projected on the screen could be understood as a glamour worked on
the audience. If this was so, actual celluloid portrayals of Satan and occult topics
were considered even more damning. This attitude would endure, assuring that
many of the most important works of the Satan i c cinema would be v i l ified and
offic i a l l y forbidden by censors and self-appointed public protectors for a century
to come.
Before the movies became a constant of everyday l ife, there seemed to
be something intrinsically uncanny about the new medium. Cinema's artificial
m irror world drew fascinated onlookers into an unnatural, alternative un iverse,
a simulacrum of life itself. Born from the alchemical retort of the still mysterious
photographic lab, this eerie double reality had the power to unsettle. Primitive
peoples fiercely resisted having their photographs taken, fearful that their souls
wou ld be stolen by the camera's eye. The B iblical injunction against graven images
was not completely forgotten when the cinematograph arrived. Did not the
capturing of l i keness and movement i n moving pictures constitute a kind of black
mag ic, a Promethean c h a llenge to the divine privilege of creation? Actress Barbara
Steele observed in her trenchant autobiographical essay "Cult Memories" that
"film is so porous, and to my m ind, so oddly occult, that I think that film absorbs
odd energies like a living skin."
The movies also broke the laws of the mechanical universe by providing
a kind of vampiric immortality to those it recorded. In the glowing shadow realm
of the cinema, time could stand still, and flesh, once filmed, would not age. All
of these seemingly supernatural qualities of cinema made it an ideal medium for
illustrating the fantastic leg endry and folklore of the Satanic mythos.
The last years of the nineteenth century were typified by an almost
fanatical devotion to cold rationalism and scientific reason. It is ironic that one of
the many tech nological marvels this era would produce was a machine that
allowed the supposedly banished superstitions of magic and the Devil to appear
more vividly than ever before, summoned by the science of cinematography.
Commenting on this curious incong ruity, the pioneering student of the fantastic
22
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
film, Ivan Butl er, notes: "It is. . . as if, despite our protestations of the triumph of
commonsense over superstition, something very deep inside us is loth to bid
farewel l to the ancient beliefs, the 'old religions' of our less enlightened but
perhaps more imaginat ive ancestors. "
Perhaps this paradoxical situation is what the brilliant British artist Austin
Osm a n Spare, whose graphic gift served h i m as a sorcerous implement, described
as a "resurgent atavism" In the crowded darkness of the new cinematheques, the
primordial archetypes of the hierarchy of Hell could be conjured again.
WHEN SATAN WAS
SILENT: 1913-1929
The new-sprung century was inaugurated by a succession of intense evocations of
Satanic StUrm und Orang, emanating from the nascent German film industry.
Pioneering fil m-makers in Germany, fed on a heavy diet of dark Romanticism, put
the moving picture to use as a tool for recreating the fantastic worlds so prevalent
in Teutonic fiction and music. In the land that originally produced the legend of
Dr. Faust's covenant with the forces of darkness, the Devil and occultism still held
sway as recurring artistic motifs. In contrast to Melies' whimsical. light opera
renditions of the Faust myth, the German cinema approached the infernal pact
with Wagnerian gravity.
Faust's legend casts a long shadow over the silent Satanic cinema of
Germany. Like all legends, the tale of the doctor whose transaction with
Meph istopheles bestowed upon him remarkable powers, seems to be based on at
least a kernel of truth. Sixteenth century historical documents reveal that a
travelling fortune-teller named Georgius Faustus did make himself a nuisance to
the courts o f several German ar istocrats at the time. His reputable title of
"Doctor" was not conferred by any university, and his boasting of infernal
dealings were largely dismissed, by all but the most credulous. Despite his general
reputation as a charlatan, a knowledge of hypnosis was widely attributed to h im.
The historical Faustus seems to have been somewhat similar to the well­
documented pretender Count Cagliostro of the eighteenth century. G oethe's
poetic 1 808 adaptation of the Faust tale, based on the 1 587 folk-book Historia
von D. Johann Fausten, so shaped German civilization that the contemporary
philosopher Oswald Spengler dubbed the modern era a "Faustian culture" For
the Gnostic G oethe, Mephistopheles was not the foul monster of Christian myth,
but a being that promised to fulfil man's eternal striving for knowledge. While it
was understood that there was a price to be paid, Mephistopheles' bargain was
perceived to hold markedly favourable conditions. Infinite wisdom, power and
riches were not easily scoffed at.
Rearranged and adapted to suit changing circumstances, the contract with
Mephisto recurs in a bewildering variety of filmic variations through the decades.
The details of the life of the real Dr. Faustus may be sketchy, but he seems to
have found eternal life through myriad filmic doppelgangers. In this way, perhaps
that fabled black magician's entreaty for immortal ity has been granted via the
magic of the cinema.
The dark romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann often turned to hellish
inspiration in his fantastic tales, notably in his Faustian novel The Devil's Elixir It
was from these Hoffmanesque mists of a particularly German kind of terror that
the Teuto n i c film Devil emerged. While it was France that produced the whimsical
godfather of the Satanic cinema in Georges Mel ies, Germany sired his darkling
heir in Hanns Heinz Ewers. As the creative force behind 1 9 1 3's DER STU DENT VON
PRAG, Ewers set the stage for an unparalleled golden age of artistically
accomplished demonic cinema, irrevocably shaped by his feverish Expressionist
interpretation of the Satanic mythos. Although Ewers is one of the most colourful
and controversial figures in twentieth century literature and cinema, he is almost
completely forgotten as of this writing. His self-perpetuated notoriety and
tremendous success in the years before World War I were largely due to his
24
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
mastery of the Schauerromane, or novel of terror Ewers' trademark was an
authentic treatment of archaic occultism skewered with a perverse twist of sadistic
eroticism. In his most famous novel, Alraune, Ewers praised Satan as a being that
"dashes all laws and norms to pieces ... he creates after his own proud wish and
will" Describing the mode of aesthetic Satanism that guided Ewers' works, his
biographer M ichael Sennewald described the pioneer of the German fantastic film
as one who sought to "know the beauty of Hell, the magnificence and Majesty
of Satan. What [Ewers] saw was not the underworld of Christian provenance, the
goat-footed Devil, but.. the lustre of darkness, the blessedness of sin, the black
light of Lucifer"
A reckless intellectual explorer, he gleefully broke the taboos of the new
century with h is provocatively lurid novels, which were immensely popular shocks
to German society's system. H.P lovecraft, America's own master of the weird tale,
was an outspoken admirer of Ewers' work. Born in 1 872 in Dusseldorf to the son
of a successful painter, Ewers' self-consciously diabolic image led one journal ist to
describe him in 1 927 as "the unholy ... lord of the black mass" Among the
extraordinary company who populate his fiction are sexual vampire heroines,
alchem ists from the Frankenstein school of Satanic science, and men who sold
their soul to the Devil. None of his characters were as fantastic as his most
infamous fictional creation: Hanns Heinz Ewers himself. Indeed, he explored a
bound less fascination with himself through the vehicle of his fictional alter ego,
Frank Braun, who narrated several of his writings. In Vampir, the heroic Braun
extols a life lived "purely out of love for adventure" A fitting motto for Ewers'
stranger than fiction existence.
The last of the nineteenth century dand ies, he travelled the world in
search of exotic inspiration for his tales. His love of danger led him to become a
spy in America during World War I. An eloquent public speaker, he gave lectures
on Nietzschean philosophy and Satanism, espousing his own cult of the "self­
aware ego" He evidenced a vampiric blood fetish and wrote under the influence
of the hallucinogenic mescaline a half century before the 1 960s drug explosion
made such experiments commonplace. Despite this unconventional lifestyle, and
his cosmopolitan love of world travel, Ewers was also a fervent German
nationalist. This latter contradiction would lead to the tragic last act of his life,
the ultimate cause of his descent into oblivion. These dissonant pieces of the
Ewers puzzle never quite fit together, which is appropriate for a man whose
closest friend characterized him as "the man behind the mask"
One of this perennial provocateur's passions was the new art of the
cinema, which he championed with missionary zeal. From the very first flickerings
of the cinematograph, Hanns Heinz Ewers recognized the potential power of the
medium for materializing supernatural effects. His enthusiasm for the cinema led
him to open his own movie theatre, and he devoted his considerable imagination
to developing the possibi lities of transforming his page-bound words into moving
images on the screen. In 1 9 1 3, one year before Europe plunged into the calam ity
of the First World War, Ewers adapted ETA. Hoffmann's Satanic short story
Sylvesternacht into a film script entitled DER STUDENT DER PRAG (THE STUDENT
OF PRAGUE). Hoffmann's novel The Devil's Elixir, which also told the tale of a
Satanic double, is clearly an influence, as is the overpowering presence of the
Faust legend. In a time when many early film-m akers were still stumbling to
understand cinema's optical grammar, Ewers seized on a myth whose sheerly
visual aspects were perfectly suited to the new medium's language of imagery. He
WHEN SATAN WAS SILENT: 1913-29
•
25
Der SludenJ Von Prag 0913).
drew on a theme long familiar in German fantasy fiction and occult lore, that of
the Doppelganger, or double. Ewers hoped that the wizardry of the moving
photograph would a l l ow a u diences to be astonished by the sight of a believable
Doppleganger before their very eyes.
DER STUDENT VON PRAG was directed by the Dane Stellan Rye o n
location in the romantic medieval streets of Czechoslovakia's ancient capital. Ewers
rooted his tale quite del iberately in Prague, a town he knew was long l i n ked with
the practice of black magic. Once Europe's undisputed occult capital, the city itself
was intended by Ewers to be one of his film's major characters. Prague's sin ister
reputation lent instant authenticity to the fantastic narrative. Some scenes were
shot on the picturesque Golden Lane, a narrow street located in the city's
med ieval quarter. It was still referred to by locals as the "Street of the
Alchemists", and Ewers was pleased to discover that this street's former denizens
included many d istinguished magicians. Golden Lane had once sheltered Dr.
Faustus, whose fabled pact had been one of the inspirations for Ewers' film.
Cornelius Agrippa, author o f De Occulta Phi/osophia, and the near legendary
Paracelcus had also resided there. Of Paracelcus, it was said that he sought to
create a homunculus, an artificially created pseudo-human life form fed on human
blood. The figure of the homunculus, which Ewers had a lready delved into in his
novel Alraune, loomed over the entirety of the silent Satanic cinema, inspiring
many of its masterpieces.
Balduin, the student of Prague, was played by Paul Wegener, a seasoned
26
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Das Kabineu Des Dr. Caligari.
stage actor who had learned his art as a leading player in innovative theatre giant
Max Reinhardt's stage company. Wegener's frequent association with dark occult
roles made him the first genuine horror star. In such diverse roles as the student
of Prague, the Golem, Alraune's alchemist ten Brinken, and the black magician
Ol iver Haddo, Paul Wegener excelled at projecting a unique otherworldly
intensity. Felix Bucher rated Wegener's starring role in DER STUDENT VON PRAG
as "one of the first great acting performances in the German cinema" A title card
tells us that Balduin is "Prague's best fen cer and wi ldest student", although his
capacity for carousing is lim ited by his poverty. Scapinelli (John Gottovvt), a
mysterious top-hatted stranger in black, suggests a curious transaction. In
exchange for the young man's mirror reflection, this archetypal foreigner from
places u n known will provide riches sufficient to al low Balduin to enjoy his
hedonistic lifestyle in grand style. An agreement is struck and Scapinelli walks off
with the student's identical double in tow. No reflection peers back from Balduin's
mirror - the first of many Satanic looking glasses we shal l encounter Although
he's blinded by his avarice as to the true identity of his enigmatic patron, the
aud ience can have no doubt with whom this deal has been made. Scapinelli is the
perpetu al outsider who promises much for seemingly little, that eternal Other
known to Faust as Mephistopheles. As conceived by Ewers and played by John
Gottovvt, the strange Scapinelli hints at a modern istic exploration of the Devil as
something more than the horned cliche of popular iconography. In appearance
and manner, Scapinelli is reminiscent of the black-clad title character of DAS
KABIN ElT DES DR. CALIGARI (1919), which causes me to wonder how much the
WHEN SATAN WAS SILENT: 1913-29 • 27
Ewers Devil influenced the look and even the name of the later Expression ist icon.
Armed with his new fortune, the student successfully pursues a local
noblewoman. Balduin's daemonic Doppelganger proves to be a malevolent
shadow, taking on a murderous life of its own. By bartering his reflected likeness,
the young man has effectively sold his soul, i n keeping with ancient folklore
regarding the supernatural nature of the reflection. The soul less living reflection
eventually kills Balduin, and is seen gloating on the student's gravestone.
Often accredited as the fi rst ful l-length film, this was a radical work in its
time. One critic remarked that it was in that film that "dramatic art first appeared
on the screen" Some have called it the f irst auteur film. While there can be no
doubt that director Stellan Rye executed a coherent cinematic concept, his
collaboration with such creative innovators as Ewers and co-scenarist Henrik
Galeen make this a team effort. Galeen, Ewer's person a l secretary, shared his
emp loyer's love of diabolical fantasy, scripting some of the most distinctive
demonic films of the 1 920s. DER STUDENT VON PRAG premiered on 22 Aug ust,
1 9 1 3 in Berlin, causing a sensation. Audiences screamed aloud when they saw
Wegener's image doubled on the screen. The impossible became alarmingly real
in the magical darkness of the theatre, thanks to the sorcery of the
cinematograph. Ewers had accomplished his goal, rea lizing nig htmare effects on
the screen in a visceral manner that his novels could never achieve.
While filming on location, Paul Wegener. the film's star, learned of the
many ancient legends of black magic associated with Prague. A serious student of
eastern metaphysi cs, the actor had a deep mystical bent that made him receptive
to such exotica. Wegener was fascinated with one particu lar tale of unnatural life
engendered by the esoteric scien ces, a variation on the previously mentioned
homunculus. This was the folktale of the Golem, an inert clay hulk said to have
been brought to life by Goetic magic during the 1 580s. According to the myth, the
legendary Rabbi Loew, reputed to possess sinister powers. used his knowledge of
sorcery to an imate the Golem to save the Jews of Prague from the pogroms of
King Rudolf. Resorting to black magic in the emergency situation, Loew called
upon the demon Ashtaroth, one of the princes of Hell described in medieval
grimo ires. So intrigued was Wegener by this legend that he would be driven to
bring the magically created homunculus to life in three different films, taking o n
the lead role himself in two of the productions.
And so it was from Prague, fabled city of alchem ists and homunculi in the
sixteenth century, that twentieth century demons like D E R STUDENT VON PRAG
and DER GOLEM were called up. To the company of Paracelcus, Faustus and
Agrippa - those long-ago den izens of the Street of the Alchemists - the names of
Ewers and Wegener, practitioners of the occult science of the cinema, could be
added. Wegener attempted to capture the mystery of this black magical creature
that had captivated his imagination in 1 9 1 4's DER GOLEM, directed by Henrik
Galeen. Galeen was moving out from under the shadow of his mentor Ewers,
inspired by the master to foster his own dark creations. Wegener's script sets the
story in modern times, showing a crew of construction workers unearthing a
strange statue from an abandoned synagogue's ruins. A collector of antique
arcana purchases the statue, which is actually the lifeless Golem, and revives it by
use of the Black Arts. A spell is cast upon the resuscitated creature, bidding it to
serve its master as a slave. Wegener's decision to place the plot in a contemporary
environment robbed the legend of some of its dream-like power, and he wouldn't
create the defin itive cinematic treatment of the Golem until 1 920, when he
28 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
reprised the role under his own d irection.
The outbreak of mass insanity known as World War I abruptly interrupted
the flowering of Satanic cinema in Europe. In the interim, several film-makers in
the United States turned to the diabolical. Like 90% of silent films, most of these
pictures have crumbled long ago. Nevertheless, they are worth recalling from
obscurity if only because they tell us how d ifferently the Puritan New World dealt
with Satanic subjects in comparison with their European cousins. For the most
part, when the Devil appears in early American movies, it's as an adjunct to a
heavily Christianized moral lesson. European film-makers tended to take a far less
religious approach, using Satanic legendry as grist for fantastic and uncanny
imagery. American silent films generally avoided the explicitly supernatural
subjects that German di rectors were so drawn to, preferring to use the movie
theatre as a fire-and-brimstone pulpit. Each of these films present the first
appearance of plot points and themes that will recur frequently as the Satanic
cinema develops almost genre-like conventions.
A perfect example of this is 1 9 1 5's THE DEVIL, by one of America's best
early d irectors Thomas H. lnce. Although based on Hungarian writer Ferenc
Molnar's 1 907 play of the same name, the plot's dour warning against the mortal
sin of adu ltery was well-suited for prim Yankee sensibilities of its time. Here, the
Devil (Edward Connel ly) is of the elegantly attired, sophisticated society type that
we will so often encounter. The fiend appears in the studio of a painter,
persuading him to take up with an old flame, who happens to be happily married.
The rest is drawing room drama revolving around the jealousies of the artist's
m istress, fiancee and ex-lover. Sign ificantly, it is the woman who most easily
submits to Satan's recommendation of infidel ity, reflecting a common age-old
belief in female weakness of the flesh. This is also the first of many films in which
a n artist - particularly a painter - is seen to be an easy mark for the Devil's
machinations. A long-standing mistrust of the creative temperament is impl ied in
this most conservative of pieces. The lovers, needless to say, are punished for their
sinfulness with a climactic descent to Hell. A better known 1 920 version of THE
DEVIL featuring silent era star George Arliss toned down the supernatural
elements of the story considerab ly, and therefore falls just outside of the
parameters of this book.
Tho mas Alva Edison produced THE MAGIC SKIN (1915), directed by Richard
Ridgely. An Honore de Balzac short story provided the moralistic plot, in which a
young musician moves to Paris, and is caught up in the web of a heartless femme
fatale. Love-sick, he v isits an antique shop to purchase a trinket for her, but falls
asleep. When he awakens, the store's proprietor is revealed to be Mephistopheles
(H erbert Prior), who accepts his customer's soul in exchange for a skin with the
power to grant any wish. Although the Devil's skin does fulfil his every desire,
there's the usual unforeseen catch: each wish shrinks the skin and withers his
hea lth. The cruel vamp leaves him, and the sweet girl he jilted kills herself i n
despair. H i s last wish exhausted, the magic skin vanishes, a n d the luckless musician
finds himself in Hell, there to atone for the sin of desiring too much. Ah, but it's
all been a nightmare. Frightened away from his hedonistic ways by the devilish
dream, the musician promptly marries the nice girl, swearing to lead an upright
life from henceforth. This will not be the last time that a meeting with the Devil
is revealed to be an admon ishing dream, particularly in the subgenre of the
Satanic film as moral lesson. THE MAGIC SKIN's other lesson is clear· women of
easy virtue are the Devil's concubines.
WHEN SATAN WAS SILENT: 1913-29
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29
Information on Robert G. Vignola's THE BLACK CROOK ( 1 9 1 6), adapted
from a popular play, is scarce. Reprising his theatrical role of Hertzog, a criminal
who must provide the Devil with an annual human soul or be consigned to Hell
himself, was E.P. S u l l ivan. When the blackguard fails to steal the souls of an
idealistic young couple, he must make good on his deal with Satan, and - as in
every American film we've considered so far - is consumed by the mouth of the
inferno. In THE DEVIL'S TOY ( 1 9 1 6) another painter falls prey to Lucifer's a l l u re,
making a pact with the Devil for success, and resorting to murder to win an
i n h eritance. Edwin Stevens, the actor portraying Satan, had won fame playing the
title role in the New York stage version of The Devil, Molnar's successful play.
U niversal's THE DEVIL'S BONDSWOMAN (1 9 1 6) was a typical example of
the popular "vamp" genre. Adele Farrington played a hellish hussy whose carnal
appetites on Earth attracts Sata n i c attention. The film ends with the title vixen
being carried off to Hell by the Devil (Richard Morris), who seduces her in the
human form of an amorous Prince. Although the Satanic element was unusual,
Lloyd B. Carleton's picture was one of hundreds of American films of the time
warning of the newly emancipated woman's wi les, most memorably symbolized
by vamp empress Theda Bara. THE DEVIL'S BONDSWOMAN makes it clear that
while Satan may be the great inspirer of sin, his greatest ally is the supposed
moral fragility of the gentler sex. In 1 9 1 7, the same writing team of F. McGrew
Willis and Walter Woods produced an even more heavy-handed lesson with
Universal's EVEN AS YOU AND I. Crudely al legorical in the style of a relig ious tract,
Lois Weber's film presents yet another tempted artist and his pure wife literally
bedeviled by demons named Drink, Lust and SeiJ Pity. The artist is nearly defeated
by the Devil, until his incorruptible bride repels the fiend with her self-sacrificing
repentance. In the same cross-bearing category was the guilt-ridden CONSCIENCE
( 1 9 1 7), directed by Bertram Bracken. Satan's royal consort, Serama (Gladys
Brockwell) is expelled from Paradise by that party-pooper the Archangel Michael.
She reincarnates on earth as a fun-loving society vamp named Ruth, whose
mysterious companion is one Dr Norton (Bertram Grassby), none other than the
Devil on earth. Succubus that she is, Serama/Ruth has broken the hearts of a series
of lovers, inspiring more than one suicide along the way. She's subpoenaed to the
court of the angel Conscience (also played by G ladys Brockwell), where the
demons Avarice, Vanity, Lust and Hate (also a l l played by Brockwel l !) testify as to
the Satanic vamp's misconduct. Conscience decrees that Serama must be punished
by living with the memory of her sins, which inspires her to break up with her
diabolical consort and repent in prayer Interestingly, arch-vamp Theda Bara was
originally set to play the eight-fold lead role, one of the earliest representations
of the black magical properties of the feminine Double.
America's late entry into the European bloodbath of World War I a llowed
for the first use of the Satanic film as pol itical propaganda. Demonizing the
enemy is always the first step of martial hostility, and Metro's TO HELL WITH THE
KAISER ( 1 9 1 8) wasted no time in placing Germany's Emperor in league with the
Devil. Kaiser Wilhelm (Lawrence Grant) is revealed to have signed a pact with
Satan (Walter P. Lewis), trading his soul for world conquest. The Crown Prince of
Germany is shown raping an innocent American girl in a church, which inspires a
U.S. aviator to daringly capture the Teutonic-Satanic Kaiser. In despair, the Kaiser
commits suicide, and Satan collects his soul in Hell. The unmissable message of
George Irving's film is really underscored in the finale: the Devil abdicates his
infernal throne in favour of the Ka iser, who he acknowledges as being far more
30
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
Satanic than h imself. It's surprising that one of the American silent screen's better
screenwriters, June Mathis, was responsible for this simplistic jingoism. Twenty­
four years later, the remarkably similar THE DEVIL WITH HITLER (1 942) made clear
that although the enemy's name had changed, audie nces were sti l l prepared to
accept Satanic influence as lurking in the background of h istoric events.
Kaiser Wilhelm was linked with the Devil again in the episodic religious
epic RESTITUTION aka THE CONQUERING CHRIST ( 1 9 1 8}, d irected by Howard Gaye.
The director had played the role of Jesus in D.W. Griffith's INTOLERANCE, and was
clearly influenced by that historic saga in the making of his own film. The first of
several extravaganzas tracing Satan's malign impact on man through the ages. this
curious subgenre was taken up in Europe with Dreyer's BLADE OF SATAN� BOG
( 1 9 1 8}, Murnau's SATANAS (191 9}, and was still going strong with Irwin Allen's
monumental mess THE STORY OF MANKIND in 1 957. Beginning with a series of
earnestly depicted Bible stories, Gaye shows us how mankind has suffered under
the Devil's bondage since Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden. Satan (Alfred
Garcia) causes all kinds of trouble, including the inspiration of pioneering
murderer Cain, the crucifixion of Christ (director Gaye, reprising his earlier role).
the devilish persecution of early Christians by Nero, the tortures of the Inqu isition,
and the ruthless autocracy of Napoleon. Jehovah's crowning glory, of course, is
pictured as the founding of America, which is threatened by Satanic agent Kaiser
Wilhelm. In the apocalyptic final reel, the Devil is bested by the Nazarene, and the
spirit of America, Columbia, defeats the Kaiser in the name of God. An ambitious
production shot over half a year. its voyage through the centuries required fifty
d ifferent sets to be constructed. Only fragments of the film have survived, but
from what I've seen, Gaye was no Griffith, and the dreary piousness that informs
his picture is unrel ieved by anyth ing like his mentor's flashes of genius.
Denmark's cinematic master, Carl Theodor Dreyer, often expressed a
fondness for the supernatural as his dreamy VAMPYR would later show. Less
remembered is his BLADE OF SATANS BOG (LEAVES FROM SATAN'S BOOK).
Although it was actually released in 1 92 1 , most of the film was shot in 1 9 1 8, as
shell-shocked Europe struggled to recover from the holocaust of World War I.
Based on a novel by Marie Corre lli, whose mystical potboilers often incorporated
diabol ical themes, this epic documents the nefarious meddlings of Satan (Helge
N issen) in human destiny through the centuries. Its time-spanning episodic
structure recalls Griffith's INTOLERANCE, although there is none of the grandeur
of that spectacle. We learn that the Fallen Angel posed as one of the Pha risees
who condemned Christ, a sadistic Grand Inquisitor in Spain, a cruel officer
presiding over the bloodbath in revolutionary France, and most recently, as a
dissident monk stirring up trouble during 1 9 1 8's Russo-Finnish war. Like every film
based o n the u n readably pious Corelli's work. this is a bit too preachy for my
tastes. Non etheless, Dreyer's second film is worth seeing for the insight it offers
into the process of its director's maturation into genius and for Nissen's
comm itted portrayal of Lucifer.
The German SATANAS ( 1 9 1 9} directed by F.W. Murnau, has much in
common with Dreyer's earlier work, and there has been some controversy
regarding the similarities. U nfortunately, we'll never know how similar it may be
- it appears to be a lost film. Again, we witness the influence of Lucifer through
the ages of time. Despairing of his exile from Heaven, the fallen Archangel
attempts to win his halo back by searching for one mortal who can redeem evil
through good. The first sequence finds Satan disguised as a hermit in ancient
WHEN SATAN WAS SILENT: 1913-29
•
31
Egypt, sowing discord in the court of the Pharaoh Amenhotep. According to
Murnau's biographer Lotte Eisner, this episode ends when "the hermit changes
into a vast angel of death, Lucifer, who goes through the palace crushing beneath
his scorn the mediocrity of mortals" The second tale finds the Devil in the pose
of a Spanish adventurer involved in the Byzantine intrigues surrounding the
poisonous Lucretia Borgia in Rena issance Italy. The fina le, like that of BLADE OF
SATANS BOG, was set in contemporary times, and presented Satan i n the guise of
a Russian revolutionary recommending increasingly savage measures to a comrade,
who eventually goes insane upon realizing his adviser's identity. It's a particular
pity that no copy of SATANAS has surfaced, considering that it features some of
the silent era's most talented artists. The great screen villain Conrad Veidt was cast
in the title role of the Devil, a part tailor-made for his singular presence. Earlier
in 1 9 1 9, Veidt had come to prominence as Cesare the somnambulist in the
Expressionist classic DAS KABIN ETI DES DR. CALIGARI. That film's director, the
inventive Robert Wiene, wrote the screenplay for SATANAS. It would a lso have
been interesting to see how Murnau, who later directed NOSF ERATU (1 922) and
FAUST (1 926) handled this earlier diabolica I assignment. Fina lly, the picture was
photographed by the gifted Czech-born cin ematographer Karl Freund, who later
lensed Lang's M ETROPOLIS (1 926) and DER GOLEM (1 920), before em igrating to
Hollywood where he was involved with several of Universal's most memorable
horror films in the 1 930s. A fascinating missing piece in the mosaic of the Satanic
filmography.
The subsequent year, Conrad Veidt again donned the Devil's mantle for
Richard Oswa ld's KURFORSTENDAMM, another lost film. Contemporary reviews
would suggest that this was a considerably lighter take on Lucifer than SATANAS.
When a rakish Devil decides to take a vacation from his duties in Hell, he chooses
Berlin's most fashionable street Ku rfurstendamm as the perfect relaxation spot.
Setting himself up as a film producer, he soon finds that the young women of
1 920s Berlin are too wicked for even him to handle. After a series of amorous
adventures. Satan returns dismayed to the less troublesome atmosphere of the
inferno. This seems to have been a showcase for the talents of early movie star
Asta Nielsen, who played no less than four of the women causing mischief for the
Devil. Comedies were not Conrad Veidt's usual ba i l iwick, so this would have been
an odd departure for him.
Another lost Satanic film is 1 920's DIE TEUFELSANBETER (THE DEVIL
WORSHIPPER), based on the book by Karl May, whose wildly popular adventure
novels thrilled mil lions of German readers. Cast in the sinister title role was a
relatively unknown Hungarian stage actor then working in the thriving Berlin film
world. It would appear that DIE TEUFELSANB ETER marks the first time that Bela
Lugosi would be called on to play a part requiring him to project that uniquely
mesmeric menace he would eventually come to specialize in. One can only wonder
what lessons in supernatural villainy Lugos i learned while playing a black magician
in this forgotten silent production, a film that preceded his epochal role as
DRACULA by eleven years. The Devil appears in the form of the demon Ashtaroth
in 1 920's DER GOLEM, WIE ER IN DIE WELT KAM (TH E GOLEM, HOW H E CAME
INTO THE WORLD). Collaborating with the ubiquitous Henrik Galeen, Paul
Wegener wrote a script that returned the Golem to his original time in the late
fifteenth century, realizing that his earlier updating of the legend in 1 9 1 4 had
missed the mark. Casting himself again as the title character, Wegener evinces an
absolute personal commitment to the performance that convinces us entirely of
32
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Der Golem (1920).
the existence of the clay homunculus. Ashtaroth's appearance in DER GOLEM was
something entirely new in the Satanic cinema. Previous screen Lucifers had been
portrayed by human actors. Here, the baleful being conjured by Loew is a pure
cinematic illusion. The unearthly atmosphere of the scene suggests, for the first
time on film, the inhuman nature of the Devil. Ashtaroth material izes as a giant
disembodied head glowing in the darkness. That the scene still retains its power
is a credit to the skill of Carl Boese, who engineered the startling effects. Karl
Freund, who had already captured the Devil on film in Murnau's SATANAS, was
responsible for the trick photography.
DER GOLEM is an ambitious blending of the arts in the tradition of
Richard Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk - a total artwork. The direction of Wegener,
the special effects and trick photography of Carl Boese, the expressive camera
work of Karl Freund, have all been justly praised, assuring that their achievements
have lasted long after the days of the silent film have faded. One of the
visionaries who worked on DER GOLEM is far less remembered today. He is Hans
Poelzig, the esoteric arch itect, who designed the look of DER GOLEM's richly
imagined dreamworld, including the weirdly angled set of medieval Prague.
In DER GOLEM, Wegener gave Poelzig a chance to dramatically
demonstrate his ideas with a purity his more functional public architecture could
not a lways express. Given carte blanche to construct an Expressionist vision of the
magical old town of Prague, Poelzig, with the assistance of his wife Marlene, built
an alien cityscape that is surely one of the most memorable sights in the cinema.
WHEN SATAN WAS SILENT: 1 913-29
•
33
As filmed by Wegener, Poelzig's Prague is a maze of twisted, oblique towers,
drawing the characters into mysterious recesses. Silhouetted against a starry n ight
sky, the slanted houses look like menacing demon sha pes, a l ive with secrets. One
can believe that the demon Ashtaroth would gladly visit the depths of such
structures, and that the Golem can walk through these serpentine streets. The
shapes of the houses, doorways, and even the furniture, in DER GOLEM echo the
forms of the film's characters, as if a magician's curse has transformed flesh into
stone. True to Poelzig's concept of architectural sound, his esoteric recreation of
Prague does indeed sing a strange music. Poelzig's Prague is a physical metaphor
for the Golem's homunculus theme, that of an inorganic being of clay brought to
life by the Black Arts. Director Paul Wegener told an interviewer from Film-Kurier:
" It is not Prague that my friend, the architect Poelzig, has built. Not Prague and
not any other city. Rather, it is a city-poem, a dream, an architectural paraphrase
on the theme 'Golem.' These alleys and plazas are not intended to resemble
reality; they create an atmosphere in which the Golem breathes."
Poelzig's rather mysterious persona intrigued many who met him. When
director Max Reinhardt engaged Poelzig to build stage sets for his theatre, one
of the architect's junior assistants was the young Austrian Edgar U lmer, who later
worked on the set of THE GOLEM. Poelzig's eccentricities, magical ideas, and
sometimes unp leasantly domineering personality would not be forgotten by
Ulmer, who eventually became a film director in his own right. Far from Berlin,
on a Burbank, California soundstage, Ulmer would create a curious cinematic
monument to Poelzig that would ironically have more lasting impact than any of
the mystical architect's professional accomplishments. We w i l l examine U lmer's
film, THE BLACK CAT (1 934), and the shadow Poelzig cast over its production in
the following chapter.
Denmark had already clawed its mark on the Satanic screen with Carl
Dreyer's BLADE OF SATANS BOG. That country's only other contribution to the
field was 1 92 1 's utterly unique HAXAN (WITCHES), released throughout the
English speaking world a s WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES. Directed with a
master painter's eye by former opera singer Benjamin Christensen, HAxAN is sui
i
geners, a rarity among silent films. It must be adm itted that even some of the
greatest masterpieces of the 1 920s can seem creakily old-fashioned to modern
audiences. Frequently hampered by static camera work and out-moded acting
styles more su ited for the stage than the cinema, many silent films must be judged
by the standards of the times in which they were produced if they are to be
enjoyed. Not so with the dynamic HAxAN, a work of pure cinema that seems as
lively and inventive today as it did in the 1 920s. Perhaps the timeless q u a l ity
marking most of Christensen's film is due to the fact that it so faithfully captures
an atmosphere of true legend and folk tale, evoking archetypal images that
create the impression of hexed engravings come to life. Those sequences freed of
the impediments of plot boast scenes of demonic debauchery that rival the
Sata nic masterpi eces of Hieronymous Bosch. At times, the viewer is carried away
by the kind of belladonna visions once attributed to bedev iled witches at their
sabbats. Christensen's lush il lustrative style b lazed the way for the evolving cinema
to become a sort of moving painting, an art that commun icated in sheer imagery.
The film consists of several documentary-like episodes tracing the history of
witchcraft from the legend of the Black Sabbath to the tortures of the
Inquisition.
Ch ristensen himself takes on the role of the Devil, imbuing the part with
34
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Hiixan
jolly lasciviousness. Presiding over a wild bacchanal with obvious gusto,
Christensen's Satan is lust personified. H is Devil is portrayed as a wholly positive
figure of liberation, symbo lizing the joys of the flesh. HAxAN reveals the Trickster
side of the Devil, a mischievous rebel against the negatively presented austere
sexual repression of the Church. To the operetta Mephistos of Melies, Ewers'
foreboding old man in black, Dreyer's M i ltonian monarch, and DER GOLEM's
frightening inhuman apparition, Christensen adds a portrait of the Devil as
animalistic incarnation of the untamed libido. This wide d isparity between these
various representations accentuates the shapeshifting nature of the Devil's being.
Christensen didn't shy away from recreating the erotic fantasies that
swirled around visions of the Devil's sabbath. H is writhing witches display more
exposed flesh than was seen in the Satanic cinema for decades to come. The
del iberately blasphemous, frankly anti-Christian tone scandalized Danish audiences
i n 1 9 2 1 . Indeed, few Satanic films in the intervening decades dared to present
such a full-on assault on the Church as is mounted by Christensen. The comically
played priests and nuns shown in the film are dep icted as deserving targets for
the Devil's mockery, recalling the more diabol ical moments of Bunuel. It is a
testa ment to HAxAN's enduring power that when the film was re-released during
the witchcraft craze of the 1 960s, modern audiences found it as compelling as
ever. Distributed to underground film venues, the silent film's old title cards were
replaced by the voice of William S. Burroughs, who narrated the events in his dry,
sardonic Missouri drawl. The delirious scenes of deviltry are actually enhanced by
WHEN SATAN WAS SILENT: 1 91�29
•
35
Burroughs' voiceover, although the jazz soundtrack is rather jarring. Purists were
left aghast by this tampering.
At the time of this writing, paranoid Christian activists decry the supposed
malevolent influence of occult themes in movies and music as a pre-apocalyptic
token of modern times. Of course, most of the alleged "Satanic" influences cited
are imaginary, or of a puerile nature with no genuine connection to the magical
tradition. It is interesting to consider that genuine magical influences were
actually incorporated i n one of the German si lent cinema's masterpieces. The black
magical subtext of NOSFERATU (1 922) is subtle but potent, wreath ing this
unauthorized film adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula with a cryptic Satanic
nimbus veiled to many of its viewers. The film's almost tangible atmosphere of
dread has been noted by many, but its occult symbolism has been a l l but ignored.
Although it makes no blatant reference to the Devil, NOSFERATU is truly an occult
film, providing g l impses into the esoteric knowledge of its creators. Directed by
F.W. Murnau, whose SATANAS we have already taken into account, NOSFERATU
is the first genuine vampire film. While the names and locations were changed
from Stoker's Dracula to avoid charges of copyright infringement, the plot a n d
characters are clearly recognizable to anyone who has read the novel o r seen a n y
o f its innumerable remakes. Graf Orlok (Max Schreck) i s a demonoid creature of
clearly inhuman appearance, a being that m ight have been summoned from the
netherworld. Stoker's Dracula can blend in easily with the teeming millions of
London, but Orlok is an entity born of medieval nightmare. A house agent travels
to the haunted ruins where Graf Orlok resides, bearing a mysterious document
from his employer, Herr Knock. When Orlok reads this missive, we see that it is no
ordinary text, but a coded message consisting of occult seals and talismans culled
from demonological texts. Hutter is the unwitting courier of one magical in itiate,
unknowingly transmitting a secret message to another adept. Knock's almost
religious devotion to his master Orlok might also signify the relation between a
black magician and Satan himself.
Some (shadowy) light is thrown on the dark metaphysical undertone in
NOSFERATU when we learn that the man who drew these Goetic talismans was
a certa in Albin Grau. The man known in the outer world as Albin Grau was
recog nized by his fellow adepts in Berlin's thriving occult community by his
magical name, Frater Pacitus. Grau was a Master of the Pansophical Lodge, a n d
an in itiate of the Ordo Templi Orientis, or Order o f Oriental Templars, who
pioneered the introduction of Tantric sexual magic in Europe. The OTO
understood themselves to be the authentic heirs of the forbidden tradition of the
Knights Templar, that doomed fraternity exterminated by the King of France for
their rumoured participation in black magical ritual. Of central importance to the
German OTO's studies was the mysterious deity Baphomet, linked by centuries of
occult tradition with Lucifer. In his capacity as a member of the OTO, Albin Grau
was a frequent, if occasionally d isputatious correspondent with Aleister Crowl ey,
who led the OTO's British lodge. In the magical cosmology of Grau, whose sex
magical practices were most defin itely of the authentic left hand path, Lucifer was
not viewed as the sin-punishing demon of Christian myth, but as the bearer of
light who illum inated mankind in the form of the Edenic serpent. These ideas
were expanded upon by Grau's close associate Gregor Gregori us, author of Satanic
Magic and founder of the secretive left hand path sodality known as the
Fraternitas Saturni.
Although Grau is only officially credited for the art design, sets a n d
36 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
Nosferatu.
costumes for the film, the magician was actually instrumental in the conception
of NOSFERATU. In a 1 922 article in the periodical Buhne Und Film, Grau recounts
a strange tale from the time of his World War II duty in rural Serbia six years
earlier. As one of a company of soldiers billeted in the home of a Serbian peasant,
the occultist heard how his host's father purportedly returned from the dead in
1 884 and terrorized the town until he was dispatched with the traditional stake
in the heart. Accord ing to the peasant, his father was known as a Nosferatu.
Several years later, while Grau was searching for exterior locations for the
vampire's castle in the rugged Tatra mountains of Czechoslovakia, he stopped in
the "old alchemist's city" of Prague. There, he happened to meet one of the
soldiers who had heard the Serbian tale of the Nosferatu, who he informed of the
forthcoming film. The spell of Prague, that legendary town of black magic, was
again connected with o n e of Germany's best-known demonic films.
Further magical impetus can be found in the screenplay by Hanns Ewers'
personal secretary Henrik Galeen, which is filled with black magical a llusions. In
a pentagram-bedecked tome seen in the film, we read that Nosferatu came "from
the seed of Belial", one of the demons traditionally summoned by Goetic
magicians. This Satanic essence of the vampire legend was not to resurface again
in the cinema until the 1 970s, when a small subgenre of British films concerning
the unholy undead took shape. Nosferatu's opponent, Professor Bulwer, is
described by Galeen as " a Paracelsian", evoking the famed alchemist Paracelcus.
This role was played by John Gottowt, previously the Satanic Scapinelli in
STUDENT VON PRAG. Even the name of the small production company responsible
WHEN SATAN WAS SILENT: 1913-29
•
37
for NOSFERATU, Prana Film, tells us something of the magically conscious
environment from which the film was born. Prana, in the yogic tradition of India,
is the sacred breath that is said to endow life with its essence.
In Rex Ingram's THE MAGICIAN (1 926) we have our first example of a
sturdy subgenre of films based on the persona of the infamous Aleister Crowley.
Adapted for the screen from a 1 908 roma n a clef of the same name by William
Somerset Maugham, the picture revolves around the eponymous sorcerer O liver
Haddo, a thinly disguised poison-pen portrait of Crowley. Unequivocally the
twentieth century's best-known occu ltist, Crowley's name was synonymous with
"devil worship" to the undiscriminating readers of the 1920s popular press.
Indeed, although he has long since been adopted by the new age movement as
a harmless exponent of human potential, Crowley continues to be thought of as
the blackest of black magicians in less esoteric circles.
In fact, Crowley was not a Satan ist by any definition of the word. When
writers on the cinema have previously explored the films Crowley inspired, they
have often tended to rely on inaccurate information, repeating dimly u nderstood
misinformation. In a sense, this is understandable. Even before his death in 1 947,
Crowley was more myth than man, transformed by the sensationalistic press of his
day into a black magical bogeyman of epic proportions. It is to this melodramatic
reputation, rather than the somewhat more squalid reality, that film-makers have
turned to as a ready-made template for their screen Satanists. His advocacy of the
visionary usefulness of drugs and his enthusiastic promulgation of sexual magic
were more than enough to outrage the public sensibilities of his time. Affecting
a deliberately sin ister appearance with shaven head and practiced stare, Crowley's
escapades inevitably served as grist for the mill of the scandal-starved media.
HEAD OF THE DEVIL WORSHIPPERS; A MAN WE'D LIKE TO HANG; THE WICKED EST
MAN IN THE WORLD; these were the kind of headlines Crowley inspired. It was
this larger-than-life image of menace created by a string of lurid articles and a
number of horror novels and stories based on his life that attracted the attention
of film-makers. Natural ly, the reality is more complicated.
Born as Edward Alexander Crowley in 1 875, he seems to have spent the
·
entirety of his troubled life in violent reaction to the fanatic Christianity of his
parents, devotees of the puritanical Plymouth Brethren sect. Even as a child, he
claimed, h is mother referred to him as the Beast, after the Antichrist described in
the Bible's apocalyptic Revelations. He came to take this appellation seriously,
declaring himself to be 666, the destined destroyer of Christianity and prophet of
a new era. In 1 899, following his education at Cambridge, he was in itiated into
the quasi-Masonic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organization his contentious
personality helped to destroy. He did not discover his life's work until he travelled
to Cairo in 1 904. There, he reportedly received a communication from an astral
entity named Aiwass, who dictated a text entitled The Book Of The Law. Crowley
eventually came to accept this visionary document as the foundation of a newly
revealed religion, Thelema. With messianic fervour, Crowley proselytized for a
revolutionary era in human h istory he called the Aeon of Horus, after the hawk­
faced Egyptian deity.
A prodigiously prolix writer, Crowley produced a corpus of work that
ranges from serious studies of the occult arts like Magick In Theory And Practice,
reams of wildly uneven poetry, pornography both sophomoric and subli me, a
handful of self-referential novels including Diary Of A Drug Fien d, among his
many other often self-published volumes. I've a lways felt that his truly cogent
38
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Aleisler Crowley, with magical accessories.
writings could be fit snugly into one thin volume, were one to edit out all the
long-winded obscurantism he indulged in. He was a world traveller of immense
wanderlust, and a well-respected mountaineer and athlete who all but destroyed
his fragile health with generous helpings of heroin, coca ine and ether. He could
be an amusing and witty ironist, but seemed to possess l ittle sense of humour
about himself. Crowley's life-long study of Tantric sexual yoga and his theoretical
veneration of the feminine principle would seem to mark him as an adherent of
the left hand path. However, in his everyday relations with his many paramours
WHEN SATAN WAS SILENT: 1913-29
•
39
he showed himself to be a macho chauvin ist of the right hand path variety.
Crowley sincerely insisted that he was a white magician, seeking that
oneness with the un iverse that is the mark of the right hand path. Certainly, the
antique pantheon of gods he revered were not of infernal provenance. Although
he called himself by such seemingly Satanic names as the Great Beast 666 and
Baphomet, the mysterious devil-god of the Knights Templars, his magical
phi losophy is far too complicated - if not incoherent - to limit with any one
denominational label. H is entire life suggests that he was riddled with a deep­
seated confusion about his own spiritual identity. In his 1 923 d iary, he writes, " I
may be a Black Magician, but I'm a bloody great one." Simu ltaneously, he
regularly condemned the many other occultists he feuded with as black magicians
or agents of "the Black Brotherhood" In Magick In Theory And Practice, Crowley
ascribes to the devil: "the qualities of courage, frankness, energy, pride, power
and triumph" comparing him to the Hellenic Pan, "the Godhead which, if it
become manifest in man, makes him Aegipan, the All" In his artwork, positive
images of the Devil abound, and his widely available Tarot deck interprets the
Devil card in a largely beneficent light. One of h is better poems, " Hymn To
Lucifer", presents a heroic, Miltonian view: "With noble passion, sun-souled
Lucifer swept through the dawn colossal. .. Breathed life into the sterile un iverse"
The ode concludes with an affirmation of the fallen angel's struggle agai nst
Jehovan authority. Lucifer, Crowley expounds, "With Love and Knowledge, drove
out innocence ... The Key of Joy is Disobedience."
In recent decades, Crowley has moved from his former place as depraved
pariah to near sacred cow status in the occult world. While his detractors may
have gone too far in blackening his reputation, his followers have just as
simpl istically rehabilitated him as the all-wise St. Aleister. Lest too romantic a
picture be painted, it is well to remember that his writings and his personal
relations were shot through with a near pathological misogyny that often led to
wretched m istreatment of his wives and mistresses. The Beast also evidenced a
mindless cruelty toward animals from an early age, and h is espousal of narcotic
illum ination led him to the depths of heroin addiction. He often came off l ike a
typical occult confidence artist, at one point selling vials of his sperm as
"rejuvenation ointment"
In 1 902, the twenty-seven year old Crowley was a fixture in the cafe
society of Paris. Among the belletristic types who were the habitues of a
restaurant called Le Chat Blanc, he met the young William Somerset Maugham,
a fellow Englishman of equally acidic tongue and bitchy demeanour Maugham,
recalling their encou nter, wrote that he "took an immediate dislike to him, but
he interested me and amused me. He was a great talker and he talked
uncommonly well" I have not found any comment from Crowley concerning his
reaction to the film of THE MAGICIAN. However, his remarks concern ing
Maugham's book provide some clues as to how he must have responded to seeing
himself portrayed as a human monster on the screen. Crowley, dripping with
sarcasm, writes of being drawn to a newly published book in 1 908: "The title
attracted me strongly, The Magician. The author, bless my soul! No other than my
old and valued friend, William Somerset Maugham . . . So he had really written a
book - who would have believed it! ... the Magician, Oliver Haddo, was Aleister
Crowley ... The hero's witty remarks were, many of them, my own I was not in
the least offended by the attempts of the book to represent me as, in many ways,
the most atrocious scoundrel, for he had done more than justice to the qualities
...
40
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
of which I was proud ... The Magician was, in fact. a n appreciation of my genius
such as I had never dreamed of inspiring."
Necessarily, the film simplifies the novel, and the Crowley character is even
more one-dimensionally villainous. THE MAGICIAN owes its visually a rresting look
to Irish-born director Rex Ingram, whose taste for the exotic had made Rudolph
Valentino into a matinee idol, and earned him the hard-won respect of his
exacting colleague Erich von Stroheim. Chafing at what he perceived to be
Hollywood's phi l istine approach to the cinema, he moved to France in the mid­
twenties, purchasing his own film studio in Nice. One of the first properties he
acquired was Somerset Maugham's novel, conveniently set i n France. I n typically
m a licious fashion, Maugham let it be known that he disliked Ingram's adaption
of his work. Returning the compl iment, Ingram responded that he had done the
best he could with such poor material.
An enthusiastic admirer of European cinema, Ingram was im pressed by
Paul Wegener's a bi lity'to enact fantastic characters in DER STUDENT VON PRAG
and DER GOLEM. Wegener was cast as Oliver Haddo, giving the German heavy the
opportunity to create one of his most memorable occult villains. Apparently,
Wegener's sometimes abrasive personal ity did not ingratiate himself to the cast
and crew. The German actor would fly into rages at his personal make-up artist,
and the tantrums disru pted shooting. Ingram's gifted d irector of photography,
John Seitz, regarded Wegener as a pompous ham. Wegener's presence in the film
accentuates Ingram's obvious attempt to steep his film in some of the same
Expressionist atmosphere he adm ired in German cinema's treatment of occult
su bjects. One encounter between Haddo and the heroine, set at a carnival, seems
to suggest the influence of the seminal CALIGARI.
The film revolves, like so many of the silent cinema's Satan ic films, around
the dramatic conceit of the homunculus. The mage Oliver Haddo, a hypnotic
practitioner of the Black Arts, plans to follow an ancient recipe for the creation
of artificial life. Haddo has already created his homunculus, but it remains
inan imate. To fulfil the formula. he must infuse blood from a virgin's heart into
the entity. The innocent he seizes on is the lovely Margaret Dau ncey, played by
Ingram's wife, Alice Terry. Haddo is dastardly enough to abduct Margaret o n the
eve of her wedding, to assure that she retains the maidenhood he requires for his
experiment. Haddo absconds with his Margaret to a desolate tower, where he has
built an alchemical laboratory. In the film's most memorable sequence, Margaret
hallucinates that Haddo has brought her to Hell, inspired by the flames of his
alchemist's lab. As the glowering magician leads her through the inferno. orgiastic
nymphs writhe in abandon. A statue of the horned Pan comes to life, tempting
the virgin with devilish ardour Inevitably, just when Haddo has secured Margaret
for the necessary heart removal, her fiance saves the day. In a fiery climax which
influenced the finales of hundreds of films to come, Haddo, his homunculus, and
his mountain-top eyrie are all destroyed by a suitably infernal conflagration.
Marred by a certa in static quality, the great strength of the picture is Ingram's
sense of pictorial i l l ustration.
Wegener's feverish performance is overly melodramatic by today's
standards, but he dominates the film with his unsettling presence. The genuinely
ethereal qual ity o f Alice Terry provides a perfect complement to Wegener's
resplendent iniquity. The a n imated statue of Pan in the Hell scene was played
with brio by a charismatic Folies Bergere dancer known only as Stowitts. The
erotically sugg estive bacchanal scenes in which a nearly naked Stowitts seduces
WHEN SATAN WAS SILENT: 1913-29
•
41
The Magician.
the swooning Terry were filmed at an outdoor location in Nice. The locals, though
glad to have a thriving film studio in their back yard, were outraged by the orgy
scenes, explicit for their time. All in all, THE MAGICIAN is worth seeing as an
accurate filmic mirror of the Crowley myth as it already existed in the 1 920s, a n d
a s a rare example o f a major American studio handling an explicit occult subject.
Although the Faust legend has inspired efforts from some of the cinema's
greatest talents, F.W. Murnau's FAUST (1 926) made at Berlin's UFA studio, takes
pride of place. Murnau's masterpiece is the definitive version, a remarkable visua I
achievement deserving of comparison to Goethe's literary rendition. With tota l
control of his mystical mise-en-scene, Murnau creates a vividly realized folktale of
mythic d imensions that brought film-making to previously unimagined artistic
heights. The picture's stature has inspired superlatives since its release, so I won't
be redundant by adding too many more hosannas to the existing chorus of praise.
As the story of old Doctor Faust's pact with Meph isto is probably the most familiar
42 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
Faust 0926).
of European legends, a detailed synopsis hardly seems in order It's the wondrous
images that the viewer of FAUST comes away with; the gigantic bat-cloaked Devil
(Em il Jannings) gliding over a Gothic vil lage; the four apocalyptic riders galloping
through a sea of clouds; the words in the unholy pact bursting into hellish flame.
Carl Hoffman's excellent chiaroscuro photography, with its then i nnovative use of
travel ling shots, adds immeasurably to the film's beauty.
Originally, director Ludwig Berger was to film FAUST, with Conrad Veidt
- rather than Emil Jann ings - in the role of Mephisto. After his performances as
the Devil in SATANAS and KURFURSTENDAMM, Veidt would have been easily
accepted in the part by German aud iences. Nevertheless, second choice Jann ings
brings Meph isto to crackling life in one of that actor's finest characterizations, and
one of the most ful ly-realized incarnations of the Devil ever screened. The ageless
intell igence expressed beneath Jan nings' wily persona suggests the mysterious
fascination Meph isto exercises on the brilliant Dr Faust. Only Gustaf Grundgens'
1 960 Meph isto in the filmed stage play of FAUST is even comparable.
It's appropriate that the production of this landmark Satan i c film
functioned as a kind of school for future diabolical film-makers. Young actor
Wilhelm Dieterle - who played Valentine in the picture - went on to direct T H E
DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER (1941), and crew member Edgar Ulmer created
1 934's THE BLACK CAT. Both later films bear the mark of Murnau's influence.
FAUST is a rarity in the Satanic cinema; a big-budget major studio production
dealing with the Devil not as the simple su bject for a horror film, but from a
genuine metaphysical perspective.
1 926 found the German silent cinema at its creative peak, and the unholy
triad of Satanic films made i n Germany that year all reflect this level of
accom plishment. If FAUST perfectly realized the traditional Gothic fairytale setting
usually associated with the Sata nic film, Fritz Lang's M ETROPOLIS ( 1 926) broke this
mold entirely. Lang's flawed but compelling early science fiction vision showed us
that Satan ism will still be practiced in the gleaming vistas of the future. The black
magical aspects of METROPOLIS are clearly pronounced in the novel by Lang's
WHEN SATAN WAS SILENT: 1913-29
•
43
Metropolis
wife, Thea von Harbou, who usually receives less credit than she deserves for
imagining the film's most memorable scenes.
While Lang's f i lm is largely concerned with creating the spectacle of a
futuristic world, the Satanic subplot of the picture has often been overlooked.
Hidden beneath the vast skyscrapers of tomorrow's city is the alchem ist's lab of
Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), a state of the art Satanic tech nologist who was the
prototype for a whole school of mad scientists to come. Rather than growing an
organic homunculus, Rotwang builds a diabolical android, the false Maria (Brigitte
H e l m), who comes to life beneath an illum inated inverted pentagram - making
METROPOLIS the first film to feature that ancient symbol of the Black Arts. Klein­
Rogge's Faustian scientist is a brilliantly diabolic figure, but it's the seventeen year
old Helm as the sin ister robotrix who really shines. In a scene that powerfully
documents the pre-apocalyptic climate of Berlin in the mid-twenties, Helm reveals
herself as the Whore of Babylon during an erotic dance at Metropolis' palace of
pleasure. Helm's evocation of the good/evil fem inine Double preceded her
performance that same year as Hanns Heinz Ewers' femme fatale ALRAU N E,
directed by Henrik Galeen. Despite its strong magical elements, ALRAUNE is not
d i rectly diabolical enough to merit inclusion in this book.
The other picture Galeen made in 1 926, a remake of Ewers' DER STUDENT
VON PRAG (1 926) brings this chronicle of the silent Satanic fi l m in Germany fu ll
circle. Only thirteen years had passed since Stellan Rye directed the first version
of that Faustian tale, but advances in the craft and technology of cinema since
those pioneering days had opened up possibilities even the visionary Ewers could
not have imagined. Defending his decision to remake a classic, Galeen wrote in
an article in Oer Film that he could now enrich Ewers' "magn ificent fable",
44
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Der SJuderU Von Prag (1926).
removing the "no longer digestible Satanism" that had dominated the earlier
film. This statement underscores a growing conflict between Galeen and his
mentor Ewers. While Ewers continued to explore his fascination with the occu lt,
his younger protege p referred a more modern, less supernatural approach to the
fantastic cinema.
In any event, the final product - with a screenplay co-written by Galeen
and Ewers - was no less diabolical than the original version. If anything, the
sinister performance of Werner Krauss as the Mephistophelean Scapinelli was
several shades blacker than that of John Gottowt in the 1 9 1 3 production. A wild­
eyed, goateed stra nger outlined against a windswept heath, his every grand
gesture p rojecting menacing shadows, Kra uss is the picture of Expression ist evil.
It's a performance that ranks with Krauss's earlier enactment of that other
ominous Italian, Dr Caligari, in 1 91 9. In fact, the 1 926 STUDENT is something of
a CALIGARI reunion. Conrad Veidt, who'd been the homicidal sleepwalker i n
CALIGARI, plays the d oomed student Balduin, who sells his mirror image t o the
Devil. Hermann Warm, the set designer responsible for the angular, slanting sets
that Kra uss and Veidt had once prowled in CALIGARI, built a wonderfu lly moody
Prague for the actors to haunt in their secoRd collaboration. When one adds the
participation of Galeen - director of the fi rst GOLEM, and co-scenarist for
NOSFERATU - and grey eminence Hanns Heinz Ewers lurking in the background,
the remake of STUDENT VON PRAG is practically a who's who of the German
cinema of terror.
Veidt makes for a more athletic student than Wegener had been in the
earlier rendition; his fencing scenes were favourably compared to the
WHEN SATAN WAS SILENT: 1913-29
•
45
Hanns Heinz Ewers.
swash buckling of Douglas Fairbanks. More im portantly, he eerily conveys the
psychic disruption of a man without a soul in the scenes that follow his splitting
into a demonic Double. Although Galeen's film is technically more accomplished
46
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
The Sorrows OfSalan.
than its predecessor, author Ewers actually preferred the 1 9 1 3 picture, especially
because of its inclusion of authentic Prague locations. Despite such quibbles, DER
STUDENT VON PRAG is a fitting swan song to a period of protean imagination in
European film never really equalled again. The coming political maelstrom in
Germany made this fateful production into the end of an era. Conrad Veidt would
end up escaping the Third Reich to Hol lywood, where he would die a n early death
after being typecast as a movie Nazi. Werner Krauss would remain in Germany,
participating in some of the most notorious a nti-Semitic films produced by the
H itler regime. As for the dark destiny of Hanns Heinz Ewers, we sha ll consider his
last days i n the following chapter.
By 1 926, America's cinema i nnovator D.W. Griffith had long been exiled
from the halls of Hollywood power The triumph of his BIRTH OF A NATION was
largely forgotten. Given to drink, and unwilling to adapt to more modern
techniques of film-making, the legendary director struggled to maintain a hold
i n the industry he had helped to shape. Perhaps the fallen titan could relate to
the Devil's plight in Paramount's THE SORROWS OF SATAN (1 926). The picture was
actually developed by Cecil B. De M i l le; Griffith was only called in as a last-m inute
replacement when De Mille broke with Paramount.
To his credit, Griffith disliked the tedious and moralistic 1 895 Marie Corelli
novel upon which the film was based, but he d id what he could with the project
handed down to him. The d irector handles the prefatory scenes of Satan's
dismissal from Paradise with his old verve. From this mythic prologue, we descend
to earth, where garret-bound starving novelist Geoffrey Tempest (Ricardo Cortez)
meets and falls in love with fellow struggling writer Mavis (Carol Dempster).
WHEN SATAN WAS SILENT: 1913-29
•
47
Tempest, embittered by his l iterary failure, curses God. This blasphemy encourages
a certain elegant Prince, calling himself Lucio de Rimanez (the incredibly suave
Adolphe Menjou) to take the lad under his dark wing and introduce h i m to
London's smartest society. The mysterious Prince tells his charge that he will be
given a fortune if h e obeys his commands. Forgetting all about poor Mavis,
Tempest is held in thrall by a bewitch ing Princess (Lya De Putti). The Devil orders
the writer to marry the Princess, who is soon revealed to be a gold-digger in love
with Lucifer. Tempest leaves his new wife, who kills herself as all sinful women in
such films usually do. When the remorseful writer wants to return to his still
starving first love Mavis, the Prince reveals himself in his full Satanic grandeur,
threatening to take away the young man's fortune. Tempest renounces h is
diabolic patron and ends up back in the wretched garret with Mavis, where he
belongs.
Adolphe Menjou, who practically invented the part of the charming
aristocratic cad, p lays his Prince of Darkness perfectly, setting a high standard for
all the upper-class Evil beings who followed h i m . Smouldering Lya De Putti vamps
it up as the erotic epitome of the silent movie diva. D.W. Griffith, even at this late
stage in his career, lends conviction and artistry to much of the film, which is
certa i n ly the best of the Satanic films produced in America during the 1 920s.
These pleasures more than allow the discerning viewer to dispense with Carelli's
killjoy message.
Many of Europe's most extraord inary film talents were drawn to the flame
of Hollywood as the silent era faded out. Among them was Benjamin Christensen,
director and principal Devil of HAXAN. In California, the Dane's talents were
inspired by the d iabolical Muse for the second time in his career In 1 929, he was
given the task of adapting A.E. Merr itt's best-sel ling novel Seven Footprints To
Satan to the screen. Merritt, known as "The Lord of Fantasy", specialized i n
rousing mystic-themed adventures set i n exotic locales. I n Seven Footprints, a
stalwart explorer is kidnapped by a mysterious secret society and brought to their
leader, the masked mastermind Satan. Although the reader is initially led to
believe that the omniscient Satan of Seven Footprints is the dark lord man ifested
on earth, he is eventually revealed to be a mortal criminal genius enamoured of
Satanic symbolism. Merritt's central cha racter, Satan, is one of the most
memorable super-villains in pulp literature - every bit the peer of Sax Rohmer's
insidious yellow peril Dr Fu Manchu, and lan Fleming's Ernst Stavro Blofeld. T he
complexity which Merritt end ows h i s Satan raises hi m far above t he standards o f
ordinary escapist literature. In fact, the sin ister tone o f the novel was watered
down considerably in the film, which is played as far-fetched comedy. Merritt, like
so·many authors mangled by Hol lywood, was said to be extremely disp leased with
the transformation of h i s dark crime mystery into farce. Despite this inappropriate
transformation, Christensen's extravagant visual artistry is in plentiful supply.
Satan's fantastic throneroom is a most impressive sight, with its bat-winged fire­
breathing dragons, slinky harem girls, and robed and hooded potentate seated
imperiously above his swank society disciples. There's genuine menace in the
sombre halls of Satan's hidden mansion, a lavishly decorated gothic p i le
suggesting at once the wealth and larger-than-life presence of its owner Film
critic Roger Starbuck, i n reviewing the film, melodramatically followed the studio's
request to keep the ending a secret. Starbuck wrote: "To divulge it is beyond our
providence, for we, too, are sworn to secrecy born of a deep, dark oath at
midnight with one hand upon a cloven hoof."
48
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Seven Footprirus To Satan.
Alas, it is the finale that completely ruins the genuinely disturbing climax
of Merritt's original work. The fantastic journey through Satan's realm is
ultimately revealed as an elaborate prank played on the hero. While European
fantastic films never flinched from delineating psychic darkness, early Hollywood
invariably copped out in the last reel, tidily explain ing any discomforting elements
away. The kidnapped explorer was played by Creighton Hale, an i neffectual comic
hero in the Harold Lloyd mode. Thelma Todd, whose many stormy a mours earned
her the nickname "Hot Toddy", is the hero's dizzy dame sidekick. Threatening the
couple were Satan's menagerie of henchmen, a fanged grotesq ue known as
Spider, a cani ne-faced savant. and the inevitable dwarf, played by " Little Angie"
Rossito, whose d i mi nutive presence was later seen i n FREAKS, and several of Bela
Lugosi's worst films. Released on the cusp of the talkie revolution, SEVEN
FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN was distributed initially in a standard silent version. To
keep up with the new-fa n gled craze for "all-talking" pictures a sound version was
released the same year, which featured a silly spookhouse soundtrack, replete
with screams, groans, and gunshots. Despite the visual splendour of Christensen's
film, the farcical tone make this a less than defin itive adaptation of the far
superior novel.
The heady mixture of Expressionism and Satan ism that spawned the black
magical masterworks of the 1 920s finally burnt out with the advent of talking
pictures. However, that dark aesthetic would resurface in the New World for one
final intense burst of black flame.
THE DEPRESSION
AND ITS DEMONS:
THE 1930s
The student of the Satanic cinema will notice that this anomalous area of film
obeys sometimes mysterious laws of its own. There's clearly some kind of obscure
cycle in effect, dictating that every decade of intense activity will be followed by
a period of drought. Never is this more pronounced than in the case of the 1 930s.
After the tidal wave of black magical productions that produced some of the
silent era's recognized landmarks, the economic crash of 1 929 seemed to signal
an almost total cessation.
The fact is that the thirties can boast of only two major d iabolical pictures,
namely THE BLACK CAT ( 1 934) and the third version of DER STUDENT VON PRAG
(1935). In both cases, these films can be seen as the last lingering echoes of the
Satanic Expressionism of 1 920s German cinema, rather th a n as any indication of
a new d irection in the field.
Upon superficial examination, TH E BLACK CAT would appear to merely be
one of the many horror films produced by Universal Films in the wake of the
successful DRACULA ( 1 9 3 1 ). While it's certa inly enjoyable on that level, a closer
ana lysis reveals a film of hidden depths that draws on the h istoric, magical, and
aesthetic currents of the 1 920s in a fascinating and previously unexplored fashion.
Directed by the wilfully eccentric Edgar U lmer, and featuring two marvellous
performances by Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi at the top of their respective forms,
there's more than meets the eye here. Let us systematically unravel the disparate
strands woven together to produce a film that remains genuinely bizarre after
more than half a century.
Although bound by the constraints of the Hol lywood B picture, Ulmer
managed to produce a singular work of art, as personal as any underground avant
garde production. Considered individually, the seemingly dissonant elements
Ulmer brought together seem as if they couldn't possibly make sense in one film.
Despite the affront to logic THE BLACK CAT's Poe-pourri presents to the linear
mind, it all comes together with surreal harmony, like ingredients in a
hallucinatory elixir imbibed at the Devil's Mass. Ulmer convinced U n iversal chief
"Junior" Laemmle to allow him to make a film in the European CALIGARI style.
Laemmle agreed to give Ulmer an unusual amount of creative control over the
project, the only condition being that the film be titled THE BLACK CAT, after the
Poe tale.
The plot, dream-like and inconsistent, is secondary to atmosphere and
overall effect. Somewhere in Central Eu rope, the All isons, a honeymooning
American mystery writer and his wife, embark on a train jo urney. On board, they
meet the peculiar Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Bela Lugosi), who explains that he's a
World War I veteran, only recently freed from fifteen years as a prisoner of war
Due to a n accident, the Allisons and Werdegast must seek shelter for the night at
the forbidding futuristic home of Engineer Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff), who
happens to be Werdegast's former commanding officer in the war. Our
introduction to Poelzig finds him laying on a bed with his young wife Karen, a
highly suggestive scene by 1 934 Hollywood standards.
50
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Tbe Black Cal.
We learn that Poelzig's starkly modern mansion is built on the ruins of
Fortress Marmaros, over the graves of thousands of men who perished there
during the war. It becomes evident that Werdegast, for all o f his outward
cou rtesy, is on a mission of vengeance, and that he's come to k i l l Poelzig for
stealing his wife a n d daughter from him during his long incarceration.
Werdegast's ethereal daughter Karen is now Poelzig's wife, replacing h is wife,
who died mysteriously. Poelzig leads Werdegast through the bowels of Marmoros,
showing him the perfectly preserved bodies of women he's mounted in glass
coffins. Who these women are is never explained, like so many of the film's
mysteries. Perhaps the necrophile fetishism with which they're lovingly presented
is a deliberate echo of Poe's penchant for beautiful morbidity. As for black cats,
there's only one spooky pussy to be seen, in a confusing scene in which
Werdegast's phobia against cats is revealed.
Literally out of left field, U lmer i ntroduces the information that Poelzig
is the High Priest of a Satanic cu lt. We see the Engineer reading a book entitled
The Rites Of Lucifer, which prescribes the sacrifice of a virgin. As the members of
his cult convene for the rites, it becomes apparent that Mrs. All ison is the only
virgin on the premises. On a striking Expressionist set that recalls CALIGARI,
Poelzig leads a stylized Black Mass. The first group Satanic ritual ever seen on the
screen, this scene would have an enduring influence, eventually becoming a staple
of almost every movie concerning black magic. With his usual sense of humour,
Karloff improvised the impressive sounding Satanic invocation he intones, by
THE DEPRESSION AND ITS DEMONS: THE 1 930s
•
51
The Black Cat.
stringing together a few phrases from his college Latin. Consequently, Poelzig's
Satanic litany includes such non-sequiturs as "Cum grano salis" (with a grain of
sa lt), "In vino veritas" (in wine there is truth), and "Cave Canem" (beware of the
dog).
Werdegast saves the intended sacrifice, breaking up the ceremony. This
last-minute rescue of a female Satanic sacrifice would also recur frequently in
many films that followed. Finally, Werdegast avenges the death of his wife and
the despoliation of his daughter by sadistically rending the flesh off of Poelzig's
body - stripping h is hide like the hated black cat he symbolizes. The hero, Mr
Allison, interrupts this cruel operation by shooting Werdegast, who activates a
handy self-destruct button (every Fortress should have one) with his dying breath.
The mutilated Poelzig and his cult are destroyed, and the couple escape,
presumably to enjoy their honeymoon in a more inviting atmosphere.
As outlandish as the plot of Ulmer's film is, some of its strange a ir of
credibil ity may be due to the fact that screenwriter Peter Ruric (a pseudonym for
hard-boiled detective writer George Sims) and Ulmer based their story on a
curious news item circulating in the world press shortly before the making of the
film. Unlikely though it may seem, there actually was a na"ive young couple who
visited the remote home of a magician and became enmeshed in occult rites
involving a black cat. The magician in question was Aleister Crowley, the isolated
residence was his Abbey of Thelema in Sicily, and the unfortunate black cat was
called M ischette.
All of this had come to the attention of the press when Crowley,
52
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
desperate for funds, accused Nina Hamnett, an author friend of his, of libel in a
London court. It says something of Crowley's character that with all the libelous
things being written about him by strangers, he chose to prosecute one of his
friends. Hamnett had mentioned Crowley in her 1932 autobiography Laughing
Torso. The passage that inspired the Beast's ire was Hamnett's description of his
days at the Abbey of Thelema: "He was supposed to practice Black Magic there,
and one day a baby was said to have d isappeared mysteriously. There was a lso a
goat there. This all pointed to Black Magic, so people said, and the inhabitants of
the village were frightened of him."
In court, his attorney represented Crowley as a firm foe of black magic,
and an ardent practitioner of white magic. It's hard to imagine such an argument
making much of an impact on a conservative British jury, especially considering
Crowley's already tarnished reputation in the public eye. Rather than vindicating
Crowley, the libel action allowed the opposing attorney an opportunity to dredge
up every pornographic poem and outrage against society the magician had
produced since the Victorian age. The trial was transformed from a simple libel
action to a public ind ictment of Crowley's life.
One of the witnesses whom Ham nett's solicitor asked to appear to smear
Crowley's character was one Betty May Loveday. In 1 923, she and her husband
Raoul had been invited by Crowley to study Thelemic magick at the Master's
Italian island lair. Betty May testified, to the horror of the court - and the glee of
the yellow press - about a ritual she had witnessed in the Abbey's make-shift
temple in which a drugged Crowley had ordered the stabbing of a cat. (According
to the Beast's rules for his Abbey, no animals were al lowed to "profane the
temple".) Remembering the animal's savage killing, she tried that "my young
husband had to drink a cup of that blood." Shortly thereafter, Raoul Loveday died
from an infection of the liver and spleen, which his grieving wife attributed to the
ingestion of the eat's blood. Judge and jury were pred ictably mortified and
Crowley lost the case, the resultant pub I icity only feeding the public's worst
suspicions of "the wickedest man in the world"
It was from this kernel of sensational reality that several of THE BLACK
CAT's dominant elements were borrowed. It should be noted that Crowley's
Abbey of Thelema, though long since shrouded in legend, was hardly as
impressive as the daunting Fortress Marmoros stalked by Crowley surrogate
Karloff in the film. The fabled Abbey was actually no more than a dila pidated five
room, one-story farmhouse in the rugged rural town of Cefalu. Conditions were
squalid in the extreme, and the lack of electricity or sanitation was enough to
scare away many who voyaged there to learn how to Do their Will.
While the character of Satanist Hjalmar Poelzig owes much to Aleister
Crowley, Edgar Ulmer also drew on a more personal source in imagining his black
magical villain. Before turning to cinema, Ulmer had studied arch itecture in
Vienna, and this knowledge served him well in his designing of film sets, a task
he often took on himself. In 1 920, he was given his first job in the German film
ind ustry, as silhouette cutter for Paul Wegener's monumental production of TH E
GOLEM. Wh ile working on that film, he encountered Dr Engineer Hans Poelzig,
responsible for the astonishingly express ionistic Prague set that played such a
major part in THE GOLEM's impact. It's often been noted that Ulmer borrowed the
last name of the Boris Kar loff character in THE BLACK CAT from Poelzig, but
there's actually more of a l ink between the real Poelzig and the reel Poelzig than
just nomenclature.
THE DEPRESSION AND ITS DEMONS: THE 1930s
•
53
Hans Poelzig.
Born in 1869, Poelzig was one of Germany's leading architects, erecting
his unique b u i l d ings on a monumental scale. Although he has wrongly been
associated with the Bauhaus m ovement, Poelzig was actually a law unto himself,
designing acc ording to m eta physica l theories of space unrelated to any school.
--rhe effect of architecture is magical", Poelzig once declared in a lecture, and he
was not speaking figuratively. The master builder felt that every building was a
54
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
living thing, possessed of its own musical rhythm, a mystic sound that could be
"heard " by the initiated. Although he was an intensely private man, reveal i n g
little of himself to those outside his small circle o f associates, Poelzig was o n e o f
many German silent f i l m personal ities who privately studied the magical arts.
Poelzig and his wife Marlene often held spiritual ist seances at their home, at
which Poelzig's daughter served as medium. According to Poelzig's biographer,
Theodor Heuss, the respected arch itect's library "was filled with the works of
mystics, the occult sciences, and astrology" Heuss, one of Poelzig's students, felt
that h is mentor was a n ee-Platonist on a " mystical quest", pursuing the mystery
of eternal forms through his grand architectural designs. Poelzig vaguely referred
to the hidden powers behind real ity as the "Andere" (Other) which he sought to
discover in his work, musing over the hermetic concept of the world axis. Poelzig
had long felt that the cinema could be a forum for his magical outlook. In an
unpublished notebook, Poelzig once jotted: "Film ... the magic of form - the form
of magic ... Devil's Mass ... " These shad ows all gave heft to the character of THE
BLACK CAT's own mystical engineer Hjalmar Poelzig.
Watching the construction of Poelzig's set of Prague fourteen years earlier
had been an ·inspiration to the young Ulmer, although he considered the older
architect something of a tyrant personally. On a much smaller scale and budget,
U lmer and set designer Charles Hall attempted the same technique on THE BLACK
CAT The starkly futuristic set of Fortress Marmoros is just as much of an important
character in the film as Poelzig's set of Prague was in THE GOLEM. Photographs
of some of the interiors of buildings constructed by Hans Poelzig in Germany
reveal designs that obviously inspired the unforgettable look of Fortress
Marmoros. Indeed, THE BLACK CAT is inconceivable without the cold futurism of
its settings.
Just as the pioneers of fantastic cinema in the 1 920s were inventing a
previously undreamed of magic of film, so was Poelzig using the art of
architecture as his magical medium. A true magician of the twentieth century,
Hans Poelzig cast his spe l l in a field not commonly perceived to be connected with
the B lack Arts at a l l. When Poelzig d ied in 1 936, his friend and collaborator Pau l
Wegener eulogized the architect a s a "gothic mystic" The legacy o f this forgotten
magician is still visible to anyone who watches THE BLACK CAT.
In spite of its fantastic aspects, the film is also unusual among horror films
of the 1 930s for so powerfully evoking the spectre of World War I, still a fresh
wound in the public psyche. Most Universal horror films offered sheer escapism.
In contrast, TH E BLACK CAT confronted its viewers with recent historic horrors far
more frightening than any movie monster Interviewed in the 1 960s by Peter
Bogda novich, U lmer recalled another source that informed THE BLACK CAT· " I had
been in Prague ... I met at that time Gustav Meyrink, the man who wrote The
Go/em as a novel. Meyrink was one of those strange Prague Jews, l ike Kafka, who
was very tied up in the mystic Talmudic background. We had a lot of d iscussions,
and Meyrink ... was contemplating a play based upon Doumont, which was a
French fortress the Germans had shelled to pieces during the First World War
There were some survivors who didn't come out for years. And the commander . . .
went crazy three years later when h e was brought back to Paris, because h e had
walked on that mountain of bodies." Much of the ambience of this historic
incident is reflected in Bela Lugosi's lines in TH E BLACK CAT· "And that h i l l
yonder, where Engineer Poelzig now lives, was the site of Fort Marmoros. He built
his home on its very foundations. Marmoros, the greatest graveyard in the world."
THE DEPRESSION AND ITS DEMONS: THE 1930s
•
55
The Black Cat.
lugosi, himself a veteran of the war, speaks these lines with truly haunted
intensity.
With
its mixture of Satanism,
necrophiliac suggestions,
and erotic
atmosphere, THE BLACK CAT is easily one of the darkest films of the 1930s. The
original version, however, was even more sin ister. When Universal executives saw
Ulmer's rough cut of the film, they demanded cuts, and a comparison of the
original script to the finished film reveals that many of the most disturbing
elements, i n cluding a more blatantly orgiastic treatment of the Black Mass, were
hastily excised. One of the characters at the Satanic mass was a woman named
Mrs. Goering, a n obvious reference to the German air force leader. Un iversal also
clipped this possibly controversial character from the film. The subject of
contemporary Satanism had only been dealt with on the screen once before, in
lugosi's long forgotten THE DEVIL WORSHIPPER (1 920). U niversal's marketing
department deliberately downplayed this aspect of the picture, nervous that Devil
worship might not be readily accepted as enterta inment.
Even with this editing, British censors found the film's handling of
Satanism to be completely u nacceptable. Consequently, the British print of the
film, entitled HOUSE OF DOOM, replaces all mentions of black magic with less
disturbing references to "sun worshippers", which effectively ruins the
transgressive impact of the picture. British guardians of public morality would
fight any and all inclusion of Satanic themes in movies for decades to come.
This last-minute cutting explains some of the inconsistency of the plot,
which makes a little less sense with every repeated viewing. Nevertheless, the
perfectly matched Lugosi a n d Karloff carry the film, with Heinz Roemheld's
56
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Bride OfFrankenstein.
bombastic classical based score lending a unity to the production.
Cinematographer John J. Mescal! has more than a few brilliant moments as his
camera g l ides through the recesses of the Satanic fortress. All of these
accomplishments are a l l the more impressive considering that the film was shot
on the paltriest of budgets in only fifteen days.
Knowing something of the many unconnected background stories that
inspired THE BLACK CAT allows the viewer to experience the film on several levels
at once. But even without placing the picture in context of these influences,
H o llywood's first treatment of Satanism exerts a unique fascination unlike any
other film of its time.
Ladislas Starewicz, the pioneering master of stop-motion animation,
created an especially engaging animated Archfiend in THE MASCOT, made in 1 934
THE DEPRESSION AND ITS DEMONS: THE 1930s
•
57
in Paris. The twenty-six min ute short is a quirky mixture of sentimentality and
g rotesq uerie. Starewicz's antic voyage to Hades begins innocently enough when
a toy dog is brought to life by a teardrop. The pooch, literally hellbent on
retrieving an elusive orange, eventually becomes a guest at a demonic soiree
persona lly hosted by Satan.
An excerpt of this memorable Bacchanal scene, featuring an elegant but
comic Lucifer, has occasionally been revived on television as THE DEVIL'S BALL.
The blending of surreal whimsy and sinister humour of THE MASCOT is
remin iscent of the mood and imagery of Jan Svankmajer, the ingenious Czech
stop-motion animator whose 1 994 FAUST seems at least partially inspired by
Starewicz's perverse puppetry.
In 1 935, the Devil made a brief but im pressive cameo appearance in James
Whale's TH E BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Mad scientist Dr. Praetorius, played by
professional British eccentric Ernest Thesiger, shows Dr Frankenstein his own
efforts at creating artificial life. Praetorius is revealed to practice the Black Arts,
as he proudly disp lays his collection of bottled homunculi to his colleague. One
of these creatures is a suave miniature Satan. (This scene recalls very similar
bottled homunculi seen in a 1 9 1 0 Georges Melies production, which almost
certainly influenced the later film.) Considering this performance as an alchem ist,
it is of relevance to note that the flamboyantly fey Thesiger was on sociable terms
with another British eccentric of the time: the Great Beast himself, Aleister
Crowley. In 1 932, Crowley was invited to give a lecture at the prestigious Foyle's
Literary Luncheon. The Beast asked his friend Ernest Thesiger to open the event
by reciting Crowley's incantatory poem "Hymn To Pan" Anyone familiar with
Thesiger's droll delivery can imagine what the actor must have done with
Crowley's delirious incantation.
DANTE'S INFERNO (1 935) is an incredibly dreary film starring Spencer Tracy
as the ruthless proprietor of an attraction called Dante's Inferno, which recreates
vistas from Hell for the entertainment of its visitors. However, it's worth seeing
for the beautifully realized images of the underworld, which are as i m pressive as
anything in the drawings of Gustave Dore.·These infernal sequences were edited
into the long lost H E LLAVISION (1 937), which had to do with a television that
transm itted live from the nether regions.
With the installation of the new National Socialist government in Germany
in 1 933, Dr. Josef Goebbels seized control of the German film industry in his
capacity as Minister of Propaganda. Despite the new Germany's decidedly anti­
Christian ideology, there was no place for the Satanic in the Nazi aesthetic. The
deviant triumphs of the German silent cinema were condemned by the regime as
• decadent art", replaced by an officially sanctioned art of relentless
wholesomeness and cheerfu lness. All shadows were banished from the once
inventive UFA studios, where Murnau's FAUST, and Lang's METROPO LIS had been
created. The German film industry began to churn out uninspired fluff designed
to avoid all provocation, soothing and comforting indoctrinated audi ences with
supposedly uplifting fare.
During the twelve years of the Third Reich, only a bare handful of
fantastic films were permitted. (Two of these N azi-produced fantasy films, the
haunting ghost story FAHRMANN MARIA, and the full-colour special effects
extravaganza BARON M U NCHHAUSEN are actually classics of their kind.)
Hanns Heinz Ewers, who had first sparked the demonic tendencies in
German film, experienced a difficult time adjusting to the new climate. The sado-
58 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
DanU?'s Inferno.
erotic nature of his popular occult-tinged novels had been considered shocking
even in the permissive Weimar republic. During the Third Reich, Ewers' work was
viewed with positive d isgust by the defenders of public moral ity. Alraune, that
predatory virago, was not exactly the sunny image of Aryan womanhood expected
of German literature, and his seductive vampire character Lotte Levi was even less
acceptable. In a transparent attempt at currying favour with the growing power
of the Nazi party - and protecting his own fragile career - Ewers quickly wrote a
hack novel glorifying the life and death of the Nazi martyr Horst Wessell, a young
stormtrooper who made his living as a pimp. Ewers' hagiography of Wessel l was
a popular success, and upon the Nazi seizure of power in 1 933, Goebbels
requested that Ewers adapt it into a filmscript entitled HANS WESTMAR. The film,
fi nanced by the SA, was conceived by Goebbels as an important building block of
the heroic Nazi mythos. Ewers, his creativity hampered as a servant of the state,
complained in a letter to his wife: "I don't like the work at all, I have more than
enough of that theme ! "
Perhaps Ewers' lack o f commitment was apparent, for Goebbels accused
Ewers of making a " pseudo-artistic or in artistic attempt to exploit the actual
political situation" The demonic and sexual themes driving Ewers' work were
u ltimately incompatible with the Third Reich's ideology; by 1 934 the leading
German fantasist's work was forbidden altogether as an unhea lthy influence on
the master race. Students were encouraged to burn his books along with other
undesirable l iterature. Ewers' brief interlude as a Nazi propagandist gave rise to
THE DEPRESSION AND ITS DEMONS: THE 1930s
•
59
Der SludenJ Von Prag (1935).
the persistent but unverified rumour that he wrote the lyrics to the National
Socialist Party anthem Der Horst Wessell Lied.
By the time of this ban on Ewer's work, production had already started
on a sound re-make of his STUDENT VON PRAG, filmed in 1 935. The only
genuinely Satanic German film to appear during the Hitler era is the third version
of Hanns Heinz Ewers' classic. Its chief innovation, the addition of sound to the
now familiar tale of the Doppelganger, makes for a more realistic rendition than
the previous silent versions. Unfortunately, as is often the case with occult
subjects, the use of sound tends to cast the potentially dream-like iconography of
the story into an inordinately prosaic form. Although the silent format proves to
be far the more powerful medium for evoking the ap propriate nightmarish mood
required, the 1 93 5 STUDENT is still an imp ressive film, featuring a melancholy lead
performance by the young Adolf Wohlbruck. The Devil's name was changed
inexplicably from Scap inelli to Dr. Carpis, an a lteration I surmise may have been
out of deference to Germany's new ally Italy. Played with seedy menace by
Theodor loos, this Meph isto is still not on a par with Werner Krauss' Scapinelli of
nine years earlier The film was directed by the American emigre Arth ur Robison,
who d ied during the last phases of production, which may help to account for a
certai n unfin ished feel. A sense of bleak fatalism dominates the atmospheric
picture, not a qual ity likely to win the hearts of the watchful Nazi censors, who
allowed STUDENT VON PRAG only limited distribution. I n the nationalistic fervour
of the thirties, Robison's American birth o n ly added to the film's political
incorrectness.
The screenplay, credited as "freely after Hanns Heinz Ewers" was written
without Ewers' permission, and expressly agai nst his will, substantially changing
60 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
many important elements of the original story. "This rotten film was made
without permission, and behind my back by this swinish film company!" snarled
Ewers. The extravagant dandy and adventurer whose imagination had given birth
to the German Satanic cinema lived out the rest of his life as a forgotten
unperson. Castigated as "decadent" and " Un-Aryan" by the Nazis for his
unwholesome fascination with Satanic subjects and heretica l ideas, Ewers survived
under the official shadow of d isgrace. He was forbidden to publish his work,
which was deemed to be too dark and d isturbing for the professedly salubrious
dispositions of the master race. Ewers died in war-ravaged Berlin in 1 943.
Condemned by the Nazis as a decadent "poisoner of the people", he has
subsequently been branded by post-war literari as a "Nazi" Double-damned by
conflicting ideologies, the strange and fascinating artistic legacy of Hanns Heinz
Ewers now lays in limbo, awaiting rediscovery.
WAR IS HELL:
THE 1940s
After keeping such a low profile in the previous decade, the resurgence of the
Devil on screen during the 1 940s marks nothing less than a comeback. War-weary
audiences were frequently diverted and disturbed by Satanic entertainments.
Naturally, many of the films created in that harrowing era preferred to look on
Lucifer's light side. However, a surprising number of genuinely dark visions were
set to celluloid in those years of Hell on earth.
In Walt Disney's an imated FANTASIA ( 1 940), one of the Satanic cinema's
most fearsome and majestic Devils is unleashed upon the screen. The final episode
of the film, set to the orchestrated thunder of Moussorgsky's Night On Bald
Moun tain, is a faithful rendition of the composer's conception of the music, as he
intended his piece to evoke a tone poem of the forces of darkness rising on the
demon-haunted Bald Mountain. Disney animator Vladimer " B i l l " Tylta, a Russian
by birth, based his concept of the Devil on the Slavic Satan Chernobog. Swiss artist
Albert Hurter also had a hand in the striking demon's design. The "Night On Bald
Mountain" sequence incorpor.ates a bit of German demonic lore into the Russian
legend, for the Devil's awakening from the mountain is said to occur on
Walpurgis Night. The Devil's spell conjures demons from Hell, and calls the dead
to rise from their graves. The creatures of darkness dance wildly to Moussorgsky's
stormy music until dawn when the ringing of church bells d ispel them back to the
abyss. Chernobog's massive form melds back into the craggy peak. The sun rises,
and a particularly saccharine rendition of "Ave Maria" is sung by a candlelight
procession of the faithful.
Disney a n imators tended to base their characters on human models,
attempting to capture a
living
personality
in art by stream l i n ing certain
id iosyncratic motions and movements down to their essence. But what merely
mortal prototype could adequately convey the imperious m aleficence D isney had
in mind for Chernobog? Only one actor came to mind: Bela Lugosi, who had
created some of his most enduring villainous characterizations with commanding,
larger-than-l ife gestures. Although his career was already in eclipse by 1 940,
Lugosi rose to the occasion, lending his unmistakable personal charisma and
authority to FANTASIA's Devil. Chernobog is Lugosi writ large, the sweeping
gestures instantly recognizable as Bela's patented body language. Lugosi's
officially uncredited performance, transfigured by Disney's an imators into a
moving icon, breathes unholy life into Disney's darkest character.
William (Wilhelm) Dieterle's THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER aka ALL
THAT MONEY CAN BUY ( 1 94 1 ) brill iantly transplanted the Faust legend to a mid­
ni neteenth century New England town. Adapted for the screen by Stephen
Vincent Benet from his 1 937 short story "The Devil And Daniel Webster", it's one
of the best fantasy films of the 1 940s. Despite the home-spun Yankee m i l ieu and
the picture's gentle sense of humour, D ieterle brings something of the haunting
atmosphere of German silent cinema to the production. Of course, Dieterle earned
his Satanic wings years before; he played the substantial role of Valentin in F.W.
Murnau's 1 926 production of FAUST, and learned much from the master.
Impoverished farmer Jabez Stone (James Craig) swears that he'd sell his
soul to the Devil to pay his debts, and grizzled old codger Mr. Scratch (Walter
Huston) obligingly appears. Promising seven years of affluence in exchange for his
62
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Fantasia.
soul, Scratch officiates their pact by burning the date into a tree. Of course, the
seven years are anything but lucky, and the money Mephisto provides is soon seen
to be the root of all evil. When Jabez's wife Mary becomes pregnant, the rueful
father-to-be attempts to cut down the tree which bears his infernal agreement.
Angered, Scratch summons a hailstorm which wipes out all the crops... save for
J abez's. The other farmers are forced to work for Jabez, tending to his
mysteriously thriving crops.
When Jabez's son is born, enchanting agent of the Devil Belle (Simone
Simon) arrives, ostensibly to serve as nursemaid. Hell's Belle bewitches Jabez, but
he's even more obsessed with his money. Mary, who stays behind at the Stone's
hu mble farm wh i l e her husband lives it up with Belle in a luxurious manor,
describes her plight to the legendary senator Daniel Webster Inflamed by the
Satanic sins of pride and avarice, Jabez holds a party to show off his new abode.
Belle's bold enough to order Jabez's wife to leave the party. When Webster
lectures Jabez about the consequences of his sinful life, Jabez is enraged,
expelling the Senator and h is wife from his property. Delighted with the
consternation he's caused, a gloating Scratch announces that he's willing to
extend his pact with Jabez in exchange for his beloved son.
The party scene is particularly eerie, with its strange g uests and Belle's
seductive but lethal dancing to a sinister band. When the Devil claims the soul of
one of his guests who's also made a pact, Jabez realizes that his own time is
nearly up.
WAR IS HELL: THE 1940s
•
63
The Devil And Daniel Webster.
A sheepish Jabez catches up with Daniel Webster and confesses all,
beseech ing the senator to help him fight Mr. Scratch. With Webster's gift of
oratory, he hopes that even Satan can be outsmarted. They confront the Devil
shortly before midnight, when Jabez agreed to relinquish his souL Scratch appears
at the stroke of the witching hour. Webster declares that as a n American citizen,
Jabez is entitled to a trial by jury. Scratch assents, with the condition that he be
allowed to select the jury. Twelve of the colony's worst blackguards and traitors
are summoned from Hell to hear the case. They're a formidable bunch, including
Benedict Arnold and Captain Kidd among their number Cruel Justice Hawthorne,
late of the Salem witch tria ls, sets down the ground rules: If Webster loses, he too
must forfeit his souL Webster summons a l l his rhetorical powers. making an
emotional appeal to the jury's American love of liberty, tarnished by their bargain
with the DeviL By declaring Scratch's pact null and void, they can, at least in some
sma ll way, redeem their own lost freedom. To Scratch's chagrin, Jabez is
exonerated and the pact is destroyed. Jabez's new house, symbol of i l l-gotten
infernal gain, explodes into hellish flames, and he reunites with loyal Mary. Mr
Scratch, jaded by centuries of experience, takes his loss in stride. The last shot of
the film shows the Devil glaring out at the audience, pointing his finger as he
searches for new souls.
Walter Huston leaves a lingering im pression as Scratch, whose credibly
sinister persona is leavened by cutting wit. This is a Meph isto who enjoys his job,
a sardonic smile never far from h is lips. Huston's eyes g l itter with malice and
64 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
a musement, taking delight in the
vicissitudes of the humans he bargains
with. Even the stodgy Academy
Awards, prone to shunning fantastic
f ilms, nominated him as Best Actor of
1 94 1 . The atmospheric score by
Bernard Hermann, integral to the
success of the film, garnered an Oscar
for the composer. So many Satanic
films are undermined by a dramatic
imbalance created by pitting all­
powerful Satan against u npre­
possessing human heroes. For once, the
Devil's given a worthy adversary in
Edward Arnold's Webster. As the
Devil's fetching e missary Belle, French
actress Simone Simon projects an
otherworldly glamour all her own.
Released only two months
before the United States' entry into
World War II, Webster's patriotic
speech to the infernal jury was well­
timed to appeal to the national mood.
Traditional American values such as
thriftiness and a Puritan sexual attitude
were pitted against the temptations of Mr. Scratch. Huston's charming Devil and
the film's overall appeal make it easy enough to ignore the somewhat preachy
u ndertones. RKO executives were concerned that the title THE DEVIL AND DANIEL
WEBSTER would offend aud iences in the Bible Belt, so the alternate title ALL
THAT MONEY CAN BUY was hastily dreamt up.
for one segment of the diverse American population - almost entirely
ignored by Hollywood's big budget cinema assembly line - the Devil had long
been a vital presence. For American blacks in the 1 940s, the Baptist church was the
heart of community life, and there was little ambiguity concerning belief in the
literal existence of Satan. Feeding into this belief were the all-black films of
director Spencer Williams,. who pioneered the production of blaxploitation movies
for the so-called "chitlin circuit"
In 1 941, the cinema's first black Prince of Darkness appears in Williams'
gospel musical THE BLOOD OF JESUS. S ister Martha Ann Jackson, (Cathyrn
Caviness) is river- baptized into a Southern black church. When her irreligious
husband accidentally shoots her, Sister Martha's attended by an angel who takes
her soul to a cemetery haunted by the ghosts of those who died through
another's sins. On a crossroads leading between life and death, she meets sleazy
Judas Green (Frank H. McCiennan), an angel. of an altogether d ifferent sort. This
infernal intermediary shows her the high life, decking her out in fine clothes, and
bringing her to a d isreputable jazz night club. Judas persuades a pimp to hire
Sister Martha, luring her with prom ises of easy money, but she resists temptation.
M istaken by one irate customer as a hooker who pickpocketed him, Martha is
pursued back to the mystical road whose path she had been tempted from by the
worldly bland ishments of Judas Green.
WAR IS HELL: THE 1940s
•
65
Tbe Devil Wilb Hiller.
At the end of the road, old Satan himself (Jas. B. Jones) is waiting for her,
accompanied by a band playing jazz. Sister Martha falls to the ground, her soul
seemingly lost. Above her, the sign marking the crossroads between the worlds
changes i nto the cross of crucifixion, and drops of the eponymous blood of Jesus
anoint her Her soul returns to earth and she awakens from the brink of death,
welcomed back to the world of the living by her husband Ras, now saved by his
witnessing of the miracle.
A filmic analogue to the fire and brimstone exegesis delivered every
Sunday by Baptist preachers, THE BLOOD OF JESUS recalls the moral lesson of
Satanic films of the 1 920s. Just as the preacher man might pepper his earnest
exhortation with levity, so are Judas Green and Satan humorously represented as
big city jazzbos. This might have raised a nervous laugh or two from the film's
target audiences, but the threat that Lucifer poses was taken with no less
solemnity. Jazz is repeatedly used as the aural equ ivalent of the Devil's influence,
in contrast to the redeeming value of gospel music.
For his next screen sighting, Satan was pressed into Uncle Sam's service as
an unlikely comedic agent for the Allied cause. Directed by Gordon Douglas, THE
DEVIL WITH HITLER (1 942) was one of quickie producer Hal Roach's "strea mlined
features", comedy shorts churned out to complete the bottom half of double bills.
The netherworld's board of directors votes to dism iss Satan (Alan Mowbray), long­
time chairman, since his record of evil has been surpassed by the dastardly deeds
66
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
of Adolf Hitler, who they elect as h is successor Satan offers to visit Germany in
order to demo nstrate that even Hitler has some redeeming qua lities - any good
will on the Nazi autocrat's part would automatically make him ineligible for the
throne of Hell. Satan finagles his way into Hitler's Chancellery, posing as the
Fuhrer's new astrologer. The Devil does his damnedest to persuade H itler to do
a good deed, finally winning back his hegemony in Hell through trickery and
impersonation. Finished off by a climactic explosion on earth, Hitler next appears
in Hell as a damned soul, prodded by the demon's pitchforks.
Suave character actor Alan Mowbray lends his usual flair to his role,
although he's only required to provide a caricature Devil for a film that aims for
no more depth than a political cartoon. Mowbray's rival in evil, Bobby Watson,
built a strange career for himself as a professional Hitler impersonator, repeating
the role in THAT NAZSTY NU ISANCE, among others. Watson is surely the only
actor to appear in two Satanic films as Hitler. In 19 57's oddity THE STORY OF
MANKIND he donned Fuhrer costume again, accompanied by Vincent Price's
Satan.
As a film, THE DEVIL WITH HITLER is negligible. As a reflection of the ever­
shifting persona of the Devil in mass consciousness, it's an interesting case study.
The comedy reflects what was going on in the depths of the American national
psyche. For the democracies of the 1 940s, cosmic evil had transferred from the
mythological Satan to the mythified figure of Hitler If the Devil is the
unacceptable Other, positioned at the furthest antipode of societal conformism,
H itler had become that Other in the eyes of his foes. Of course, Nazi propaganda
- despite its general avoidance of specifically Christian symbolism - also conferred
infernal properties on its declared enemies. In Mein Kampf, Hitler warns of "the
Satanic Jewish youth", drawing on centuries of Christian imagery that literally
symbolized the Devil as Jew. Satan is the demonized other side of every equation.
To consider all the contradictory images the Satanic cinema offers up as the Devil
is to understand the mercurial nature of mass consciousness. How effortlessly
today's Devil is forgotten, and how quickly a seemingly unrelated demonic symbol
rises in its place.
THE DEVIL WITH H ITLER, produced in the sheltered backlots of Hollywood
could satirize the Nazi leader with impun ity. Director Marcel Carne, working i n
what remained o f the severely censored film industry of occupied France, was
more restricted in the subject matter he could work with. Before the war, he had
coined the phrase "poetic realism" to describe his style. The German film
inspectorate had specifically forbidden Carne's approach. French directors were
only al lowed to deal with contemporary l ife if their films extolled the Axis war
effort. Carne sought to create a film that would present a specifically French
vision to his demoralized compatriots. With script-writer Jacques Prevert, he
decided that only the ageless qual ity of a fairytale could evade the restrictions of
the times.
They created LES VISITEURS DU SOIR (1 942) aka THE DEVIL'S ENVOYS.
Opening on pages from an ornately calligraphed fairy tale tome, we find
ourselves in the year 1485. An attractive pair of travelling troubadours, Gilles
(Alain Cuny) and Dominique (Arletty) are seen riding to a baronial castle in an
undisclosed region. They have arr ived during a splendid festivity celebrating the
betrothal of the Baron's winsome daughter Anne to the knight Renaud. A jarring
note disturbs the merriment when a troupe of severely deformed dwarves are
paraded before the court. The troubadours follow, captivating the court with
WAR IS HELL: THE 1940s
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their m instrelry. One of their songs tells of "demons and marvels", a subject more
appropriate than the rapt nobles can know. Indeed, their audience is literally
spellbound by the performance; Gilles and Dominique are servants of the Devil,
sent to earth to cause mischief among mortals. With her magical mandolin, the
icily beautiful Dominique stops the noble dancers in their paces. Determined to
disrupt the idyllic romance between Anne and Renaud, the Devil's envoys enchant
the young lovers. Anne is swiftly seduced by the dashing balladeer Gilles, and his
partner in crime Dominique easily wins the heart of Renaud with her charms. The
Devil's desired mischief seems to have been attained until the unforeseeable
occurs: the black hearts of the troubadours are stirred to feel human emotions for
their intended v ict i ms.
Their master in Hell - played with disarming bonhomie by veteran villain
Jules Berry - is forced to step in before his amorous agents are completely
embroiled in mortal love. Arriving at night on a shadowy steed, announced by the
crack ling of lightning, the infernal visitor poses as a mortal aristocrat, insinuating
himself into the life of the castle. The strutting, cynical Satan sets out to lead the
virtuous virgin Anne astray, but she resists. Outraged, the Devil transforms his
errant servant G i lles and Anne into stone. The fiend is pleased with his magic,
until he hears the faint sound of the lover's hearts still beating beneath the stone.
The hopeful message of the film was taken in some qua rters to be an
allegorical comment on the French plight. Viewing LES VISITEURS D U SOIR from
this perspective, the pure white castle is France itself, invaded by evil creatures
(the German occupying forces) led by the Devil (Hitler). The beating hearts
encased in stone were understood to represent the will of the resistance, bridled
68
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
but vigi lant, waiting for the spell of enemy domination to be broken. Dou btless,
French audiences of 1 942 could be moved by such metaphors, considering their
situation. However, to appreciate the film only as a political metaphor is to
undervalue its poetic effectiveness. Like all true masterpieces of the Satanic
cinema, this diabolic fairytale exists on a plane far removed from temporal
concerns, and can be judged as a legend speaking to all times rather than simply
a h istorical commentary.
Roger Hubert photographs the fable with an eye that truly evokes the
mystique of fairytale heraldry. The splendidly conceived castle, white and
gleaming in contrast to the dark forces that penetrate it, is the achievement of
art designers Georges Wakhevitch and Alexandre Trauner. This pristine citadel is
a perfect symbol for the well-ordered, regimented - but ultimately boring - life
of the court that the diabolic duo disrupt. The castle's effectiveness is a l l the more
impressive, considering the limited resources at the designer's disposa l. Jules
Berry's shaded performance as the Devil manages to be ingratiating and o m inous
at the same time and he shamelessly stea ls the show in every scene he's i n .
Swedish d irector Alf Sjoberg brought Rune Lindstrom's play Himlaspe/et
(The Road To Heaven) to the screen in 1942. Lindstrom was preparing to take his
vows as a pr iest when he wrote the play, and the result is a spiritual parable
il lustrating h is own struggle with the rigors of faith and the temptations of the
Devil. Resembling a medieval Everyman play in its structure, the film presents the
quest of hero Mats Ersson, played by author Lindstrom himself. When we first
meet Ersson, he is a innocent ideal ist, certain that all is good in God's creation.
This rosy view of things is darkened when his beloved fiancee is falsely accused of
consorting with the Devil and burned at the stake as a witch. Disil lusioned by all
worldly things, he embarks on a spiritual journey, setting forth on the celestial
road of the title.
On this pilgrimage, Ersson chances upon the Devil (Emil Fjellstrom), who
a l lows the wanderer to come across a gold mine. This concept of breaking with
one's routine existence and meeting the shadowy Other on a mystical path is one
of the most ancient of mythological fixtures, long predating the Christian mythos.
The mysterious stranger who provides the key to unsuspected riches is always met
while trave l l i ng far from the familiar, since the Devil is inherently a god of foreign
places. H I M LASPELET presents the encounter with the Other and the acquisition
of subsequent wealth through the negative Christian outlook of a novice priest.
However, the iconic pictorialism of the film allows us to experience deeper
mythical undercu rrents. The gold mine revealed by the Devil, like the treasure
guarded by dragons, ulti mately represents the gold of alchemical in itiation, rather
than tangible precious metal.
Maurice Tourneur, whose career in the cinema began in 1 9 1 2, was one of
French cinema's great pictorialists, using his camera as a paint brush to create
a rtfu lly composed cinematic il lustrations of formal classical beauty. His aesthetic
was strongly influenced by his association with the sculptor Rodin and the
Symbolist pa inter Puvis de Chavannes as a young man. It was appropriate then
that this most painterly of directors would be drawn to create 1 943's LA MAIN DU
DIABLE (THE HAND OF THE D EVIL), an inexplicably forgotten classic of Satanic
grand-guignol.
Based loosely on a short story by Gerard de Nerval, it tells the tale of
Roland Brissot (Pierre Fresnay}, a failed painter. When we first see Brissot, he is a
haunted, one-armed man rushing into a mountain hotel carrying a mysterious
WAR IS HELL: THE 1940s
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69
La Main Du Diable.
chest he can never be separated from. The anxiety-ridden visitor demands to
know where the local cemetery is located, and he's told that the hotel has been
built on it. When the package he's been guarding d isappears, he is disconsolate,
and he tells the other guests his incredible story. Despairing of his failure as an
artist in Paris, he is offered a talisman said to provide its owner fortune, fame and
love. This fateful talisman is a severed hand in a chest, which Roland buys for the
low price of only one sou. Suddenly, the object of his desire falls in love with him,
and h is paintings begin to sell briskly, acclaimed as masterpieces.
Of course, there's a catch, and this emerges when the Devil appears as a
little man in black (played by the dimi nutive character actor Palau). This pint-sized
Satan gloats that the hand really belongs to h im, and un less Roland can sell the
hand for less than he paid for it, he will claim his soul. The market for severed
hands not being as strong as it might be, Roland fears eternal damnation. In a
generous mood, the Devil al lows the artist the a lternate possibil ity of buying back
his soul - for a price that doubles every day. After three weeks, the price is
astronom ical, but Roland almost wins the needed sum at the casino in Monte
Carlo. However, his gambling ultimately avails him nothing. In desperation, he
invokes the past owners of the cursed hand. In one of the film's most effective
sequences, he vi ews the history of the hideous talisman as it came to be possessed
by a king's musketeer, a juggler, an illusionist, a boxer and finally the restaurateur
who sold it to h im.
He learns that the magic hand was stolen by the Devil from the tomb of
a saintly 1 5th century monk, said to have miraculous powers. Armed with this
70
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
knowledge, his pact with the Devil is broken on the grounds that the fiend can't
sell what really belongs to the monk. In a horrific scene of poetic justice, Roland
loses his own hand, but realizes his soul can't be saved unless he returns the hand
to its rightful owner His story concluded, he finds that it was the little man in
black who stole the hand from him, and he pursues him. In the process, he falls
to h is death, ending up buried - with the chest containing the hand - in the
Monk's tomb. His soul is redeemed.
Although the moralism sounds a bit heavy-handed in the retelling,
Tourneur is more interested in the macabre elements of h is tale, conveyed in a
film that's a model of tight narrative structure. The demonic imp Palau is certainly
one of the most imag inatively cast Devils in cinema, and his cursed victim Fresnay
carries the picture with harrowed intensity. Released in a subtitled English version
as CARNIVAL OF SINN ERS, this neglected gem is well worth unearthing.
Maurice Tourneur's son, Jacques, made his own name as a horror special ist
in the Un ited States, directing some of producer Val Lewton's finest chillers for
RKO. The same year that his father was filming LA MAIN DU DIABLE, Jacques
Tourneur was assigned to his own Satanic project, THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1 943).
This darkest of mysteries began in earnest when Lewton asked
screenwriter Dewitt Bodeen to "see if it's possible for you to go to a devil­
worshipping society meeting" As a member of Lewton's close-knit horror film
unit at RKO Studios, Bodeen had already dealt with such outre subjects as Balkan
shapeshifting in THE CAT PEOPLE, and Haitian voodoo in I WALKED WITH A
ZOMB IE. Although he wasn't sure what his eccentric producer had in mind for
their next project, he dutifully set out in search of Satanists. The writer stopped
by RKO's New York research department. As he recalled to film historian John
Brosnan, "They had a marvellous office there in New York. I went to them, and
said, 'Is there any chance of me going to a devil-worshipper's meeting?' and they
started laughing, but they called me back, and said yes, it had been arranged. But
I would have to go under a pseudonym. The society would be glad to have me
but I wouldn't be able to say anyth ing - just sit there and observe. "
At that time, Satanic groups formed, by necessity, a secretive
underground, closed to outsiders and uninterested in garnering publicity. Bodeen
remembered that his furtive hosts "were exactly like the devil worshippers in
ROSEMARY'S BABY It was even in the same neighbourhood on the West Side that
they used in that film. It was during the war, and I would have hated to be H itler
with all the spells they were working against him. They were mostly old people
and they were casting these spells while they knitted and crocheted. A bunch of
tea-drinking old ladies and gentlemen sitting there muttering imprecations
against H itler. I made use of the experience in that the devil worshippers in THE
SEVENTH VICTIM were very ordinary people who had one basic flaw, an Achilles
heel which has turned them against good and towards evil ...
The mystery centres on naive orphan Mary (Kim Hu nter), who leaves her
parochial boarding school to search for her sister Jacqueline (Jean Brooks), a
man ifestation of the diabolical feminine Double. Jacqueline is a darkly stylish
soph isticate whose profession - proprietor of a cosmetics firm called La Sagesse
- suggests the artifice and bewitching glamour of the sorceress she's revealed to
be. Innocent Mary's quest for her own sinister mirror image, embodied by her
missing sister, is a chthonic journey through a bleak New York plangent with
despair, a Gotham popu lated by the damned.
She's confronted by a city filled with secrets and deceptive appearances.
"
WAR IS HELL: THE 1940s
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71
The SevenJh Victim.
The mannish Mrs. Redi (Mary Newton) - secretly the leader of the Palladist Sata n i c
cult - claims to own Jaqueline's firm, which awakens Mary's suspicions. She
discovers that her sister rented a room from a restaurant called Dante's (an
appropriate name for this underworld voyage), but all Mary discovers there is a
noose hanging from the ceiling. Her sister's body can't be located at the morgue,
but she's advised to speak with an attorney Jacqueline knew. The attorney secretly married to Jacqueline - reveals that Mary's sister is obsessed with the idea
of suicide. A detective who has taken on the case informs Mary that he's found
a locked door at La Sagesse. There, the detective is stabbed to death by an unseen
assa ilant. Fearing for her own life, Mary hides out in the subway. During her
terrified underground journey, two men courteously assist a drunkard onto the
train. When the sleeping man's hat falls off, Mary sees that he's actually the
murdered detective. It's an image that typifies the illusory nature of appearances
that runs through THE SEVENTH VICTIM.
Jacqueline's psychiatrist Dr. Judd (Tom Conway) appears, revea ling that
he's seen her recently, and that she's on the brink of madness. Judd brings Mary
to Jacqueline's apartment, but there's no trace of her there. When Dr. Judd leaves
in search of her, Mary catches a g l impse of her sister before she vanishes again.
An unsuccessful Greenwich Village poet promises to help Mary. He brings her to
a party at the apartment of a woman whose apparently normal guests are
actually members of the Palladist cult. A one-armed piano player at the party
seems to symbolize the "basic flaw" that Bodeen felt motivated his Satanists. At
the library, the poet learns that both Mrs. Redi and Dr. Judd have checked out a
book concerning the Satanic Pallad ists. Mary does her own research at the
cosmetics store, d iscovering that Mrs. Redi has adopted the Pallad ist symbol as her
72 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
company's new trademark. Later, while Mary is showering, Mrs. Redi warns her
to return to the school, telling her that it was Jacqueline who murdered the
detective. Mary decides to abandon her search, convinced that her sister is a
murderess.
The Pallad ists resolve that Jacqueline must die for betraying their secrets.
Six others tried to leave the group, and all were silenced. Mrs. Redi sends two of
her minions to abduct their renegade disciple. Judd manages to locate the
·
agitated Jacqueline, who admits her involvement with the Palladists, and her
desire to break from them. The Pallad ists discover Jacqueline's hiding place and
abduct her. They attempt to persuade her to drink from a goblet filled with
poison. Finally, at midn ight, the Palladists allow the abducted Jacqueline her
freedom. They are merely toying with her, just as the film skilfully toys with our
own expectations. A hired assassin is dispatched to hunt her through the
nocturnal cityscape. A tour-de-force chase scene follows, as Jacqueline runs on
high heels from her pursuer.
She seeks refuge in her hidden apa rtment. On the stairs, she meets a
mortally ill streetwalker. After a cryptic exchange of unparalleled morbidity, the
whore departs for her nig ht's work. On the way out, the hooker hears the tell-tale
sound of a chair being kicked over emanating from Jacqueline's room. Jacqueline
is the seventh victim, escaping the Palladists only to take her own life with her
hangman's noose. The final words we hear, those of the poet John Donne, are
spoken by the dead woman's mournful voice: " I run to Death and Death meets
me fast, and all my pleasures are like yesterday" A fitting epigram for a film that
has led us toward doom with the inevitability of fate.
Lewton eventually assigned the film to skilful editor Mark Robson,
replacing his usual director, Jacques Tourneur, who would make his own
contribution to the Satanic cinema with THE CURSE OF THE DEMON (1 957).
Working with a tiny budget, Robson made a tremendously assured debut.
Relentless dread, reminiscent of the desolate mood of film noir, permeates its
every frame. Robson, in an interview co nducted by Charles Higham, recalled his
film's "rather sin ister quality, of someth ing intangible but horribly real; it had an
atmosphere. I think the actors and the director had to bel ieve very strongly in the
possibil ity of d isaster: that something was there. We believed it ourselves. We
ta I ked ourselves into believing it. We had a kind of fidelity to that feeling ... "
N icholas Musuraca's brooding camera records a shadowy, claustrophobic
world, lit only by Jacqueline's doomed, fleeting beauty. Much of the film's force
is due to the enigmatic presence of Jean Brooks in the role of the Satanist
Jacqueline Gibson. In most of her other film roles, usually in mediocre westerns
and program mers, Brooks had played a seductive but wholesome blonde.
Considering the tight restrictions of Hol lywood type-casting in the forties, the
mysterious role of Jacqueline was a departure for her. With her pale unsmiling
face framed by a Cleopatrian black wig that recalls another actress who bore her
name, Louise Brooks, she communicates an undeniable sense of kinky eroticism
not visible in her other films. Val Lewton Jr. thought that the "dramatic and
mysterious" qualities of Jacqueline had been based on his father's aunt, silent
screen goddess Nazimova. Adding to Brooks' mystique is the fact that, like the
character she played, the actress herself vanished after her last film in 1 946. This
puzzling disappearance led to much unfounded speculation and rumour
Resourceful film researcher Gregory Mank eventually solved the puzzle, revealing
that she had died of alcoho l-related ill ness in 1 963, only 46 years old.
WAR IS HELL: THE 1940s
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73
The name which Bodeen gave his fictional Satanists - the Palladists provides a clue as to where he may have derived the film's basic plot. I suspect
that during his research on the h istory of Satanism, Bodeen must have come
across the Satanic hoax perpetrated in the Paris of the late nineteenth century.
Gabriel Jogan d-Pages, a social critic writing under the pen name Leo Taxil,
convinced all of France that an entirely imaginary Satanic cult known as the
Palladists controlled society's higher echelons. In the complicated conspiracy story,
a woman named Diana Vaughn was said to be on the run from the Pallad ists,
who had vowed to kill her for betraying their secrets. The similarities to THE
SEVENTH VICTIM are obvious. Reflective of the practice of an actual Satanic Order
is the scene in which Jacqueline is bid to drink from a goblet of poison in group's
presence. The Freemasonic Order of the Golden Centurium, a German Satanic
lodge active since the mid-1 800s, annually elected one of its i n itiates as a willing
sacrifice to its tutelary demons. The chosen sacrifice drank poison during the
yearly ceremony.
T H E SEVENTH VICTIM, above all, marks the first serious treatment of
modern Satanism in the cinema, long before this theme came to the general
attention of the public.
Situated at the opposite emotional pole of the grim SEVENTH VICTIM is
Ernst Lubitsch's whimsical 1 943 fantasy HEAVEN CAN WAIT. Based on Hungarian
playwright Lazlo Bus-Fekete's play Birthday, this early Technicolor trifle tells the
tale of socialite Henry Van Cleve. Played by Don Ameche, Van Cleve is a life-long
lady's man who decides, upon his demise, that his predi lection for skirt-chasing
qualifies him for immediate entry to Hell. Upon his passage into the abyss, he is
greeted by a n unflappable patrician known only as H is Excellency. As incarnated
by the impeccable Laird Cregar, His Exce llency is very much from the civilized
school of screen Satans, noble in manner and speech, elegantly amused by human
foibles. Given that Cregar is perfectly cast, it's a pity that he only appears i n the
brief sequence framing the long and involved life story of Van Cleve, which is
related as an appeal to the Devil to be allowed entry into Hell. When His
Excellency has patiently l istened to the potential lost soul's credentials, he
condescendingly concludes that Hell does not welcome Van Cleve's class of people.
The inferno is dep icted as a n exclusive social club where only the genuinely
damned are welcome.
Vincente Minelli's CABIN IN THE SKY (1 943) was adapted from a Broadway
musical, and was announced as the first of a planned trio of "al l-Negro" musicals.
Here, the schem i n g Lucifer Jr. represents the Devil on earth, doing his level best
to snare his mortal target into a web of sin. Reprising the Satanic role he played
on Broadway is Rex Ingram, whose performance is imbued with just enough
dignity to provide the needed gravitas. (More than one unwary source has
mistakenly stated that this Rex Ingram was the famous Irish director who directed
THE MAGICIAN in 1 926.)
Here, Hell is revealed to be a rowdy honky-tonk of a place, replete with
jitterbugging demons. Inveterate gambler Little Joe (Rochester) is mortally
wounded by gunfire at the shady Paradise Cafe. Lucifer, Jr - appearing i n the
form of little Joe's late friend Lucius - arrives to escort the dying man's spirit to
Perdition. This infernal mission is interrupted by the godly General (played by the
same actor cast as Rev. G reen), summoned by the prayers of the dying man's wife,
Petunia. Lucifer, Jr is confident that Little Joe's affair with femme fatale Georgia
Brown (Lena Horne) will prevent his entrance to Heaven. The General a llows h i m
74
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
Cabin In The Sky.
six more months of life on earth to demonstrate his righteousness.
Lucifer Jr. sends gamblers to entice Little Joe, consulting with the Hotel
Hades Idea Department in search of other diabolical traps. These damnation
experts advise defiling Little Joe with riches, and the Devil provides his quarry
with a winning lottery ticket. Little Joe resists temptation but soon sinks back to
his attraction to other woman Georgia Brown and that den of iniquity, the
Paradise Cafe. The inevitable conflict between wicked temptress and blameless
spouse ensues, manifested in a singing contest between Petunia and Georgia.
Petunia is the champion, but as she exits with Little Joe, they're both slain in yet
another gun fight. A storm of Biblical proportions is del ivered unto the Paradise
Cafe by a furious General. Lucifer Jr. seems to have triumphed when Petunia is
allowed to enter the pearly gates, but Little Joe is consigned to Hell. A merciful
Lord intercedes and reun ites the coupl e in H eaven. Little Joe awakens to realize
that his journey to the other world was only a nightmare, but he's been
frightened enough to mend his ways and get right with the Lord. Although this
is essentially a primitive Christian scare story in the same vein as THE BLOOD O F
JESUS, Ingram's Lucifer is emin ently entertaining.
The same old " it's only a dream" trick is trotted out again in 1 944's SOUL
OF A MONSTER. Directed in a hurry by Will Jason for Columbia's cheapjack B
picture unit, the monstrous soul in question is an enigmatic Luciferette, well
played by Rose Hobart. Here we have one of those rare female film Devils,
providing Hades with a heroine capable of standing on her own two cloven feet.
When worried wife Ann Winson calls on the forces of darkness to save her ailing
surgeon husband George (George Macready), mysterious stranger Lilyan Gregg
WAR IS HELL: THE 1940s
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75
Angel On My SbouUkr.
(Hobart) arrives. The doctor is cured, but he's lost his soul and is wrapped around
the cruel finger of the demonic Lilyan. Promising to kill for her, George violently
turns against his wife and friends. When he's arrested for murder due to her
telepathic commands, he musters up the strength to confront his Devil. She coldly
shoots him, but he manages to push Lilyan to her death. He awakens from his
nightmare to find his wife praying for his soul.
The film does have a certain dream-like quality, although one can't say for
certai n whether this is entirely intentional. It almost goes without saying that THE
SOUL OF A MONSTER perpetuates the theme of the good wife vs. the evil mystery
woman. Considering that Lilyan Gregg is the Devil, it does seem odd that she's
reduced to such prosaic acts of mayhem as running someone over with her car,
and resorting to gunplay. Furthermore, one doesn't immed iately think of t he Devil
dwelling in a cheaply appointed apartment. Despite these incongruities, Rose
Hobart makes for an unusual Satan in high heels, her lethal allure cutting through
some of the inevitable sanctimony.
The tradition of the snooty British Beelzebub is maintained in Archie
Mayo's comedy-fantasy ANGEL ON MY SHOULDER (1 946), in which an urbane
Claude Rains wears the crown of Hell on h is well-co iffed head. Originally titled the
more accurate ME AND SATAN, Rains' frightfully civil ized deviltry stands in vivid
contrast to the vulgarity of gangster Eddie Kagle (Paul Muni), who finds himself
in Hell after being murdered by a fellow hood. Criminal Kagle's untimely death
inspires him to seek revenge on his killer. The calculating Devil - who goes by the
name of Nick - offers Kagle a deal. He'll help Kagle rub out his murderer if he,
76
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
in turn, will inhabit the body of a do-gooder judge (also played by Muni) who's
become a thorn in the Devil's side.
Although Nick fulfils his part of the bargain, the gangster develops
scruples after occupying the judge's body. After a rocky transition in which his
thuggish manners and temperament alarm the judge's friends, servants, and
fiancee, Kagle decides to use his new position of power to become even more of
a moral reformer than the judge. Rains is amusingly outraged by Muni's
treacherous outbreak of virtue. Kagle falls for the judge's betrothed (Anne
Baxter), but after hearing a sermon, decides he can't continue deceiving her. He
forms his own pact with the fuming Nick: he'll return to Hades, but only if he's
granted u nprecedented rights and privileges. Nick balks, until Kagle threatens to
let the demons in Hell know how the boss lost a potential soul. The unhappy Devil
and the gangster return to the underworld via an ordinary garbage elevator.
The timeless theme of the Double, bound up with the Satanic cinema
since the days of DER STUDENT VON PRAG is as evocative as ever, especially as
played by Paul Muni, excellent in both roles. Despite the on-screen lev ity, the
moody Muni made this an unhappy production, arguing with d irector Mayo all
through the making of the picture. Harry Sega l l and Roland Kibbee's script
provides Rains' sneering, caustic Devil with all the wittiest lines. Rains, who had
already demonstrated the range of his particular brand of worldly, supercilious
villainy in THE INVISIBLE MAN and as the cynical prefecture of police in
CASABLANCA, has one of his best roles here.
The obscure, and apparently lost GOING TO GLORY, COME TO JESUS
(1 947) seems to be the final entry in the quaint black Baptist Devil musical
subgenre that began and ended in the 1 940s. What must now be the familiar
theme of the jazz nightclub as gateway to Hell appears again in this devout
warning against the fatal sin of van ity. The plot had to do with a homely, church­
going g irl who trades her soul to a jazz-loving Satan named the Prince O'Hades
in exchange for beauty. She falls in with a sinful set of hep zoot-suiters while on
a hot date with the Devil, before (yes, you guessed it) waking up to realize it's all
been a dream. One scene described in the script where the girl is possessed by the
Devil in her bedroom seems to anticipate THE EXORCIST (1 973).
Reflecting post-war America's increasingly cyn ical take on pol itics and
crime, John Farrow's Faustian ALIAS NICK BEAL (1 949) has a dark hue that would
border on film noir were it not for its sentimental ending. District Attorney Joseph
Foster (Thomas Mitchell), goes so far in his crusade against crime as to vow to the
kindly Reverend Garfield (George Macready) that he'd "sell his soul" to convict a
local gangster. This careless figure of speech attracts the attention of a stranger,
who invites h i m to a seedy cafe on the wharfside. The beyond-the-pale dive is an
appropriate modern equivalent of the crossroads where Faust first met Meph isto.
There, Foster meets one Nick Beal. whose fashion sense and saturnine charm can
only betoken the diabolical presence. As played by leading man turned heavy Ray
M illand, Beal is a fallen angel with a fading matinee idol's practiced charm. The
Devil aids the D.A. in convicting the gangster, which leads in turn to Foster
running for office, with a campaign contribution from Hell. Foster's wife Martha
emerges as the symbol of social order here, ever vigilant to the Devil's ruses.
Her more interesting demonic counterpart is the seductive Donna (Audrey
Totter), a down at her luck lady of the night enl isted to Nick's cause with the
promise of a magically provided new wardrobe and deluxe apartment. Candidate
Foster transforms into a greedy politico, with Nick securing his victory by serving
WAR IS HELL: THE 1940s
•
77
as shadow campaign manager. When Foster tries to back out of the arrangement,
Nick forces the new governor to sign a pact, threatening to send him on a one­
way journey to an island called Armus Pardidas if he refuses. Of course, Armus
Pardidas is not to be found on any terrestrial map. Foster breaks the agreement
when he resigns from the governorship, confessing to fraud.
At the sin ister cafe, Reverend Garfield confronts Nick, who carelessly
allows the priest to scrutinize the pact. In a ridiculous anti-climax, Garfield routs
Beal by merely dropping a Bible on the pact, which sends the Devil off into the
mist. All of the dramatic tension that has been built up is sudden ly, and
unsatisfyingly, dissipated by this hastily executed deus ex fiber. It's a fatal flaw i n
Jonathan Latimer's otherwise carefully constructed script. Franz Waxman waxes
sin ister in an exce llent score, which perfectly complements the shadowed world
limned here by Farrow and cinematographer Lionel Lindon. The Devil is a part
that often brings our the best in an actor, and M i l land intelligently underplays
Nick Beal(zebub) to impressive effect.
Almost twenty years later, on the same Paramount lot, d i rector John
Farrow's daughter Mia would reach her own Satanic stardom in ROSEMARY'S
BABY And Ray M i l land would enter the diabolic arena again when he played
Satan ist Roman Castavet in the undistinguished 1 976 TV sequel WHATEVER
HAPPENED TO ROSEMARY'S BABY?.
A far more ambitious 1 949 take on the Faust legend was Rene Clair's self­
described tragicomedy LA BEAUT E DU DIABLE (THE. BEAUTY OF THE DEVIL) Set
in a romanticized past, it's still very much a work of the atomic age, expressing
post-war fears of nuclear devastation and dictatorsh ip. An intriguing twist on the
Daemonic Double theme finds the aging Faust actually taking on the dashing
young Meph isto's appearance - and vice-versa. The mix of all these factors combined with the built-in elemental power of the Faust folk-saga itself - makes
for an picture rich with ideas.
The complicated, mercurial plot begins when the doddering Professor
(Michel Simon) is honoured at the University, while the handsome Meph isto
(Gerard Philipe) observes, cruelly laughing. In the a lchem ist's book-cluttered lab,
shape-shifting Meph isto appears as the exact double of Faust. He offers the tired
seeker of wisdom infinite knowledge, but old Faust only longs for his lost youth
and the pleasures he missed in a l ifetime of study. Faust gazes in the first of
severa l Satanic m irrors in the film, and sees himself transformed into Meph isto.
He sets out to make use of his rejuvenated body, especially with the gypsy beauty
Marguerite.
When it's noticed that the old Professor has vanished, foul play is
suspected and the now youthful Faust is accused of murdering himself. To protect
him, Mephisto reappears in the form of the old Faust, living the Professor's life.
He reveals the secrets of a lchemy, producing gold in Faust's lab. When this gold
saves the local Prince from bankru ptcy, Faust/Mephisto is honoured as a great
inventor and first citizen of the realm. The real Faust falls in love with the vain
Princess, neglecting the simple but pure gypsy girl, and is introduced to the
pleasures of court life. To persuade him to sign his soul away in a pact, Meph isto
restores Faust to his former poverty. Eager to return to his new life of luxury,
Faust reluctantly signs the pact with Meph isto.
Faust imagines new inventions that will end world hunger and war When
Mephisto shows him his future in a magical mirror, he's horrified to learn that his
inventions will make him into a murderer and ruthless dictator, riding through the
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La Beaule Du Diable.
devastated ruins of cities he conquers. He sees his last day on earth, desperately
trying to escape from Mephisto, waiting to collect his soul. Rueful, Faust seeks to
break his pact and return to the loving Marguerite, insisting that Mephisto turn
the magical gold that created the possibil ities for such power into sand. The town
is torn by civil unrest, and Marguerite is accused of witchcraft. Cynical Meph isto
offers his help to the imprisoned gypsy, revealing that her beloved Faust has
signed an infernal pact. In disbelief, she throws the pact to the angry crowd
outside. The pact reveals to the townspeople that Professor Faust is the Devil's
agent responsible for their troubles, and they pursue him. To escape, he jumps
over a palace balcony to h is death, exploding into hellfire with the pact. Faust,
still in h is youthful body, is reunited with Marguerite.
Michel Simon and Gerard Philipe both excel in their difficult dual roles,
creating some of the most original interpretations of the legendary characters of
Faust and Mephisto in the long history of this subgenre. The lavish sets of silent
film veteran Leon Barsacq, built with baroque splendour on the soundstages of
Rome's Cinecitta studio, create an eye-pleasing fairytale universe. Enhanced by a
mysterious and thrilling Roman Vlad score, Clair's deceptively old-fashioned
picture rewards the viewer with many more jayers of meaning than first meets the
captivated eye.
ATOM AGE ANTICHRIST:
THE 1950s
Film-makers did not completely abandon the diabolical folklore of yore in the
1 9 50s. However, cinema aud iences were now more inclined to conceptua lize the
Other in the form of little green men in flying saucers or giant monsters
un leashed by man's meddling with radioactivity. An obsession with science seemed
to temporarily hold the Satanic archetype in abeyance, largely banishing the
mysteries of black magic from the screen . Consequently, the very few images of
the Devil that surfaced on film in that most self-consciously "modern" of decades
tended to be frivolous, reflecting a generally accepted notion that the Black Arts
could only be viewed as a quaint archaism from a less enlightened time.
Typifying the lightweight approach to the Devil so prevalent in the 1 9 50s
is MEET MR. LUCIFER (1 953), directed by Anthony Pelissier for British comedy
specialists Ealing. Despite the rather misleading title, this has more to do with the
impact of the newly arrived television on British society than its slight Satanic
framing device. Arnold Rid ley's play Beggar My Neighbour was the basis for the
picture, and like many theatrically inspired fi lms, it seems static and stage-bound.
Mr. Lucifer (Stanley Holloway) is one of Satan's demons, sent to earth by
the boss below to cause havoc among mankind by distributing the Devil's newest
tool of d iscord, the television set. A pensioner's retirement becomes anything but
peaceful when he's given one of the infernal devices. So many neighbours drop
by to steal a g limpse at the gadget that he's soon in debt from all the booze he
serves to his gu ests. The newly married couple upstairs buy the machine, but their
viewing inevitably sets them quarrelling. The supposed humour is undercut by its
unintentional portrait of a grey Britain not yet recovered from the drab post-war
era. In its satiric association of television with Satanic influence, MEET MR. LUCIFER
recalls the Church's claims that such novel entertainments as the magic lantern
and the cinematograph were the Devil's works. Horror aficionados may be
interested in noting the presence here of the always amusing Ernest Thesiger,
who played Dr Praetorius in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Also on hand is Raymond
H u ntley, who made Count Dracula famous on the British stage long before Lugosi
was devour. ed by the role.
The lud icrous Lucifer that inexplicably pops up in Ed Wood's GLEN OR
GLENDA? (1 953) rates a mention. Due to the latter-day infamy of Wood's singular
transvestite travesty, almost completely un known in its time, the face of the
symbolic Satan from that film has actually become the best-known image of any
1 950s Devil.
In 1 9 53, the American underground film-maker Kenneth Anger returned
from a self-imposed Parisian exile to the Hollywood Babylon he loved and hated
to orchestrate his occult opus INAUGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME (1 954).
Working completely outside of the studio system, Anger was able to finance his
film with a small inheritance left to him by his mother Born around 1 927, his self­
chosen name of Anger was far more appropriate for a director whose extreme
volatil ity made him the epitome of the temperamental artist. More than any other
figure we will consider, Anger consciously util ized film as a magical weapon,
creating brief but intense works of art that explore the sorcery of the cinema.
Most significantly to our concerns, several of his most important works have been
deeply personal and poetic meditations on Lucifer, a being for whom the d irector
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
Glen Or Glenda?.
has expressed a life-long affin ity. In more exhibitionistic moments, Anger has
revealed the huge LUCIFER tattoo on his chest, a symbol of permanent religious
devotion embla zoned decades before tattoos became commonplace.
H is fascination with the mysteries of the movies began as a child, when
he had a bit part in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (1935) di rected by Max
Reinhardt and William Dieterle. Other important figures in the Satanic cinema,
such as Paul Wegener, Edgar Ulmer and Hans Poelzig had worked under
Reinhardt's direction. Dieterle, who co-directed Anger's first appearance in film,
had d irected THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER and appeared in Murnau's FAUST
It's instructive to view Anger's own magical films as forming part of a continuum
with these earlier evocations of Lucifer. The role young Anger played i n the
picture, that of a changeling, has always been connected with the darker side of
the faery domain. He described the experience as a "rite of passage", and "the
shining moment of my childhood"
On a more prosaic level, some have attributed Anger's seeming bitterness
about Hollywood's film industry to a frustrated desire to be a movie star. Be that
as it may, MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM was his last involvement with a studio
film. His revenge on the Tinseltown that spurned him was the 1 959 book
Hollywood Babylon, a rather mean-spirited melange of gossip and
unsu bstantiated rumour besm irching the glamour of Hollywood idols.
As a young man, Anger studied the traditional works of hermetic magic,
poring over the works of such mages as Eliphas Levi. In the early 1 9 50s, Anger's
erstwh ile friend and fellow underground film-maker Curtis Harrington was
ATOM AGE ANTICHRIST: THE 1950s
•
81
perusing a London bookshop. He came across The Great Beast by John Symonds,
which was the first biography of the recently deceased Aleister Crowley. When
Harrington paid for the book, the clerk very del iberately retu rned to him the sum
total of his money i n small change. Harrin gton noticed the bookseller's knowing
expression, and understood that h e was being given a cryptic gift. Shortly
thereafter Harrington gave the Crowley biography to his more magically inclined
friend Anger This was a turning point in Anger's life; from that point on he
became entirely immersed in th e teachings of Crowley, eventu ally imbuing a l l of
his own works with a Crowleyite message. Following in his master's footsteps,
Anger adopted the use of drugs as a magical tool, which only exacerbated his
notorious mutabil ity.
Most particularly, Anger seized on a somewhat neg lected aspect of
Crowley's writings, namely the Beast's u n ique interpretation of Lucifer. The last
line of Crowley's " Hymn To Lucifer" practically became the d irector's motto: "the
Key of Joy is Disobedience" Anger's vision of the Devil has nothing to do with the
Christian figure of dam nation. For him, Lucifer is the principle of light and
liberation, and the mystical vision projected in h is films is not so much
traditionally Satanic as it is Luciferian.
INAUG URATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME was Anger's first directly
magical film. Reject ing the rigid formula of ordinary film narrative, the d irector
returns to the enchanted imagery of M e lies, who the magician/film-maker has
called his "mentor" Anger has succinctly summarized the plot of his remarkable
film-poem: "The Abbey of Thelema, the evening of the 'sunset' of Crowleyanity.
Lord Shiva awakes. Madam Satan presents the mandragore, and a g lamour is
cast." This "convocation of enchantresses and theurg ists" depicted i n the midst of
a joyous but mysterious rite includes such dark god desses of the left path as Lilith,
Kali, and the Whore of Babylon. Making an especially striking appearance in the
film as the severe, crimson-haired Whore of Babylon was Marjorie Cameron. a
magician in her own right.
Cameron. as she was usually known. was the widow of sorcerer John
Whiteside Parsons, whose death in 1 952 was the resu It of an explosion in his
garage laboratory. Parsons was the most dynamic American i nitiate of Aleister
Crowley's OTO, although he broke with that society after the Beast's death in
1 947. Parsons was that rare occultist who actually excelled in non-magical
activities, pioneering the development of solid rocket fuel for the early aerospace
i ndustry. Parsons claimed to have conjured the Devil at the age of twelve, and a
few years before his death he legally changed his name to Belarion Armiluss All
Dajjal Antichrist, a sign of dedication to his spiritual mission. Years after his death,
a lunar crater was named after him in honour of his scientific accomplishments.
Appropriately, Parsons' crater is on the dark side of the moon.
Parsons met Cameron under u"nusual circumstances, as might be expected
with two such unusual beings. In 1 946, he and a magical associate performed a
ritual known as the Babalon Working, which sought to summon an elemental
spirit representing the Whore of Babylon, the Scarlet Woman of myth. Shortly
thereafter, Cameron a nswered an advertisement for a room to let that Parsons
vas offering at his Pasadena mansion. He interpreted her as the man ifestation of
the Scarlet Woman, and the couple enthusiastica lly took up the practice of sex
magic designed to give birth to a "moonchi l d " , a form of homuncu lus.
Jack Parsons eventually claimed to have succeeded in creating his
nomunculus, dropping mysterious h ints about the creature's existence to his
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
lnauguraJion Of The Pleasure Dome.
associates. In 1 999, Austrian artist Renate Druks, who appeared with Cameron in
INAUG URATION, told me of an incident that had occurred in the late '40s. Parsons,
she said "asked if I wanted to go downstairs and see his homunculus. I didn't
know if that was his idea of a line or not, so I declined" While Druks' cynical
interpretation of Parsons' peculiar invitation might well be correct, he was hardly
the first magician to make such an improbable assertion.
Anger was fascinated with the occult legend that was already forming
around Cameron, and his inclusion of her in his film was a del iberate connection
to the magical climate created by the Babalon Working. Cameron's charismatic
screen presence can also be seen in Curtis Harrington's atmospheric short film THE
WORMWOOD STAR (1 956), in which the Scarlet Woman displays a series of her
esoteric paintings to the camera shortly before she destroys them. Harrington,
ATOM AGE ANTICHRIST: THE 1950s
•
83
who appears in INAUG URATION as Cesare the somnambulist, would return to this
magical muse in the '60s.
The brightly coloured visionary imagery of INAUGU RATION OF THE
PLEASU RE DOME was immediately celebrated by beatnik bohemia, a subculture
that recognized the drugged Crowleyan atmosphere for what it was. In many
ways, Anger's film was the predecessor of the '60s "head" film, one of the
outgrowths of the occult revival to come.
One of the most infamous incidents of historical Satan ism was dramatized
in 1 9 55's L'AFFAIRE DES POISONS (THE POISONS AFFAIR) In the 1670s, under the
supervision of the defrocked Abbe Gu ibourg, many of the bright young things of
Louis XIV's gl ittering court dabbled in diablerie. This Satan ism in high places was
kept secret until the King ordered a sweeping investigation into a rash of
poisonings around Paris. It was d iscovered that h is long-time m istress Madame de
Montes pan had served as a naked altar at the Devil's Masses that Gu iborg
regularly celebrated. In r ites held to mag ically assure Montespan's place in the
monarch's bed, children were sacrificed to the demons Asmodeus and Ashtaroth.
The King's mistress was said to have fed her royal lover wafers dipped in blood
to cast a love spell on him. When his attention turned to other women in the
court, the jealous Montespan performed destruction rituals against her
competition, eventually resorting to poison. To this end, the Satanist La Voisin was
emp loyed, leading to an attempt on the King's life. Louis was so shocked by the
depths of black magical activity his officers discovered that he ordered a
suppression of the evidence, which only sparked increasingly fantastic rumours.
Predictably, director Henri Decoin's L'AFFAIRE DES POISONS wrings the
lurid incident for all the sensationalism it's worth. The lovely Danielle Darrieux is
credibly conniving as the grasping La Montespan. and the orgiastic scenes of her
nude presence at the Black Mass were considered shocking at the time. Paul
Meurisse is suitably depraved as the fallen priest, and the rituals are reenacted
with a faithfulness to historical records that's somewhat surprising. Still, 1 9 50s
restrictions didn't allow Decoin to document the events in as bloody or as erotic
a manner as they call for, and the resu lt is a restrained but intriguing costume
melodrama.
The plot of MARGUERITE DE LA NUIT (1 955) need not be recounted; it's
yet another take on the pact between Meph isto and Faust. D irector Claude
Autant-Lara strives to do something different with the fa m i l iar legend, but is sunk
by a general air of pretentious artiness. Yves Montand exudes a certa in seedy
charm as the Satanic Monsieur Leon, but the role is lim ited by the pettiness of
Autant-Lara's conception of evil. Here, the Devil suffers the indign ity of being
presented as the sleazy proprietor of a Pigalle nightclub in the '20s, whose small­
time sinning includes dealing drugs.
M ichele Morgan is appealing as Marguerite, head over heels with the
magically rejuvenated Dr. Faust (Francois Calve), but the real attractions here are
the almost expression istic art deco sets created by Max Douy. Autant-Lara started
in the cinema as a set designer for silent films, and his awareness of the
importance of setting is clear. Unfortunately, nothing of any great interest
happens on those exquisite sets, making for a curiously unaffecting picture in
which style wins out over substance. Palau, who was the Devil in LA MAIN DU
DIABLE, appears here as the old Dr. Faust.
American director Roger Corman's first exercise in low-budget horror. THE
UNDEAD (1956), features a slightly more traditional Devil of legend. Ever alert to
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
The Undead.
hastily exploitable trends, Corman paid heed to the interest in reincarnation
awakened by the best-selling book Bridey Murphy. Claiming to recount the "true
story" of a woman whose past lives were reca lled through hypnosis, Bridey
Murphy ignited a reincarnation boom. Knowing that a major studio film based o n
t h e book was already i n production, Corman asked screenwriter Charles B . Griffith
to whip up a script to cash in on the phenomenon.
What Griffith came up with was a wacky little witchcraft tale that penny­
pinching Corman shot i n a record-breaking ten days in a tiny studio cobbled out
of a former grocery market. The aptly named prostitute Diana Love (Pamela
Duncan) is recruited by a parapsychologist who needs a test subject for his past
life regression experiments. Under hypnosis, it develops that one of Pamela's
former incarnations was a medieval Frenchwoman falsely accused of sorcery,
thanks to the devious plotting of Lydia, who really is a witch. (The slinky Lydia is
none other than Allison Hayes, immortalized in ATTACK OF THE FIFTY-FOOT
WOMAN.) To aid her in her insidio usness, Lydia summons the corniest of
pitchfork-wielding Devils (Richard Devon), who is given to spouting the most
peculiar pseudo-Elizabethan dialogue ever uttered on screen. Devon's Devil steals
every scene he's in, exuberantly mugging to the camera, and reciting the absurd
dialogue as if he were performing Shakespeare.
In the '60s, Corman would go on to direct two excellent black magic
pictures, THE HAUNTED PALACE and THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. Although
THE U NDEAD is merely a trifle in comparison to his later work. it's interesting to
notice many stylistic touches of his more famous films in their embryonic form.
ATOM AGE ANTICHRIST: THE 1950s
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85
7be Story Of Mankind.
Recalling those silent era epics that set Satan loose in a series of historical
episodes, the maladroit Irwin Allen's THE STORY OF MANKIND (1 957) is
unquestionably a sprawling d isaster However, it's one of those bad films that is
redeemed by an enterta ining performance, in this case the perfect casting of an
arch Vincent Price as the Devil.
Allen set himself the impossible task of telescoping novelist Hendrik van
Loon's massive fictional history of mortalkind into a viable fi lm. Like so many
fantasy pictures of the time, this saga is redolent with the '50s mood of atomic
anxiety. The spiritual powers that be realize that humanity is on the verge of
destroying itself, and convene to decide the fate of the species. In Heaven, a
cosmic tribunal assembles to hear the case for homo sapiens' survival. Ronald
Colman, i n the al legorical role of the Spirit of Man, speaks for the accused species.
His adversary is the sardonic Mr. Scratch (Vincent Price), arguing for the
extermination of man.
From his first appearance in a cloud of Technicolor smoke, the nattily
attired Price easily steals the show in a role that al lows him to make the most of
his grand manner The actor had only recently appeared on the stage as the
cynical Satan in George Bernard Shaw's Don Juan In Hell, and he brings someth ing
of that witty flavour to his performance . here. Colman asks the tribunal to
consider man's more noble moments, which are enacted by a motley assortment
of Hol lywood stars making sometimes embarrassing cameo appearances. Sex
symbol Hedy Lamarr is Joan of Arc, Harpe Marx is Sir Issac Newton, silent star
Francis X. Bushman is Moses, among many other brief sketches. Price wickedly
lam poons these do-gooders, having been given all the best lines in the script.
Mr. Scratch has a more colourful chronicle of vig nettes to present; Peter
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
Lorre as Nero fiddling while Rome burns; Virginia Mayo is the temptress
Cleopatra; Dani Crayne as Helen of Troy; Dennis Hopper as Napoleon; THE DEVIL
WITH H ITLER'S Bobby Watson as Hitler. Satan argues that these episodes prove
man's basic penchant for evil. Almost bordering o n the "so bad, it's good" level,
the perverse may find amusement in THE STORY OF MANKIND. If for no other
reason, it's worth seeing for one of Vincent Price's forgotten acco m plishm ents in
tongue-in-cheek villainy.
In 1 957, two American films of vastly different quality handled the subject
of modern-day Satanism, a topic untouched since THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1 943).
The first - and the worst - of these was Charles Marquis Warren's BACK FROM
THE DEAD. Scripted with a dizzying lack of narrative coherence by Catherine
Turney from her novel The Other One, its su btext seems to be that women are
especially vulnerable to the influence of Satanic cu lts.
Consider the plight of poor Dick (Arthur Franz), whose wife died as a
result of her initiation into the sect of the unholy Father Renall (Otto Reichow),
who owe their power to sacrificial rites. Dick thinks he's found a nice unSatanic
wife to replace his evil ex, only to watch her become possessed by his first bride's
demonic spirit. This posth umous stalking continues until another female follower
of Renall is motivated by jealousy to kill her Satanic guru. Warren's d irection is
l i m p and uninvolving throughout, and his cast comport themselves with all the
vitality of sleepwalkers.
From this deservedly obscure entry, we turn to what is without question
the best Satanic film of the decade. Indeed THE N I G HT OF T H E DEMON (known
in the U.S. as CURSE OF THE DEMON) is one of the small body of truly effective
films concerning the modern practice of black magic. As in two other films that
reach its level of quality - THE BLACK CAT (1 934) and THE DEVIL RIDES OUT ( 1 967)
- the occult antagonist of the picture was inspired by Aleister Crowley.
The actual story, however, is loosely derived from M.R. James's 1 9 1 1 tale
"Casting The Runes", one of that ghost story special ist's detours into black magic.
It was screenwriter Charles Bennett, who had written some of Hitchcock's most
suspensefu l pictures, who added the Crowleyesque touches to the film. At first,
u n i maginative low-budget producer Hal E. Chester had nothing more challenging
in mind than a routine monster movie. Thanks to Benn ett's literate script, NIGHT
O F THE DEMON evolved into a thoughtful but exciting film with characters of far
more complexity than are usually to be found in horror films of any era. The
subtleties of the piece were skilfully handled by director Jacques Tourneur,
responsible for some of Val Lewton's moody 1 940s chil lers. Carrying on the
Lewtonian tradition of suggestion rather than shock, the director handled the
occult aspects of h is story in a deliberately understated manner.
These fine points were lost on Chester, who had his mind set on monsters,
particularly of the over-grown kind so favoured by '50s film-makers. His post­
production i nsertion of a blatantly visible giant demon became a major bone of
contention between Tourneur and h imself, and critics have been divided about
this controversy ever since.
The tightly constructed plot has an American scientist, Dr John Holden
(Dana Andrews), flying i n from the colonies to England to attend a
parapsychology seminar He discovers that one of his colleagues has died under
mysterious circumstances, and is warned by "devil cult" leader Dr Julian Karswell
(Niall MacGinnis) to call off an on-going investigation into his sect. Slowly, he
real izes that Karswel l i s not the "harm less faker" he first takes him for, and that
ATOM AGE ANTICHRIST: THE 1950s • 87
Nigbl Of 1be Demon.
the magician has in fact cast a curse on h i m by furtively passing h i m a parchment
inscribed with runes. Learning that the only way to elude his doom is to pass the
runic parchment on to someone else, Holden manages to slip the cursed paper to
Karswell himself. The magician is thus destroyed by his own demon, in a gripping
ending of palpable suspense.
Although Dr Holden stubbornly refuses to accept the reality of black
magic through most of the film, NIGHT OF THE DEMON doesn't d i l ly-dally in
revea ling the effects of the powers of darkness. After an atmospheric title
sequence rolls over some brooding shots of Stonehenge, an off-screen narrator
warns us that "evil supernatural creatures exist" Within a few min utes, a tense
prologue that sets the disquieting tone gives us a glimpse of one of these beings.
A scientist who has mounted an inquiry into Karswell's Order of the True Bel ievers
comes to the notorious magician's manor house, begging h im to call off the
demon he has summoned to kill him. Karswell is noncommittal, and his terrified
visitor is pursued by a smoking fire ball that eventually transforms into a giant
bat-winged demon. The viewer will notice that a close-up of this beast d iffers
markedly from the shadowy shape in the long shot. This was Chester's clumsy
tampering, which irritatingly disrupts Tourneur's carefu lly constructed sequence.
The film intriguingly em phasizes the cross-cultural un iversality of the
Devil. A drawing of a fire demon made by one of Karswell's disciples is described
as matching ancient images of "Babylonian Baal, Egyptian Seth-Typhon, Persian
Asmodeus" Later, Holden whistles a melody that's been haunting him. An
associate recognizes it as an Irish folk-tune about the Devil, and an Indian
colleague remembers a sim ilar demonic d itty from his own country. Casually
88
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Night OfTbe Demon.
handled details like these imbue NIGHT OF THE DEMON with a convincing feeling
of authenticity lacking from most Sata nic films.
At the British Museum Library, famous as a treasure trove of magical
works, Karswe l l politely introduces himself to his nemesis Holden. The magician
invites the scientist to his home to see a rare occult volume not available at the
library. During this brief encounter, Karswell cleverly slips a runic parchment to his
foe, thus casting the curse of the fire demon upon him. Niall MacGinnis p lays this
scene with a deceptively befuddled air, thoroughly disarming the sceptical Holden.
I n one of the picture's highlight scenes, the scientist drops by the
magician's manor house, accompanied by the niece of his late colleague. They
d iscover Karswell innocently entertaining the local children with a magic show,
wearing clown make-up and a battered hat; the costume of Dr Bobo the
Magn ificent. It's a credit to MacGinnis's expert performance that he manages to
be more menacing than ever in this absurd get-up, tapping into the sin ister clown
archetype.
Coming across some children playing snakes and ladders, the magician
rema rks tellingly that "I always preferred sliding down the snakes to climbing up
the ladders" "Maybe you're a good loser," a bemused Holden replies. " I'm not,
you know, not a bit," says Karswell pointedly. It's a well-played exchange that
subtly pushes the battle of wills between the two men into a new level of
courteous hostility. As they discuss the powers of darkness, Karswell whimsically
demonstrates his magic by conjuring a terrific wind storm, which sends the
children scurrying for cover
ATOM AGE ANTICHRIST: THE 1950s
•
89
Taking-'shelter from the storm, Holden meets Karswell's nervous mother
(Athene Seyler), who seems eager to match-make for her son. The odd
relationship between the Karswells is one of many off-beat aspects of NIGHT O F
THE D E MON's villain, suggesting that the powerful magician i s really an insecure
mother's boy. Considering '50s stereotypes, it's poss ible that the odd relationship
with his mother and his middle-aged bachelorhood was intended to hint that
Karswell was homosexual. Certa inly, he shows none of the insidious interest in the
opposite sex so commonly demonstrated by screen diabol ists. This is not derived
from the M.R. James story the film is officially based on, so it's not too unl ikely
that screenwriter Bennett was incorporating one aspect of Aleister Crowley's
sexual predi lections into the character of Karswell.
Physically, the paunchy, balding Niall MacGinnis resembles the real
Crowley far more than any of the other actors who played characters inspired by
the magician. Paul Wegener in THE MAGICIAN, Karloff in T H E BLACK CAT, and
Charles Gray in THE D EVIL RIDES OUT were stylized and extremely romanticized
in comparison to MacGinnis's very human portrayal. This unusually naturalistic
portra it of a Satanist as a quirky but believable human being, instead of a
melodramatic stock villain, sets NIGHT OF THE DEMON apart from the routine.
Although the film is marred by a few moralistic fi llips - including the Dennis
Wheatley-like conceit that the Satan ists are afraid of the powers they invoke Tourneur's last great fi lm is shot through with an all too uncommon depth and
intelligence. The dramatic lighting and photography by Ted Scaife bring the set
designs of Ken Adam - later to create the Bond films' distinctive look - alive. It's
ironic that the fanged demon edited in against the director's wishes remains the
image most frequently associated with this film, but that's show biz.
Texas, long rumoured to be a hotbed of Satanic activity, is the unl ikely
locale for TH E DEVIL'S PARTN ER (1 958), directed by Charles R. Rondeau. If it adds
little glory to the cinematic heritage of the Lone Star State, this is still a diverting
if modest B picture essay in black magic. Arriving in a small Texas town with the
appropriately infernal name of Furnace Flats, mysterious stranger Nick (Ed Nelson)
attends to the unpleasant task of arranging. the funeral for his good old Satanic
Uncle Pete (also played by Nelson). Uncle Pete was generally reviled by the
townsfolk as a down and dirty Devil worshipper. To the citizen's alarm, these
practices seem to run in the family, and the nephew takes to sacrificing goats to
Satan, uttering maled ictions, and painting strange talismans on the floor. Despite
such d isagreeable hab its, Nick isn't all bad. David, owner of the town gas station
is head over heels for Furnace Flats' local attraction, Nell, but lacks the capital to
marry the beauty. Nick graciously loans David the necessary funds, but this act of
generosity proves baleful.
True to Satanic lore, the beasts are stirred up by the Devil's proximity.
David's loyal dog inexplicably attacks his master. disfiguring h is handsome
features. A horse goes wild and crushes the harm less town drunkard. Suspecting
that their newest resident is up to his late Uncle's tricks, the local physician and
sheriff discover a Satanic ritual in progress at Nick's cabin. The dastardly Nick next
turns his sights on Nell, who has been abandoned by her scarred ex-beau.
Vulnerable, Nell is easily taken in by the smooth-talking stranger's charm. A
strange serpent attacks the sheriff during a visit to Nick's cabin. The lawman
shoots the varmint, and the dying creature begins to metamorphose. First, the
demonic snake becomes Nick, finally transforming into Uncle Pete. They were one
and the same all along, disguised by the black magic they practised. Before the
90
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
,
h a lf mgJl. :half bea$t. he sold his soul
FOR PASS:I ON
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EDWIN NElSON
iEAN AlliSON
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were-viper descends to his infernal reward, the town pastor arrives to perform a n
exorcism.
The rural Texan setting of THE DEVIL'S PARTN ER is an interesting
departure from the usual urban or gothic environment in which most Satanic films
are situated. Some new wrinkles are also wrought by dramatizing the ancient
folklore of the Devil's influence over anima ls, here presented as his malefic
familiars.
Across the border, Mexican director M iguel M. Delgado must take the
blame for the wretched M ISTERIOS DE LA MAGIA NEGRA aka MYSTERIES OF
BLACK MAGIC. A witchcraft historian discovers that the star of a tacky stage magic
act is really a 400-year old sorceress (Nadia Haro Olivia). Her Satanic "lord and
master of the black sabbath", Dr. Urbano-Galli, i s being kept in a ghoulish half-life
in h is tomb. Interesting only as a rare South American approach to diablo worship,
this drearily d irected and poorly acted time-waster is easily the worst Sata nic film
of the '50s.
Although you'd never guess it from its generic '50s monster movie title,
ATOM AGE ANTICHRIST: THE 1950s
•
91
Damn Yankees.
THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE (1958} is marginally connected to the Sata nic
cinema. The film's a historical premise is that one of the crew sailing with
Magellan's fleet was i n league with the Devil. According to the script, Sir Francis
Drake personally beheaded this Spanish Satanist of the seas in 1 579. Centuries
later, a psychically g ifted girl discovers the decapitated head buried on the
grounds of a California ranch, and it's inadvertently revived to exert its diabolical
will. Despite the black magical angle, Director Wi ll Cowan's unremarkable B
picture really belongs to the " living head" subgenre, never the most inspiring of
horror categories.
Since my ingrained dislike for most Broadway musicals is rivalled only by
my absolute disinterest in baseball, the baseball musical DAMN YAN KEES (1 958)
presents me with a daunting challenge indeed. Having made this admission of
prejudice, it must be said that the George Abbott and Stanley Donen film is a
clever adaptation of the Faust legend to the world of All-American sport. The
Faustian hero here is not an elderly professor thirsting for knowledge, but a
m idd le-aged baseball fan who idly states that he'd sell his soul to the Devil if only
his luckless team would win against their opponents, the Yankees.
A certa i n Mr. Applegate (Ray Walston) promptly arrives to negotiate a
pact, and the unprepossessing fan is transformed into a strapping young baseball
hero who can lead the team to glory. The Devil delivers the wis hed-for victories,
but the damned contractee tries to squirm out of h is end of the bargain. M r
Applegate calls on t h e a i d of h i s gorgeous witch Lola (Gwen Verdon) to seduce
his client back down the primrose path. We learn that Lola's stunning looks are
92
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Santa Claus.
due to a deal she made with Applegate 1 72 years earlier, when she sold her soul
for eternal beauty. Of course, the mere mortal foils the Devil's scheme in the end,
and the hero forswears the seductions of Lola for his faithful wife. Gwen Verdon's
Lola had enough va-va-voom to make me forget all about the soporific basebal l
scenes; her hig h-ca l ibre eroticism creates a sizzling femme fatale qu ite remarkable
for the chaste '50s. Ray Walston, best-known for the sixties TV series My Favorite
Martian, has the role of his life in the Satanic Mr Applegate. Although there have
been severa l splendid comic Satans in the cinema, Walston's energetic American
Mephisto is surely one of the finest
Bringing the cinema's most undistinguished decade of demonic films to
a fittingly foolish conclusion is SANTA CLAUS (1959), which has attracted a cult
following by dint of its unrelieved absurd ity. D irected in Mexico by Rene Cardona,
this cheaply made kiddie's holiday movie finds the Devil plotting against the
relentlessly jolly toy-monger. A cliche'd comic book Satan does his worst to lure
good l ittle children to be naughty and not nice. In a jarring m ixture of Christian
and pagan mythology, Santa allies with Merlin the magician (? !) against the
Archfiend. Although it strikes Anglo-American aud iences as odd, the film actually
serves as a fairly typical example of just how omnipresent the figure of Satan is
in Mexico's Catholicized culture, popping up in the most unexpected places.
Of course, the alert reader has already noticed the cryptic occult message
hidden in this seemingly harm less family picture ... Santa is an anagram of Satan.
SYMPATHY FOR THE
DEVI L: THE 1960s
"One day in each century it is said that Satan walks among us. To the God-fearing
this day is known as Black Sunday," a portentous voice has told us. Surely this is
that day, and the face that glares at us from the screen, transfixed in a seeming
ecstasy of evil, is Satan incarnate in bewitch ing mortal form. The glaring depths
of her eyes radiate pure hatred, but strangely, this in no way obscures their
beauty. A predatory joy in her savage expression imbues the pale visage with an
inhuman qual ity. Her lips are thin, yet sensuous. Wild black hair frames the high
cheekbones. A study in chiaroscuro, her luminous portrait is delineated in shadows
worthy of the brush of an unknown master. The exquisite face is cruelly marred
by a pattern of wounds, imp ressed upon her flesh by the spiked mask she has
worn for centuries.
This image is simply one of the most imposing to be seen in 1 960's LA
MASCH ERA DEL DEMONIO (THE MASK OF THE DEMON) aka B LACK SU NDAY The
actress is Barbara Steele, possessed of unabashedly expressive features and
emotive powers rarely seen since the iconic days of the silent film. The maestro
who lit and framed the shot in his inimitable painterly style is Mario Bava, Italy's
most gifted proponent of the fantastic cinema.
Emerging in the first year of the 1 960s, a decade dominated by images of
the witch as seducer, destroyer and victim, Bava's vision of Steele is an alluring
omen of things to come. The witch as willing envoy of Satan not only became a
staple of the period's cinema, she unexpectedly spilled off the screen as an
archetype lived out in the lives of thousands of women swept up in the brewing
occult reviva l. By the early 1970s, such aggregations as the encha ntresses of the
Lucifer Coven in Florida, and the Church of Satan's Lilith Grotto in New Jersey, led
by ex-model Lilith Sinclair, were making news as part of a movement of
diabolically inspired witches. To the contemporary reader, whose idea of a witch
may be influenced by the sweetness-a nd-light Wiccans who have appropriated the
word, the dark aesthetic of the '60s witch must be emphasized. Seeing themselves
as sisters of Satan, the majority of that era's witches were a far cry from the
current Wicca movement. Just as today's Wiccans are constantly pointing out
indignantly that they are not Satan ists, the witchcraft movement of the sixties
revelled in its romantically diabolical associations. LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO
foreshadows all of this, a potent symbol rising from the collective myth­
consciousness of the Satanic cinema.
Inspired vaguely by Gogel's 1 835 story "Viy" the picture is best
appreciated as a series of beautifully created images. In 1 630, The Princess Asa
(Barbara Steele), convicted of venerating Satan, is brought to the desolate place
of her execution with her warlock lover. A grim procession of Inquisitors preside
over the ceremony. The princess is bound by her captors and the mask of Satan,
a spiked demonic face, is hammered into her skull. Before her death, she cu rses
the Inquisitors. Two hundred years later, the coach of a pair of trave lling doctors
breaks down in the shadow of a castle. Stranded, they discover Asa's tomb. One
physician removes the mask of Satan from the corpse, shocked by the miraculously
well preserved, if maggot-ridden, face of the beautiful witch. Some of his blood
drips from a cut onto the witch's lips. Outside, they are startled by an encounter
with Princess Katia (Steele, in a double role), great-granddaughter of the witch.
94 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
La Mascbera Del Demonio.
Bava provides the heroine of his film with a strangely sin ister grand entrance,
photographing her dressed in flowing black against a stormy sky, framed by the
portals of a ruined chapel with demonic black dogs - beasts traditionally
associated with the Devil - straining on a leash. It's as if her sorcerous ancestress
has already begun to transfer her soul. "Sometimes Satan plays tricks, even with
the dead", as a priest in the film helpfully explains.
In her tomb, Asa stirs, revived by blood. One of the more stunning scenes
in the Satan ic cinema, it's made plausible by the combination of Steele's uncanny
presence - which goes much deeper than any special effect or make-up - and
Bava's command of his camera. Asa and her companion return to life, fulfilling
the curse cast centuries earlier. Steele's skill is revealed by her ability to
convincingly play two roles in the film. While her performance as the fury Asa is
the most immediately impressive, she's also credible as the heroine of the film,
Katia. The tension between rapacious Asa and pure Katia is a classic dichotomy
that harkens back to Brigitte Helm's twin roles in METROPOLIS. A textbook
example of psycho logical splitting, which often manifests in dreams, Katia
awakens desires that can only be satiated by her succubus twin.
Mario Bava's greatest strength is in creating memorably eerie
compositions. A black coach from hell gliding through billowing fog. The dramatic
first appearance in a storm of Katia with her demon dogs. The doom-laden
images of Asa's execution and the leering mask of Satan itself. All these stick with
the viewer with the force of half-remembered dreams. Bava was primed for the
crafting of his finest film; his artful mise-en-scene was shaped by lessons learned
from his father, a gifted sculptor. Immersed in art from an early age, Bava's
predi lection for portraying Satanic visions with p ictorial beauty could be foreseen
for many years. In 1 947, Bava made one of his fi rst films, the documentary IL
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s • 95
DEMON IACO N ELL'ARTE (THE DEMONIC IN ART), which surveyed Satanic works
with an aesthete's eye.
Fittingly, an earlier performance as a witch started Steele's film career
Playing the bohemian sorceress in John Van Druten's play Bell. Book And Candle,
she was spotted by a Rank Organization talent scout, who signed her to a
contract. LA MASCH ERA DEL DEMONIC propelled Barbara Steele to an emblematic
- almost fetishistic - status as the only female star of the fantastic cinema. In the
early part of her career as the 1 960s most celebrated cinema sorceress, Steele
evinced an i nterest in occultism, saying that, "I love witchcraft, the supernatural,
a l l that's intuitive. I don't like people who are too rationa l." Wearing her unasked
for crown as horror queen a little more uneasily some years later, she told the
magazine Midi-Minuit Fantastique - the main ecclesiastical organ of the Steele
cult among French cineastes - that "once and for all, they've typecast me as a
sorceress. Furthermore, they finish by believing that I really am a witch . . . " Barbara
Steele has not always found the curse of Princess Asa easy to bear.
French film critic Raymond Durgnat described her as projecting a "Celtic
feminine occultism", adding in his Films And Feelings that "every well-appointed
harem has its witch-bitch, for the same reason that fairy sto ries have them," and
that Steele was the quintessential embodiment of this legendary being. Often
expressing resentment at the constraints of the diabolical image she involuntarily
stepped into, Steele prefers her less macabre work with such directors as Fel l i n i
a n d Schlondorff. The cinema's magical tendency to. ineradicably identify actors
with their parts has been particularly acute in her case. Wearing the mask of the
demon, which is ultimately the mask of the dark feminine Other, can change one's
persona, just as the ancient Greeks warned their dramatic players. A cultured
woman with intellectual tastes, Steele told me that she never played the
deferential "show business game" with any great enthusiasm. Typifying her
provocative attitude, she once defiantly answered a journal ist who asked for her
future plans: "I want to tuck the whole worl d ! "
Unfortunately, o n e of the film's key elements, Asia's oath o f vengeance,
has been appropriated so often by lesser films, some of its force has been drained
by famil iarity. By the 1 970s, it became almost inevitable that Satanic films would
be kicked off by an unforgiving witch promising wrath to her persecutors, even
as her mortal body is destroyed by the flames of the auto-da-fe.
The shadow of the witch was successfully cast on the screen again in
1 960's often overlooked THE CITY OF THE DEAD. Although it was filmed i n Britain
with a Br itish cast, this effective early entry in the English Gothic revival is set in
America. Wh itewood, Massachussets is the kind of decaying New England
municipa lity only H.P. Lovecraft could love. Haunted by black mag ic, the
eponymous village once witnessed the execution of witch El izabeth Selwyn
(Patricia Jessel}, doomed to the stake in 1 692. Demonologist Professor Driscoll,
(Christopher Lee) advises his student Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevens) to visit
Whitewood to research the legend of El izabeth Selwyn at first hand. On
Candelmas Eve, the n ight of a witch's sabbath, she checks into the Ravens Inn.
This disquieting hostelry is owned by Elizabeth, revived from the grave by a pact
with the Devil. Nan's scholarly interest in occultism is more than satisfied when
she is sacrificed by Elizabeth Se lwyn and her coven. One of the warlocks turns out
to be Professor Driscoll, whose Satanic know-how is more than academic.
Concerned family and friends trace Nan's tra i l to the accursed town, where they
discover that the local min ister's grandda ughter is about to fall under the coven's
96
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
City OfTbe Dead
knife. Unwelcome guests at the ritual, they save the prospective victim by
dispatch ing the Satanists with the shadow of a cross.
The rotting old town of Whitewood is clearly a sparse set on a small
soundstage, but director John Moxie imbues his city of the dead with an
unsettling ambience that is truly Lovecraftian. Indeed, the film captures that New
England writer's tone with more accuracy than any of the films actually based on
his work. Elizabeth's coven of robed witches, swathed in shadows, and shrouded
in fog, are lit effectively in photographer Desmond Dickinson's black and white
compositions. Even though the concealed identity of the witches is quickly
revealed, Moxie manages to keep a taut undercurrent of tension running
throughout the well-paced proceedings. This was the first macabre offering from
producer Milton Subotsky, founder of Amicus Films, which was to prove H a m mer
Films' only real competitor in the British Gothic sweepstakes. Released in the
United States under the dreadful title HORROR HOTEL, this subtle exercise in
occult atmosphere was misleadingly advertised in America with the catch line " Just
Ring for Doom Service ! " THE CITY OF TH E DEAD also marks the first of several
appearances Christopher Lee was to make in the Satanic cinema during the years
he worked as a specialist in macabre roles. As Professor Driscoll, the former
linguist demonstrates his gift for mimicry, pulling off a convincing American
accent that eludes some other cast members. In the same year, Lee travelled to
the Un ited States to play another black magician in "The Satanist", an episode of
the American television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Satan's first sign ificant cinema appearance in an increasingly demonic
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
•
97
7be Devil's Eye.
decade can be seen in lngmar Bergman's 1 960 DJAAUGENS OLA (THE DEVIL'S
EYE). A comedic departure from the Swedish director's habitual melancholy, the
picture is prefaced by the adage "a chaste woman is a stye in the Devil's eye" This
epigram is illustrated in the film's first scene, set in a deliberately artificial,
theatrical inferno. The Devil, played with Shavian eloquence by Stig Jarrel, is beset
by a painful stye in his eye. An unremarkable fellow in a modern business suit, the
Devil calls on h is ministers, two eighteenth century Sadean libertines whose
perversions, we are told by a narrator, once "sent voluptuous shudders right up
into the archangel's pinions" Their master's ailment, it appears, is caused by a
young Swedish virgin who ins ists on maintaining her virginity until she is married.
They advise releasing legendary lover Don Juan (Jarl Kulle) from Hell, so he can
seduce the girl. Attended by a shape-shifting guardian demon and assistant, Don
Juan proceeds to modern-day Sweden. There, he convinces the girl's father, a
min ister, to invite him to supper. The priest is treated with Bergman's usual anti­
clerical derision.
Don Juan's target, a thoroughly up-to-date sixties g irl named Britt-Marie
(Bibi Andersson) is bored by the great lover�s antiquated courting technique, and
he realizes he's lost his touch over the centuries. All she will allow him is a blase
kiss. Just when his mission seems lost, Britt- Marie finally agrees to be deflowered.
Don Juan is stung to learn that all of his wooing has not won the girl's
ardour· she just feels sorry for him. Out of principle, he refuses to accept a mere
pity fuck and returns to Hell in disgrace. For the first time, the damned lothario
has actually fallen in love with his prey. The Devil, still suffering from h is mal ady,
98
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Faust (1960).
chastises h is failed em issary by forcing
h i m to listen to a demon's detailed
report of the loss of Britt-Marie's
virginity on her wedding night. Don
Juan is spared from further tortures
when his beloved lies to her new
husband, claiming that she has never
kissed another man. Her sin of
deception is enough to remedy the
Devil's stye.
Beneath the sex farce,
Bergman is really exploring such
themes as the death of god and the
futility of religion. Bergman's Hell, and
the infernal punishments his Devil
metes out, are absurd in the sense of
Sartre's No Exit. Don Juan's infernal
castigation consists of seducing h is
many old flames over and over again,
never being allowed to consummate
h is conquests. This meaningless
repetition symbolizes Bergman's
metaphysical despair, which views
human life, for all of its pleasures, as
a task of Sisyphus, characterized by
unfulfill ing banal ity. For a l l of its
eighteenth century diabolical frippery,
THE DEVIL'S EYE is a film shaped by
the existential angst that g r ipped
many European intellectuals then.
FAUST (1 960) is the only
celluloid documentation of Gustav
Grundgens' legendary stage per­
formance as Meph isto in Goethe's
Faust. Meph isto was not only a
commanding presence on Berlin's
many cinema screens in the 1 920s. The
stage actor Grundgens incarnated the
Devil to overwhelming su ccess i n
German theatres of the time. H is
mesmeric performance as Mephisto in
the theatrica I version of Faust was one
of the great critical and popular
triumphs of German drama. Although
the actor was acknowledged as one of
the leading thespians of his time,
more than capable of interpreting a
wide range of roles, Grundgens
became indelibly associated with the
part of Faust's prince of Hell. So total
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
•
99
was Grundgens' association with Mephistopheles that novelist Klaus Mann would
base his novel Mephisto on the actor's life.
This film, co-directed by the actor and Peter Gorski is a fascinating
recording of an excellent performance of Goethe's play at the Hamburg State
Theatre. As a filmed play, it can't be judged by cinematic criteria, but is well
worth seeing for Grundgens' marvellous performance, a complex and captivating
Mephisto rivalled only by Emil Jannings in Murnau's FAUST ( 1 926).
Grundgens himself was depicted as a power-mad Faustian careerist in
Hungarian d irector Istvan Szabo's 1 980 MEPH ISTO. The allegorical film depicted
the actor's unscrupulous collaboration with the Third Reich as a deal signed in
Hell. Although a wide variety of actors would play the Devil in the twentieth
century, only Gustav Grundgens would be so lastingly intertwined with the
character
THE HELLFIRE CLUB (1 960) is a bit of a cheat, a dull costu me melodrama
that.actually has little to do with the infamous eighteenth century debauchees.
Produced and directed by the team of Baker and Berman, who made several
u n i nvolving adventures based loosely on some of England's more notorious
historical episodes, the picture never shows us Sir Francis Dashwood's pseudo­
Sata n i c rakes in action. European prints of the film include slightly more risque
orgy scenes than the rather decorous British version.
The downbeat narrative of Mexican di rector Benito Alazraki's ESPIRITISMO
aka SPIRITISM (1 960) is told in the form of a forlorn middle-aged man's confession
to his priest. His family has been devastated by dealings with the Devil, and he
seeks absolution. The gateway to Satan was first opened by experiments with
spiritualism, through which he and his wife believed they could contact the other
world. When the couple's reckless son bankrupts them through his unsound
business dea l ings, the wife (Nora Veryan) turns to dark forces, begging Satan for
assistance in paying the mortgage. The Devil kindly appears to fulfil her banking
needs, offering her a Pandora's box containing a crawling severed hand. Although
the wish she makes upon the hideous hand comes true, it brings d isaster in its
wake. (Th is last element of the story is obviously lifted from the widely
anthologized story The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs.)
When her son dies, she wishes for his return from the dead, which
transpires - but not in the manner she expected. Too late, she learns the lesson
that tampering with black magic ultimately leads to tragedy, despite the
temporary boons it may grant. Remin iscent in its simp le-minded ness of a Christian
comic book tract, ESPIRITISMO conveys the very Latin message that women are
usually to blame for evil's manifestation in the world. The film ends with a final
warning: "There are many who are helplessly driven by a desire to explore
forbidden phenomena, if, with this picture, we are able to quench that unhealthy
curiosity in some, we will consider our job well done." Approximately as
entertaining as H igh Mass, but without the fancy costumes, ESPIRITISMO is a
dreary interpretation of black mag ic.
The sorceress and Whore of Babylon Cameron Parsons and the avant­
garde film-maker Curtis Harrington had not worked together since TH E
WORMWOOD STAR (1956). In 1 96 1 , Harr ington asked Cameron, then focusing her
talents on her evocative painting, to appear in his first feature film, the
wondrously moody mermaid drama NIGHT TIDE (196 1 ). Although her part is brief,
Cameron's powerful magical presence is compelling. In a scene obviously intended
as an homage to the 1 942 Val Lewton film THE CAT PEOPLE, Cameron plays a
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Cameron Parsons, Dennis Hopper in Night T
ide.
sinister mystery woman who confronts the apparent mermaid, speaking in a
strange language. Harrington, like Lewton before him, never clarifies whether his
central character is truly a supernatural being. However, someth ing about
Cameron's uncanny persona certainly seems to ind icate that there may be an
otherworldly answer to the enigma which the director skilfully presents. Although
NIGHT TIDE is not technically a film of the occult, its inclusion of this rare
performance by Cameron, one of the late twentieth century's most influential
magicians, makes it relevant to this study. Adding to the subtle but undeniable
magical climate is Harrington's fleeting shot of a copy of Aleister Crowley's
magnum opus Magick In Theory And Practice in his film. In 1 96 1 , this book was
long out of print, and known only to a very small coterie of esotericists. By using
Cameron and the Crowley book, Harrington consciously communicated an
authentic - if oblique - awareness of the magical underworld years before the
occult revival of the late 1 960s had come to a boil.
The curious TH E DEVIL'S MESSENGER (1961) was assembled from some of
the thirteen episodes of the short-lived Swedish television series 13 Demon Street.
The Devil (Lon Chaney, Jr.) guards the cavernous gates of Hell, keeping a watchful
eye as a glum procession of the damned line up for processing. One of the latest
arrivals is young Satanya (Karen Kadler), who killed herself after a disappointment
in love. The Devil appoints the lovely suicide as his messenger on earth, convinced
that she can tempt more mortals into sin for him. After three episodes of varying
quality, Satan reveals h is ultimate Machiavellian plan to bring the maximum
number of new subjects under his sway. He hands Satanya an envelope, to be
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102 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
Night Of The Eagk
delivered to earth. When his envoy asks who the missive is to be del ivered to, the
Devil turns to the camera and leers, "To them ! " indicating the aud ience. They
return to earth, providing human ity with the formula for a doomsday bomb of
un precedented power. The screen fills with a g igantic explosion that annihilates
entire cities. The Devil bursts into laughter, pleased with the success of his coup.
Now the entire human population have condemned themselves to Hell.
Herbert L. Strock's d irection fluctuates between black humour and
melancholy moodiness, making for a refreshingly off-beat anthology. Lon Chaney
Jr.'s gleefully apocalyptic Satan is one of his best-latter day parts, far more lively
than the l istless performances he usually gave in this period.
American fantasist Fritz Leiber's 1 953 novel Conjure Wife was filmed as
THE NIGHT OF THE EAGLE aka BURN WITCH BURN in 1 96 1 . This picture's clever
script was by Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson, who would both make
other important contributions to the Satanic cinema of the 1 960s. An intrusion of
left hand path feminine black magic into the rational right hand path male sphere
of academia, the tale reflected Leiber's life-long preoccupation with supernatural
female characters. Portray ing black magic in a contemporary setting, the British
film was an early warning sign of the incipient witchiness of the times.
The film is constructed with a pleasing circularity, opening with un iversity
professor Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde) expounding his rationalist ph ilosophy
to his students. "I do not believe" he writes on the blackboard, defining an
outlook that will soon be shaken to its core. He defines belief in witchcraft as "a
morbid escape from reality" Taylor seems to have the perfect life, inspiring one
colleague to jokingly ask if he's sold his soul to the Devil. When he d iscovers that
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his wife Tansy (Janet Blair) uses magic to add impetus to his academic career, h e
discards h e r magical i m plements. Tansy warns him that his rash a c t has opened
him up to ma levolent forces, an idea he dismisses.
Ta nsy's warnings are born out when the Professor is immediately beset by
a barrage of threatening i ncidents, including Tansy's disappearance. Discovering
that h is wife has been reading Rites And Practices Of Black Magic as well as a
chapter about the Devil in another book, he resorts to black magic himself, saving
her from a spell compelling her to d rown herself. Upon being rescued, she
inexplicably tries to kill him, under the telepathic command of the crippled Flora
Carr (Margaret Johnston), sorcerous wife of a rival professor The film cleverly
shows modern methods of black magic; tape recordings and telephone calls are
the preferred methods of sorcery here. When Taylor confronts Flora, she
mockingly demonstrates his conversion to magical thinking by burning a house of
tarot cards, suggesting that the flames are consuming his own house. A stone
eagle we've seen throughout the film in increasingly disturbing angles comes to
life and attacks Taylor. The professor backs u p into his blackboard, accidentally
erasing the "not" in the phrase "I do not bel ieve"; his last semblance of resistance
against the unknown power of black magic has been erased with it.
Margaret Johnston relishes her part as a wonderfully wicked witch,
making for a sin ister nemesis to Wyngarde's disintegrating man of reason. Muir
Matheson's inventive score features some interesting pre-psychedelic touches that
suggest the subterranean world of witchery. Director Sidney Hayers brings the
same kind of understated sense of menace to his material demonstrated by
Jacques Tourneur in 1 9 58's N IGHT OF THE DEMON.
This demonic tone of the times was even more pointed in Kenneth
Anger's SCORPIO RISING, a Black Mass in black leather It seethes with a sense of
mockery absent from INAUG URATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME, the di rector's
earlier celebration of Thelemic mysticism. The 1 963 film holds a sting in its tail,
befitting a work made under the sign of Scorpio, supposedly the astrological sign
most associated with the darker side of sexual ity, occultism and death. Often cited
as one of the first films to convey a deliberate camp sensibil ity, and lauded as a
pioneering expression of homosexual ity in the cinema, it is also Anger's most
blatantly Satanic film. While his later I NVOCATION OF MY DEMON BROTHER
(1 969) and LUCIFER RISING (1 980), evoked the director/mag ician's gentler vision
of Lucifer as beautiful fallen angel and bringer of light, SCORPIO exposes a savage
image of Satan, plugging into the Mephistophelan machismo of the biker anti­
culture grabbing headlines at the time. Dedicated to self-anointed Antichrist Jack
Parsons, the fi l m is described by its creator as a "Gathering of the Dark Legions"
A rapid-fire assault of quick cuts and a l most subliminal montage, Anger's
brief blast sardonically borrows from the corny devilish iconography of the Hell's
Angels. "You look like an angel, but you're the Devil in disguise" King Elvis croons
over a fetishistically photographed chopper. The blasphemy of a nineteenth
century Black Mass is updated when a biker points his toy gun at the symbols of
Judaeo-Christian ity, a menorah and a cross. One guest at a drunken bash wears
devil horns and a cape. Invoking the legend of the Satanic festival said to be held
on Germany's Bracken mountains on May Eve, Anger describes this blow-out as
a "Walpurgis party" Shots of a homosexual orgy and implied fellatio are edited
into scenes of an actor playing Jesus from an old religious fi lm. A bible-kicking
biker enters a desecrated church, urinating i n a helmet that he presents as an
unholy grail.
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
Scorpio Rising.
Anger's imagery may pack less punch after decades of heavy metal
"Satanic" posturing and puerile Devil flicks of lesser artistic worth, making it hard
to imagine how shocking h is delirious diabolism was in 1 963. In fact, SCORPIO
RISING was found to be obscene by one court, and frequently banned at its few
public showings in the early '60s. It has exercised a huge, and mostly uncredited,
influence on later film-makers, prefiguring - for better or worse - the
o m n ipresent style of the music video. Anger's ironic use of trivial pop music to
comment on his images was also a revelation in its time, although it has now
become a commonplace device of derivative directors. The soundtrack consists of
an unlucky thirteen tunes, one of which was Bobby Vinton's Blue Velvet, used
sim ilarly in David Lynch's 1 987 film of the same name. In every sense of the word,
this is a seminal film.
Edgar Allan Poe never penned a single line about Satanism i n all of his
curious volumes of forgotten lore. That hasn't stopped Hollywood from
posthumously attributing three Sata nic tales to that despairing bard's hand.
Joining Ulmer's 1 934 THE BLACK CAT are two of Roger Corman's best American
International films.
1 963's TH E HAUNTED PALACE is only connected to Poe by virtue of
sharing the title of one of his poems. In fact, this Vincent Price vehicle is based
entirely on The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, H.P. Lovecraft's 1 927 black magic
novella. Lovecraft's tale is a well-crafted variation on the theme of the diabolical
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The Haunted Palace.
Double, set in his favourite locale, the hau nted New England town Arkham.
Director Corman argued with producer James H. N icholson about the misleading
Poe tie-in, only to be overruled. Later in the turned-on '60s, the weird fantasies
of Lovecraft developed their own cult among the psychedelic young.
Vincent Price does double duty as executed Warlock Joseph Curwen and
his g reat-great-grandson Charles Dexter Ward, who comes to be hexed by his
infamous ancestor It requires a strong performance to make dual roles believable,
and the often underrated Price is in fine form here. In 1 765, the black magician
Curwen casts a maled iction on the residents of Arkham, before his immolation at
the stake by a fearful mob. A century later, Curwen's descendant Charles Dexter
Ward arrives with his wife Ann (Debra Paget) to take possession of his ancestral
home. He soon falls under the spell of a portrait of Curwen that bears that old
" u n canny resemblance" viewers of the Satanic cinema must now anticipate. In the
cellar where Curwen once practised his deviltry, an elder god from another world
waits to mate with and devour his bride. One nightmarish scene, well filmed by
Corman's ace cameraman Floyd Crosby, reveals the mutant descendants of the
cursed villagers, shambling through the studio mist with eyeless faces. Price is in
his element presiding over an atmospheric Satanic rite held in a torch-lit multi­
tiered dungeon set built by art designer Daniel Hailer. Offering sin ister support
as an old Curwen reta iner waiting for his master's remanifestation is Lon Chaney
Jr., reduced here from his former role as Satan in THE DEVIL'S M ESSENGER to
Price's demonic altar boy.
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1be Mosque OJ 1be Red Death.
Thankful ly, the film eschews the sappy happy ending so often tagged
onto otherwise effective black magical films . A broad hint implies that Ward has
been permanently possessed by his wicked a ncestor after all. This final disturbing
twist is intimated by nothing more than a subtle smile on Price's . lips. This climactic
victory o f evil typifies the dark work of scenarist Charles Beaumont, who managed
to sneak subversive endings into many of his films long before the success of
ROSEMARY'S BABY made such finales into a brief vogue. The superb main theme
by Ronald Stein draws us into the film's weird world from its first note.
Corman returned to the black eidolon named Poe with THE MASQUE OF
THE RED DEATH (1 964). Beaumont's script cleaves closely to the short story of a
depraved a ristocrat's masquerade, but adds a healthy dose of Satanism entirely
his own. Thanks to the poetic, p h ilosophical dialogue, and Vincent Price's carefully
shaded performance, lead character Prince Prospera is one of the screen's most
-fully-realized Satanic figures.
Set i n a stylized twelfth century Italy of the imagination, this is Corman's
most visually pleasing work. Freed from the constrained soundstages American
International usually condemned him to, Corman filmed his black magical epic in
England, where he was let loose in a large studio still filled with left-over sets
from the sumptuously produced costume drama BECKET. These gorgeously
appointed sets provide much needed splendour to the Satan ist's .palace. Colour is
an important aspect of Corman's mise-en-scene. The strikingly scarlet-robed figure
of the Red Death touches a pure white rose, magically changing the flower to a
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
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bloody hue. At the end of the film, we witness a gathering of Deaths from other
lands, a l l garbed in robes of varying shades. Prospera gu ides his newest in itiate
through specially lit chambers entirely decorated in red, yel low, and black. The
visual polish of the film owes much to the exqu isite lighting and camera work of
Nicolas Roeg, whose sense of style later served him well as the d i rector of his own
fi lms.
That eternally recurring motif of the virtuous/wicked female is central to
the story. This time, the dark side of femi n i n ity mate rializes as the sensual
aristocrat J u l iana (Hazel Court), a willing student in Prospera's instruction in the
Black Arts. The character of J uliana confirms a lesson about class that so many
Satanic films convey. Because she is a lady of the court, she must be a servant of
the Devil. Again, elitism equ ates with evil.
Conversely, the personification of feminine purity in the film is a h u m ble
villager of lowly birth, Francesca (Jane Asher), abducted by Prospera from a
plague-ridden village. He offers her his hospitality and protection from the plague
, if Francesca will join his veneration of the Devil. Jane Asher's ostentatious
chastity truly borders on the insufferable. In his perversity, Prospera considers it
a challenge to attempt to initiate this paragon of virtue into his dark philosophy.
Presumab ly, Francesca is supposed to illustrate the homily that the meek shall
inherit the earth. However, her character is so drab in comparison to the
gla morous J u l iana, there's simply no dramatic parity. Even the most devout viewer
is forced to conclude that Prospero and his concubine J u l iana are simply more fun
to watch than the ostensible heroine. When Francesca's finally dragged down to
Prospera's d u ngeon, any discerning spectator can only cheer.
Prospera's jealous lover Juliana is none too pleased with the competition
for Prospera's favours provided by the young waif. When Prospera sadistically
forces the nob lewoman to submissively bathe the common wench, she plots
revenge on her rival. To impress Prospero with h e r more authentic commitment
to the Devil, Juliana painfully brands her bountiful bosom with the mark of Satan.
In a beautifully designed dream sequence, J u l iana sees herself being sacrificed in
her past reincarnations. Convinced that she has now passed Prospera's in itiatory
tria ls, she prepares for her prom ised unholy wedlock with the Prince of Darkness.
A raven - possibly flitting into the palace from Poe's famous poem - descends o n
t h e h e l l ish handmaiden, k i l l i n g her T h e faithless Prospera smirkingly declares to
his horrified g uests that J u l iana has now been given in marriage to a "friend" of
his.
In the c limactic Masque, a spectral figure i n a red robe appears. Prospero,
exultant, believes the stranger to be Satan, rewarding his disciple with a visitation.
The Prince excitedly unmasks the intruder, only to peer upon h is own face. It is
not the Devil, but the Red Death, come to spread the plague to Prospera's
supposedly impregnable Palace.
TH E MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH was too much for the British censor,
who excised every Satanic scene from the film. Not much had changed in this
regard since the rites of Lucifer sequence from an earlier quasi-Poe film, TH E
BLACK CAT, had been mauled thirty years earlier
Vincent Price's Prince Prospero is one of his finest characterizations, a
sybaritic Epicurean whose refined sadism has been elevated to the level of
aestheticism. Perhaps something about Prospera's refinement and artistic flair
struck a chord with the bon vivant actor Although he admitted that he often
played h is genre roles with his "tongue in both cheeks", he gives an entirely
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The Masque Of The Red Death - "Satanic" scene cut by British censors.
committed performance here. Accord ing to Price expert Lucy Chase Williams,
"Price's working script is heavily annotated with comments, question marks, and
dialogue changes, more so than almost any of his extant screenplays." Roger
Corman was notorious for offering very little direction to his actors, so it would
seem that Price h i mself is responsible for the effectiveness of his interpretation.
Hazel Court as J u liana is given one of her best roles here, adding to her
small but impressive gallery of roles in macabre and fantastic films. Due to model
Jane Asher's involvement in the production, an even more frightening visitor than
the Red Death showed up on the set. Paul M cCartney, currently Asher's main
squeeze, stopped in to watch the action, taking a break from the moptop hysteria
raging in 1 964. Corman's most ambitious film, this is an artistic conception that
transcends the formulaic traps of the horror genre the director usually worked
within. For all of its originality, the influence of lngmar Bergman hangs heavy
over the picture, especially in the robed figure of the Red Death.
A diabolic duet of Austra lian director Don Sharp's films were released in
1 964, capitalizing on public fears of mysterious cults and their rituals. Both filmed
in Britain, the simi larities between the films create a thematic double feature.
Sharp's first film for gothic special ists Hammer THE KISS OF THE VAM PIRE
innovatively portrays its undead as an occult order The charming Dr. Ravna (Noel
Willman) is the High Priest of a secret society who gather in a ritual chamber
appoi nted with esoteric symbols in the style of traditional ceremonial magicians.
The essential Satanic nature of vampirism is elu cidated by the film's protagon ist:
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
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Kiss Of The Vampire.
"When the Devil attacks a man or woman with this foul disease of the vampire,
the unfortunate human being can do one of two things. Either he can seek God
through the Church and pray for absolution, or he can persuade himself that his
filthy perversion is some kind of new and wonderful experience to be shared by
the favoured few. "
M ost of the expected cliches of the vampire genre are turned topsy-turvy.
Black capes aren't part of the dress code for Dr. Ravna's cult; his disciples are
attired in pure white robes when they convene for their unholy rites. The vampire
coven's meeting place is a luxurious, colourful chateau rather than a crumbling
castle. A newlywed bride is seduced into the pleasures of the cu lt's special d iet at
a magnificent masked ball, far more festive than the usual Transylvanian shindig.
Sharp explained his subversion of vampire tradition by commenting that, "some
of the most awful corruption has been in the most respectable of places: the old
Biblical thing of whited sepulchres that were shining on the outside but absolutely
corrupt underneath. Once we had that kind of approach, the whole of the
designing and costuming grew from it." The heroine's ritualistic in itiation into
Ravna's sect is interrupted by an occult expert who invokes the forces of darkness
to destroy the demonic denomination.
TH E KISS OF THE VAMPIRE opened a new vein in cinematic vampire lore
by depicting its creatures of the night as the Devil's disciples. As the British censor
became more lenient in al lowing the blatant portrayal of Satanism on screen,
Hammer Films would increasingly emphasize its uniquely black magical take o n
vampire mythology. Roman Polanski's 1 967 parody DANCE O F TH E VAMPIRES
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Wilcbcrajl.
shame lessly lifted major chunks of Sharp's plot, including the unusual Luciferian
angle.
Sharp's WITCHCRAFT, filmed on a spartan budget in only twenty days, is
a superior variation on the "witch's revenge" motif so prevalent in the 1 960s.
Anticipating the worldwide growth of nee-witchcraft that would mushroom only
a few years later, the film's pressbook rather disingenuously suggests that
WITCHCRAFT is an educational film. The anonymous publ icist advances this rather
doubtful claim: "In view of the reported rise in witchcraft and black magic
practices, the film is useful in that it explains much about these centuries' old
rites."
Lon Chaney Jr., in his third Satanic role of the '60s, plays Morgan
Whitlock, patriarch of a clan of black magicians locked in a centuries old family
feud with the Lanier brood. In the 1 7th century, the Laniers cheated the Wh itlocks
out of their property and buried sexy sorceress Vanessa Whitlock (Yvette Rees)
alive. Rees displays a chilling and demonic appeal that makes her a serious
contender for the coveted Barbara Steele award. She's d isturbed in her grave
when the current Lanier's construction crew nearly razes the Whitlock family
cemetery with a bu lldozer. Avenging Vanessa returns to wreak havoc on the
Lan i ers. Amy Whitlock (Diane Clare), who has broken tradition by promising her
hand to one of the despised Laniers, is in itiated into Satanism by her family.
However, just when the Whitlocks are preparing to sacrifice one of the Lanier's
wives to the Devil, Amy turns against them. When the sorceress threatens her
fiance, Amy pours boiling oil on her supernatural ancestress Vanessa. Thus does
the eternal cosmic catfight between N ice Girl and Nasty Witch man ifest. Usual ly,
the chaste heroine embraces the established rule of the family in opposition to
the individua list rebellion espoused by the Satanic temptress. Here, Amy must
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s • 1 1 1
betray her Satanic family if she is to redeem herself and b e reabsorbed into the
entrenched social order. In a violent denouement similar to that in Sharp's earlier
KISS OF THE VAMPIRE, the Whitlocks are consumed in an infernal conflagration,
decisively ending the centuries old feud. Although the weird Whitlocks are the
villains of the piece, it's interesting that the Satanists are actually moralists,
punishing the corruption of the Laniers. This ambiguous theme runs through
much o f the.. VeDgeful Witch subgenre, in which the sins of the fathers are
ruthlessly penalized by the supernatural tribunal of the Devil.
A tale of an altogether different kind is 1 964's MY TALE IS HOT, first of
a softcore subgenre which trafficked in lascivious images of the Devil. Since Satan
was long held responsible for the libido, his presence in early stag films - such as
BLACK MASS (Germany, 1 928) - was inevitable. By 1 964, censorship had relaxed
sufficiently to allow a wave of so-ca lled " n u d ie cuties" to be unzipped on
American screens. Innocuous items revea ling the same amount of skin gents could
scope at strip joints, these titillating titles competed by starring the most a l luring
striptease artistes, far more attractive than the local talent. MY TALE IS HOT
boasts the celebrated skin artist Candy Barr. The buxom blonde was already
sufficiently legendary to play herself in the film. The character names will clue you
in to the level of refinement this Seymour Tokus production aims for. Lucifer U.
Devil does his damnedest to tempt " Husband of the Year" Ben Hur Ova to stray.
A parade of pu lchritude is marched before the lens, but Lucifer is foiled in his
plans: Ben Hur is a n Arab sheik with a harem of his own. MY TALE IS HOT is
actually a leap backwards from the artful eroticism of Christensen's HAxAN forty
years earl ier, but it hints at more significant Satanic sex films to come.
Alas, Miss Candy Barr is not around to spice up the moribund a l l-star cast
in George Stevens' Biblical biopic THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD (1 965). Too
bad, she would have made an ideal Mary Magdalene. The story in question is that
of a certa i n Nazarene carpenter's rabble-rousing in Jerusalem, his subsequent
execution, and his vampiric return from the dead. Of interest here is one of the
characters the do-gooder (Max von Sydow) meets along the way. The Devil, as
played by beady-eyed British character actor Donald Pleasence, offers his adversary
a l l worldly power, but is turned down in favour of a masochistic demise. Pleasence
offers a refreshingly original and understated performance, bereft of any of the
usual cliches. He's refresh ingly naturalistic and recognizably human amon g a l l the
stagy, self-important emoting indulged in by the rest of the celebritous cast he's
surrounded by. The heavy-handed Hol lywood epic is a turgid film, but it's worth
catching for Donald Pleasence's off-beat interpretation of the New Testament's
principal heavy.
T H E SKULL referred to in 1 965's often surreal Amicus film once proudly
stood on the shoulders of Donatien Alphonse Francoise Marquis de Sade. The
central conceit here is that de Sade was a practis ing black magician whose will to
evil can inspire posth umous malevolence. Robert Bloch adapted his 1 945 short
story The Skull Of The Marquis de Sade to the screen. The writer was inspired by
the fact that the notorious nobleman's head actually disappeared from h is grave
on the grounds of Charenton insane asylum. Professor Maitland (Peter Cushing),
collector of occultiana, is approached by a sleazy merchant with an offer to buy
the celebrated skull of de Sade, which he claims to have taken from the writer's
grave. Fellow collector Sir Phillips (Christopher Lee) informs h i m that the skull was
in fact stolen from h im, warning Maitland that the object has the power to
possess its owner with its own dark spirit. Obsessed, the Professor acquires the
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
The Skull.
skull and is consequently ensnared in the Marquis' spell, suffering nightmares and
eventually trying to kill h is wife. Director Freddie Francis brings the Marquis to life
with some uneasy shots filmed from the skull's point of view. An eye-catching
assortment of magical bric-a-brac fills the screen, suggesting the milieu of occult
collectors very well. THE SKULL depends entirely on Cushing's abil ity to believably
interact with an inanimate object, a task the actor pulls off with his usual aplomb.
In all deference to the divine Marquis, I must note that the film's
dep iction of him as a Satanist is only a figment of Robert Bloch's fancy. As de
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
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Simon OJ The Dese11.
Sade's voluminous writings make clear, he was a dyed-in-the-wool atheist, placing
as little credence in the Devil as h e did in God. For the libertine p hilosopher,
metaphysical evil was only a blind force of nature, and although he found that
blasphemy added spice to his fleshy pursu its, he cannot be termed a black
magician. When the film was released in France under the title TH E SKULL OF THE
MARQUIS DE SADE, the Marquis' descendants threatened to sue the producers for
besmirching the name of their i llustrious a ncestor.
The great Spanish surrealist Luis Bunuel, always fascinated by the terrors
and ecstasies of religion, explored this terrain again in 1 965's SIMON DEL
DES ERTIO (SIMON OF TH E DESERT). The ascetic Simon (Claudio Brook) renounces
the world and its pleasures for a severe existence on top of a desert pillar. Among
the many hallucinations he encou nters in his lonely outpost are such typically
Bunuelian characters as a goat-fucking dwarf shepherd, a possessed priest - and
the Devil, of course.
Tempting the would-be saint with her charms is a mercurial female
Satanas, played mischievously by Silvia Pinal. She fi rst appears to Simon as a little
girl in a sailor su it, skipping and singing around his austere pillar - a phallic
sym bol if ever there was one. She sings that "i n my kingdom... things are not
what they seem," which describes the shifting dreamworld of Bunuel as well as
the domain of Lucifer When Simon is .suspicious of this seemingly benign
apparition, she assures the hermit that she's an "innocent little girl" Simon f irst
realizes what he's dealing with when the maiden lifts her skirt to reveal a peek
of her thighs, framed by garters and black stockings. When this gambit doesn't
work, the Devil flashes her bare breasts to Simon in an attempt to weaken hi s
resolve. The saucy blonde Satan materializes behind him, p u l ling on h is beard and
growling, "look how long my tongue is" Her Satanic Majesty transforms into an
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Devils OfDarkness.
ancient crone when Simon prays to resist her wiles.
The Temptress next appears leading a flock of sheep, calling herself a
good shepherd, wearing a false beard in blasphemous imitation of Christ. In her
third appearance, the Devil rises out of a coffin that propels itself magically across
the sands. In an effectively surreal moment of anachronism, a jet soars out of the
emptiness of the sky. Simon and the Devil are suddenly in the chaos of a
discotheque in New York City. The hermit looks dismal surrounded by the frantic
celebration of flesh, but the Devil, now dressed in the garb of a h i p early '60s girl,
takes to the dance floor, twisting as she lets out a wild scream of triumphant joy
that cuts through the din of the music. This is Simon's Hell. Bunuel illustrates the
obvious parallels between the fevered imaginings recorded by the saints and the
illog ical ima gery of surrealism. Sylvia Pinal's energetic and ever-changing
performance makes for one of the screen's most seductive Satans. Bunuel would
briefly call upon the Devil again in his LA VOlE LACTEE (THE MILKY WAY) in 1 969.
The British Gothic literary tradition, exemplified by Matthew Lewis' The
Monk, had always drawn deep from the Devil's well. Bram Stoker's novel Dracula
made no bones about the Count's Satanic heritage. Despite the untapped
potential laying in the theme, the British Gothic revival in cinema had only h i nted
at its Sata nic patrimony.
The obscure DEVILS OF DARKNESS (1 965) presages the peculiarly Br itish
brand of diabolic vampirism that would later become a mainstay in a series of
1 970s pictures. Directed by Lance Comfort, the extremely uneven picture is
interesting primarily for its emphasis on Satan ism, then a major taboo in English-
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
•
115
made films. Two -British couples on vacation in France d isturb the sleep of the
absurdly named Armand Sinistre (Hubert Noel), buried alive for practising the
Black Arts. His robed coven, who "pledge al legiance to the Devil of dar-kness"
ritually sacrifice one of the women. Un known to the tourists, the leading
members of the town, including the chief of police, are all initiates of Sinistre's
cult. In fact, one of the tourists, the antique dealer Madeline (Diana Decker) is also
one of Sin istre's fol lowers, using her shop "The Odd Spot" as a front for their
activities. Upon returning to London, nominal hero Paul Baxter (Wi lliam Sylvester)
attends a party of jaded sophisticates, kookily decadent British members of the
cult. There, he meets the eccentric model Karen (Tracy Reed), who affects a
mysterioso image. The up-to-date Satanists are presented as latter-day beatnik
types, including an obvious lesbian couple. Karen makes for a refresh ingly dark
heroine, a change from the vapid sunny type usually imperiled in such flicks.
Sinistre, posing as an artist, paints the bohemian girl as a ruse to ind uct
her into his vampire coven. In a scene taken directly from NIGHT OF THE DEMON,
Baxter researches the Sin istre cult at the British Museum, where a curator notes
a n extraordinary rise of interest in the occult. The undead cult are depicted with
surprisingly human motives; Sin istre's bride becomes jealous of the attention he's
paying to his model/victim. When the coven convenes in their subterranean lair
to in itiate Karen into the Order as High Priestess "in the name of our lord Sata n",
there's the usual hurried climax in which the cult is destroyed by the hero.
Although it's an odd l ittle film filled with occasional innovations, DEVILS OF
DARKNESS is ultimately weakened by some truly ridiculous plot turns and a few
performances too lifeless even for the living dead. That being said, it does exert
a certa in unexplainable charm, and it's just the kind of film that might inspire its
own cult if it were better known.
One film that has been elevated from obscurity to cult status is INCUBUS
(1 965), wh ich really must be seen to be believed. Perhaps the single most
pretentious Satanic film ever made, its director Leslie Stevens was inspired by a
very misguided muse when he conceived of this. The simple plot is heavy-handed
allegory: An Everyman character representing the force of Good is smitten by a
Succubus, that elem ental symbol of femininity. Disturbing this touching tete-a-tete
is a living icon of Evil, the Incubus. All of the dialogue is spoken in Esperanto, a
synthetic language created in the 1 800s to foster world peace and Utopian
understanding between the nations. Adding to the pomposity is William Shatner
as the hero, overacting even more outrageously in Esperanto than he usually does
in English.
The actor who played the Incubus, one Milo Milo, later killed himself and
his lover, Barbara Rooney, a fact which appreciators of this film have sometimes
ascribed with occult meaning.
By 1 965, the soup of dissent and social experimentation that would
eventua l ly characterize the '60s was coming to a boil. Satanism, like other
formerly taboo activities, had slowly begun to take a higher profile as one of the
alternative options open to an increasingly discontented Western civilization.
In 1 960, one Dr. Herbert Sloan had formed the Ophite Cultus Sathanas,
the first Sata nic sect in the Un ited States to open its doors to the public, rather
than practise its rites in secrecy. Sloan had garnered a certain amount of media
attention, issuing a manifesto which declared his group's veneration of the
serpent of Eden as a positive force of knowledge and enl ightenment.
In London, Robert De Grimston left Scientology to found The Process
1 1 6 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
Incubus.
Church of the Final Judgment in 1 964. According to the Process theol ogy, Satan
and Lucifer were integral cosmic forces in a coming transformation of the world
order. Processean Satan ists wore black robes on the streets of London, proudly
displaying goat's head medallions as a sign of their a l legiance to the Devil.
ECCO (1 965) aka WORLD BY N IGHT, was the first Mondo film to offer u p
images o f alleged black magical rites for the stimu lation of their audiences.
Among the scenes of international oddity on display - a body piercer, a lesbian
act in a Paris n itery, Mardi Gras in Rio - is the celebration of a Black Mass by
congregation of London diabolists. Fulfilling the traditional cliches expected of
them by Christian propaganda, the supposed Satanists are seen pouring a
sacrificed chicken's blood on their latest in itiate. The scene only inspires pity for
the bird, rather than any awe for the rather pathetic cult. The usually d i g n i fied
George Sand ers lends a sense of author ity the film hardly deserves, providing
world-weary narration with his smoothly cynical inflections.
Even Dr Sigmund would probably be perplexed by the psychological cases
presented in MONDO FREUDO ( 1 966). Dimly assuming that anything to do with
sex must somehow be Freudian, d irector R.L. Frost treats us to a panoply of
libidinous behaviour, captured in voyeurvision. Topless Watusis; Japanese
sadomasoch ists; a Mexican slave auction, and - if we are to believe what we are
told - Puerto Rican Satanists. One episode set in a New York apartment features
a clutch of supposed Devil worshippers preparing a 1 7 -year old virgin for sacrifice
to Satan. One h esitates to q uestion the journalistic integrity of something called
MONDO FREUDO, but the sneaking suspicion arises that this Black Mass just may
be staged for the " h idden camera"
In 1 966, Ettore Scola's IL DIAVOLO INNAMORATO (THE DEVIL IN LOVE)
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
•
117
invoked the demons Beelzebub,
Belphegor and Adramalech in a
breezy romantic comedy of little
consequence. Old-fashioned in the
worst way, the picture's aristocratic
Florentine setting allows for much
extrava gant costuming and elaborate
Princely decor. When the rival city­
states of Florence and Rome settle
their differences with a peace treaty,
the always bell igerent forces of
darkness in Hell are annoyed.
T h e s u a ve Arc h d e v i l
Belphegor (Vittorio Gassman) is
dispatched to earth to do what he
can to end the peace. Accompanied
by his invisible imp servitor
Adramalech (an annoying M ickey
Rooney}, Belphegor immediately
disrupts the planned wedding of the
b e a u t i f u l F l o r e n t i n e P r i n cess
Magdalena de Medici (an alluring
Claudine Auger) to the Roman Pope's
TIJUANA AS IT SPAWNS
son. Mag ically taking on the identity
of Magdalena's betrothed, the
schem ing demon breaks off the
peace-making wedding, asserting
TH E SCENE
that he desires war with Rome
instead of his fiancee's hand.
Belphegor humiliates Magdalena
further by stripping her and
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displaying her from the palace
balcony. Despite the degradation he
has visited on the princess, Belphegor
finds h is black heart melting for his human victim. Outraged by this thoroughly
unSatanic behaviour, Beelzebub d ivests his envoy of all magical ability. Humanized
and helpless, Belphegor is captured by the palace guard and swiftly condemned
to be burned at the stake. In a suicidal expression of her devotion, Magdalena
joins her beloved at the stake, inspiring her father to call off the execution and
allow the lovebirds to be wed. Peace reigns and Hell's plot is undone.
IL DIAVOLO INNAMORATO is a strained attempt to capture some of the
fairyta l e mood of VISITEURS DU SOIR, but it never comes close to that mythic
level.
Lucifer, the rootin-tootin'est sidewinder of 'em all, rides on the high
prairie in the first Satanic western, Orville Wanzer's THE DEVIL'S M ISTRESS (1 966}.
The poster blurb tells us that "no other woman ever loved with such passion ... or
killed with such hate" Alas. Joan Stapleton's listless performance is as devoid of
passion and hate as it is of any other emotion. Stapleton, director Wanzer's wife,
is meant to be irresisti bly bewitching, but lacks the sinister presence her role
demands. In the film's favour is the unusual downbeat mood, so atypical of the
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western, which is ordinarily the most unyielding of morality plays.
An off-screen narrator sets the grim tone. "They sacrificed unto the Devil
and not to God. And the Lord said They sha l l be burned with hunger and
devoured with passion and a bitter destruction. I will also send the poison of the
serpent and the mouth of the beast upon them." In 1870s New Mexico, four
desperadoes brag about their recent robberies and rapes. Frank (Robert Gregory),
the youngest, seems offended by his compadres' callousness. They come upon a
remote cabin inhabited by the mysterious old prospector Jeroboam (Arthur
Resley). The old man, severely dressed in New England pilgrim garb, offers to
share h i s supper. During the meal, the cowboys eye Jeroboam's young female
companion, a mute called Liah. Frank inquires of Jeroboam, "What the devil you
doing up here?" Their host explains that they migrated out west from Salem,
seeking freedom from religious persecution. "What the devil is he talking about?"
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
•
119
The Witches.
asks another cowboy. They shoot Jeroboam, and under an ominous crow's
observation, two of the outlaws proceed to rape Liah, riding off with the mute
woman as their captive.
Liah's succubus kiss kills one of her rapists with fl ickering serpentine
tongue. She dispatches her other attacker by compelling a rattlesnake to strike
him. In the d istance, an ominous figure in a black robe follows the doomed
cowboys' ride. The leader of the gang begins to dream of a gal lows, a dream
which becomes prophetic when he's accidenta lly hanged on a tree. More crows
gather like harbingers of death as she seduces young Frank, the last of the
cowboys. She crawls after him like a predatory feline. After Liah drains him of his
l ife-force with her kiss, she removes his heart with his knife, setting it ablaze.
Jeroboam appears, raised from the dead. Liah kneels in prayer to her master, and
Jeroboam's cruel laugh makes it clear that he is the Devil himself.
This unusual ending foreshadows an increasingly sympathetic portrayal of
the Satanic archetype that would only gather steam as '60s pop culture rapidly
mutated. It is also singular in that Liah's unholy powers are visited upon four
thoroughly unl ikeable low-lifes. As in 1964's WITCHCRAFT, the dark feminine
Other is depicted as an avenger and a positive force of justice rather than as a
blindly malevolent force of conventional evil.
Hammer Films had summoned almost every imaginable variety of
supernaturalism to the screen by 1 966. However, the studio was surprisingly late
to seize upon the cinematic possibilities of black magic. Unfortunately, their first
essay on this su bject, THE DEVIL'S OWN aka TH E WITCHES, is weak tea indeed in
120 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
Torture Garden.
comparison to their later THE DEVIL RIDES OUT This tepid trial run, directed by
Cyril Frankel, tells the tale of teacher Gwen Mayfield (Joan Fontaine}, traumatized
after her encounter with an African witch d octor. Hoping that the qu iet English
town of Heddaby will be a soothing place to recover from a nervous breakdown
she suffered, she takes a position at the local private school. Gwen soon learns
that there's more than meets the eye to the placid hamlet. In fact, the locals
secretly practice witchcraft, under the spell of the cult's High Priestess, journalist
Stephanie Bax (Kay Walsh).
In one of the few eye-opening scenes, Stephanie - decked out in a
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
•
121
flaming antler-horned headdress - presides over a climactic Sabbat. The aging
witch intends to reincarnate in a sacrificed virgin teenager's body. "After the blow
is struck, give m e a skin for dancing i n " is one of the more memorably ghoulish
lines of this ceremony. The theme of the Satanic village was handled with far
more flair in 1 960's THE CITY OF THE DEAD, but Kay Walsh does command
attention with a n excellent performance - and her unusual taste in headgear
The Devil tends to 1 967's TORTURE GARDEN, an uneven anthology film
d i rected by Freddie Francis. Despite the misleading title, the film has nothing to
do with Octave Mirbeau's infamous novel of the same name. The film does
feature a superior, tongue-in-cheek performance by veteran cha racter actor
B u rgess Meredith as Dr. Diabolo, master of ceremonies of a travelling side-show.
Meredith, resplendent in top hat and cloak, claims the power to afford his
customers a glimpse into their futures, which provides the framing device for a
q uartet of dubious terror tales. The only standout concerns the revival of Edgar
Allan Poe via black magical necromancy. We are not in the least surprised to
discover that Dr Diabolo is actually the Devil in disguise. Although his
transformation is handled with rather tawdry special effects, Meredith plays his
theatrical carnival Satan with gusto, a characterization delivered with just the
right measure of mockery and menace.
Ever versatile, Lucifer sh ifts from carnival of horrors to the lofty
prosce nium of High Culture in DOCTOR FAUSTUS ( 1 967), Richard Burton's well­
intentioned but disappointingly lifeless film of Christopher Marlowe's durable
1 594 play. Directing himself in the role of Faustus, one gets the impression that
B u rton hoped to make up for a glut of popular but trivial work in the movies by
returning to the "serious" theatrical tradition he emerged from. Andreas Teuber
does not provide the necessary depth to his characterization of Mephistopheles,
and any successfu l handling of the Faust legend depends on a charismatic Devil.
Predictably, B u rton cast his on agai n/off again wife El izabeth Taylor as the most
beautiful woman of a l l time, Helen of Troy. While she's attractive enough for the
part, she doesn't have the theatrical background to handle Marlowe with any
credibil ity. For all of his ambition, Burton fails to do justice to a play that ranks
with the true masterpieces of Satanic literature. It's an ossified illustration rather
than a living work of cinema.
Is Satan a n entity from outer space? Exploring this completely uncharted
territory with imagination and inte l l igence is QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (1 967).
While the Hammer film's drama is played in a literal pit - a subterranean
excavation - the events also take place on a mythical level in the very Pit of Hell.
It is this deft movement between the layers of material, scientifica lly measurable
reality and the darker strata of mythological, psych ic reality that g ives the film its
power. Nigel Kneale's well-crafted screenplay poses an intriguing question: What
if mankind's legends of the Devil and of demonic beings are rooted in ancient
contact with extraterrestrial life? The first film to situate the Satanic mythos in a
science fiction setting, director Roy Ward Baker makes a direct hit on archetypal
territory usually untouched by either genre.
A construction crew working in London's Hobbs End underground
discovers ancient pre-human skeletons. When a worker discovers a strange craft
which appears to be a rocket, the military are called in, determ ining that the
vessel must be an unexploded German weapon from the last war This theory is
disproven when Professor Quatermass (Andrew Keir) and his colleague Barbara
Judd (Barbara Shelley) find horned insectoid creatures inside the vehicle, preserved
122
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Quatermass And Tbe Pit.
since their death m il l ions of years earlier These beings are presumed to be
travellers from another world, possibly Mars. We learn that the area around
Hobbs End has been host to occult phenomena and demonic sightings since 1 34 1 ,
a n d even i n Roman times. This hau nted history i s made a l l the more significant by
the fact that the street's name was changed from Hob's Lane - Hob being a n old
English name for the Devil.
Telekinetic events occur around the alien ship. Strange visions - racial
mem ories from a primordial past - appear in the minds of those who touch the
demonic spacecraft. With a video device that records images directly from the
brain, Quatermass documents these glimpses into man's collective unconscious. He
and an associate are unable to make contact with the alien intelligence, which is
the m ind of the being men have called the Devil.
When Barbara J udd serves as medium, her mind is filled with violent
scenes of the devil-aliens battling in millennia past. Her summoning of Hob's long
untapped energy releases a torrent of destruction. Quatermass believes that the
human race has inherited its tendency to violence from ancient contact with these
sinister beings. When lighting is set up in the excavation to film the ship for
television, the a l ien energy is released again through all of London. Barbara is
swept up in the demonic maelstrom. A wave of chaos descends on the city, which
is lit by hundreds of fires. Random kill ing breaks out. Some humans, including
Quatermass, are apparently impervious to the effects. The inflamed mobs cruelly
attack anyone immune from the mania.
A huge apparition of the Devil, awakened like one of Austin Osman
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
•
123
Dance Of7be Vampires.
Spare's resurgent atavisms, looms over the metropolis. When o n e of Quatermass'
colleagues recalls the ancient folklore that iron counters the Devil, a steel crane
is swung i nto the vision, destroying it. A temporary victory, for as Quatermass
observes, "We are the M a rtians"
As Quatermass, Andrew Keir is convincing as a rugged man of science
forced to concede the existence of the Devil. Barbara Shelley effects an even more
startling transformation, from cool rationalist to a woman in the grip of a sin ister
inhuman intelligence. The classically trained Shelley, one of the fantastic cinema's
unheralded femme fatales, was at her best in roles that al lowed
her to
demonstrate a metamorphosis from sympathetic heroine to demoniacal fury.
D irector Roy Ward Baker maintains a steadily rising sense of tension, only relieved
by the final blast of the apoca lyptic finale. Screenwriter N igel Knea le's clever
melding of tidbits of genuine diabolic lore with space-age anxieties invest the
drama with a sense of authenticity. QUATERMASS AND THE PIT is a f i l m unusually
rich with thought-provo king ideas. Not the least of these concepts is the notion
that the Devil - whether of occult or extraterrestrial origin - may be mankind
itself.
Considering the attention
Roman Polanski would
pay to
Satan
in
ROSEMARY'S BABY, the diabol ism i n his THE DANCE OF T H E VAMPIRES (1967) is
illuminating. In this seemingly innocuous parody of Hammer's vampire movies,
there are shadows of the darker work to come. Count Krolock (Ferdy Mayne), like
warlock Roman Castavet in the later film, is the leader of a Satanic cult. Krolock
uses occult terminology to describe his vampire discip les, telling his human
124
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Bedazzled.
opponents that "as brooks flow into streams, streams into rivers, and rivers into
the sea, so our adepts flow back to us, to swell our ranks" Both films contain
scenes in which the coven leader addresses his followers in the language of
religion. Krolock declares: "1, your pastor, and you, my beloved flock, with
hopefulness in my heart, I told you that with Lucifer's aid, we might look forward
to a more succulent occasion." With this, he holds up his hand in the so-called
sign of the horns, a gesture used for centuries to signify the Devil among
European Satan ists. (As previously mentioned, Polanski obviously based his
vampires on the robed coven of occult blood-drinkers in TH E KISS OF THE
VAMPIRE.) In the final scene, the incompetent heroes escape Krolock's castle with
the rescued heroine (Sharon Tate) in tow. When Tate cuddles up to her fearless
vampire-killing suitor (Polanski), we see that she has already become one of the
undead; she bares her fangs to infect her protector. Ferdy Mayne's sinister voice
tells us that the vampire-hunting Professor "never guessed he was carrying away
with him the very evil he wished to destroy. Thanks to him, this evil would at last
be able to spread across the world." This subversive victory of evil broke all the
rules of moral ity imposed on audiences by decades of Hollywood conditioning.
The triumph of Polanski's Satanic vampires, although leavened by comedy, may
be read as a turning point in the relation of the cinema to the icons of Lucifer. In
1 967, forces were stirring - in the cinema and in society - that would create an
unprecedented popular fascination with black magic.
On those occasions when Lucifer has been played for laughs, the vagaries
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
•
125
of the human heart have most often been at the centre of the comedy. One of
the best ofthese diabolical d iversions, 1 967's BEDAZZLED, is no exception. Vaguely
inspired by the Faust legend, but transposed to a kaleidoscopic swinging London
setting, the film focuses on love-sick fool Stanley Moon (Dudley Moore). A short
order cook in a greasy spoon, he's so hopelessly head over heels with dishy
waitress Margaret (Eleanor Bron) that he hangs himself. However, Stanley's such
a loser that he can't even succeed in ending his wretched existence properly.
The debonair George Spiggot (Peter Cook, also the screenwriter)
materializes, offering to grant Stanley seven wishes in exchange for his soul. The
mod Meph isto makes good on his promise, but the realization of Stanley's ill­
conceived wishes only make him more miserable. Although he's transformed into
an a rty intel lectual, a millionaire, a pop star, and an irresistible sex machine, the
unattainable Margaret is ultimately left unmoved. In accordance with the age-old
lore, the Devil is too clever by far, reaping the soul he desires but actually
granting little in return. Stanley is trained in the art of love by the spirit of Lust
herself (Raquel Welch), but it's all to no avail. Dissatisfied with his previous six
wishes, the failed swain asks simply that he and Margaret be metamorphosed into
kindly, loving people.
The Devil cheerfully grants this final wish and to his horror Stanley finds
himself in a nun's habit. He's become a sister in the beatific Margaret's convent,
sworn to life-long chastity. Fina lly, The Devil al lows Stanley to have his soul back,
hoping that the good deed wi ll earn him readmittance to Paradise. However,
Spiggot is spurned at the pearly gates; he still suffers from the sin of pride. A
witty time capsule of irreverent sixties satire, BEDAZZLED boasts one of those
charming, sartorially resplendent Satans that make sin seem an entirely appea ling
proposition. As played with pop star cool by Peter Cook, George Spiggot is a Devil
for his times. He's the ultimate alternative to the "bourgeois establishment"
BEDAZZLED marks another turning point in the mid-'60s transformation of Satan
from villainous fiend to rebellious anti-hero. A remake, starring Liz Hurley in the
Peter Cook role, was an nounced in 1 999.
All of this irreverence would have appalled novelist Dennis Wheatley, very
much on the other side of the generation gap at age seventy. Wheatley had made
a long career out of scaring his millions of readers away from the dangers o f black
magic. Despite this hostil ity, the Devil was kind to Wheatley. To The Devil - A
Daughter, They Used Dark Forces, Gateway To Hell and The Satanist are only a
few of his Satanic best-sellers. The author increased the appeal of his novels by
introducing them with solemn cautionary notes warning his readers of the dire
peril they faced by even reading about such a forbidden topic. Much like the
disclaimers on vintage pornography proclaiming that the sordid activities
described were presented only in the interest of science, Wheatley dissuaded his
audience from "serious study of the subject" admonishing that "any ceremony
connected with mag i c - white or black" could "bring them into dangers of a rea l
and very con crete nature" In his textbook The Devil And All His Works, written
during the late '60s, he deplored what he called "the opening of the minds of
thousands of people to the influence of the Powers of Darkness that has formed
a cancer in society"
While research ing The Devil Rides Out in 1 934, Wheatley sought out the
i ll-famed Aleister Crowley to provide some authentic magical lore for h is
embryonic book. Crowley was only too ha ppy too oblige, instructing the author
on the fine points of magical procedure and theory. Despite their differing views,
126
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
the two writers became fast friends, seeing each other socially long after
Wheatley's research was completed. This am icable relationship did not prevent
Wheatley from fash ioning his character Mocata as a scurrilous caricature of
Crowley's egregious public image. Like W. Somerset Maugham a generation
earlier, Wheatley used the Beast as the model for an exaggerated villainous
portrait. Thus did many of Crowley's magical ideas find themselves mouthed by
Mocata, the book's Satanic leader.
In 1 959, the actor Christopher Lee happened to be shopping in Harrods
department store in London. He noticed that Wheatley was giving a lecture in the
book department on the subject of black magic. Lee, unlike the majority of actors
associated with macabre and fantastic roles, had entertained a life-long interest
in supernatural fiction. He had read Wheatley's black magic tales with interest,
and attended the author's lecture with curiosity. When the two men spoke after
the lecture, they learned that they shared a war-time intell igence background
which sparked a friendship that would last until Wheatley's death in 1 977, at the
age of 80. By 1 964, Lee was the leading personal ity in Hammer Film's gothic grand
guignols. He suggested to Hammer executives that his friend Wheatley's Satanic
books would be ideal material for them, and the studio negotiated for the rights
to film The Devil Rides Out. Initially, Wheatley had reservations about the project,
fearing that Hammer would sensationalize h is famous book. Anyone who has read
the novel, which is as sensationalistic a pot-boiler as can be imagined, must be
puzzled by this reticence.
The British censor, who had not taken kindly to the Satanic rituals in
MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH in 1 964, delayed production. Hammer would have
to contend with official squeam ishness in relation to filming the black magic epic
until 1 967, when the green light was finally given to THE DEVIL RIDES OUT Derek
Todd, announcing the impending production in Kinematograph Weekly, wrote
that Wheatley's novel was "a lways considered beyond the scope of film-makers
until now, because censorship restrictions forbade following his deep incursions
into the black arts"
Fisher's film, one of the most entertaining treatments of Satanism o n
screen, i s a vast improvement o n the book. Richard Matheson's script is a model
of economy and precision, cutting the fat from Wheatley's sprawling novel with
surgical skill. The central battle of wills between Charles Gray as Mocata and
Christopher Lee as the Due de Richleau is played perfectly. An alternately bracing
and brooding score from James Bernard drives the drama with relentless mood.
Terence Fisher - who could occasionally be a rather perfunctory d irector brilliantly melds all these elements together. Above and beyond these purely
cinematic qualities, the film is also one of the most authentic portrayals of
genuine magical practice and philosophy ever screened. Indeed, it's this
authenticity that separates it from many other more fanciful productions. The
importance of THE DEVIL RIDES OUT to the sin ister canon is such that it demands
a more detailed look than lesser works require.
Dominating this film like no other is the spectral presence of Aleister
Crowl ey, who served as technical adviser on Wheatley's book, and whose ideas
consequently had much to do with shaping the cinematic adaptation. Looking at
the film from this perspective - while also calling to attention the film's
unprecedented use of genuine demonological lore - illuminates previously
neg lected aspects of this much-admired work. Observed from a magical point of
view, TH E DEVIL RIDES OUT is a veritable compendium of esoteric arcana. If we
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
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127
The Devil Rides Out.
ignore the inclusion of such inevitable horror movie flourishes as human sacrifice,
n o other mainstream film made for a popular audience is so infused with accurate
magical references.
Operating during the 1920s in the leisurely sphere of upper class British
country life, these are eminently civilized Satan ists, with more than a little of the
snob appeal that runs through Wheatley's work. When the film begins, the
haughty occult expert Due de Richleau (Christopher Lee) arrives at the stately
home of his young friend Simon Aron (Patrick Mower). Simon is enterta ining
guests, who h e claims are members of an astronomical society he has recently
joined. De Richleau suspects subterfuge when he notes that there are thirteen
gu ests invited - the traditional number for a coven. When asked to leave, the Due
and a companion i nvestigate an observatory decorated with occult symbols. When
a white hen and a black cockerel are discovered hidden in a basket, de Richleau
real izes that the birds will be used for a Satanic sacrifice. (This ceremonial detail
was clearly provided to Wheatley by Crowley, who almost always sacrificed such
birds during his magi.cal rites.)
De Richleau learns that Mocata (Charles Gray), the High Priest of the
secret society, intends to in itiate both Simon and an ethereal young woman
named Tanith (Nike Arrigh i), by rebaptising them. Breaking into Simon's ritual
chamber, the Due finds that Mocata has summoned a guardian demon to dispel
intruders. The apparition of this demon is announced by tendrils of smoke rising
from the nostrils of a design of a goat on the floor The drawing was not a set
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decorator's whim, but is based on the Satanic goat first drawn by nineteenth
century magician Eliphas Levi, and later adapted by German occultist Oswald
Wirth. Also seen in the opening title sequence of THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, this goat
symbol would appear in all subsequent Hammer films with a black magical theme.
The demon that materializes in this scene has recently aroused the ire of the
politically correct, since the part was played by a black man. Fisher certainly didn't
intend to send a racist message; hundreds of accounts of Black Sabbaths described
the appearance of the Devil as a black man, sometimes an Ethiopian.
Mocata's hypnotic influence calls Simon and Tanith to an orgiastic rite
held in the forest. De Richleau intrudes on the ceremony, arriving in time to
witn ess the actual calling forth of the Devil (Eddie Powell), who appears as a goat­
headed man. "The Goat of Mendes! The Devil Himself!" the Due exclaims. His
arcane reference, also unexplained, is to the ancient Egyptian cult of Mendes,
which venerated a lascivious goat-god said to copulate with favoured mortal
females. Many of the Judaeo-Christian Devil's traditional attributes seem to have
been borrowed from this pagan deity.
Several other obscure magical references in THE DEVIL RIDES OUT are
worthy of explication. Mocata is referred to mysteriously as an lpsissimus - a word
which will mean nothing to those unversed in the magical arts. In the traditional
in itiatory degree system utilized by the Golden Dawn and its heirs, an lpsissimus
is considered to be a magician that has passed to the highest state of magical
awareness. Crowley, not surprising ly, told Wheatley that he considered h imself to
have reached this exalted stage of self-development, a grade which he conferred
upon himself in his Abbey of Thelema during the 1 920s. That Mocata shares this
title with Crowley illustrates how completely Wheatley modeled his fictional
Satan ist on the magician. In the brief explanation of Mocata's cult that de
Richleau provides his associates with, the phrase "left hand path" is used for the
fi rst and only time in the Satanic cinema of the twentieth century. Of course, as
we have seen, Crowley did not consider himself to be an initiate of the left hand
path at all, and would probably have been offended by this reference.
In a scene masterfully d irected and edited by Terence Fisher, Mocata pays
a polite visit to Marie Eaton (Sarah Lawson), who he knows is hiding Tanith and
Simon. Although his intentions are malign, Mocata is the very picture of the
English gentleman, presenting his visiting card at the door. He attempts to
convince Marie that "the sinister reputation attached to magic is entirely
ground less and is based on superstition rather than objective observation ... "
Quoting Crowley d irectly, Mocata describes magic as a discipline beyond both
"good and evil. .. it is merely a science of causing change to occur by means of
one's will" As h e soothingly expands on the subject, we see that Mocata's will is
so focused that Marie is falling under his hypnotic command. Fisher cuts from the
tension of this scene to reveal that h is will has extended to Simon and Tanith as
well. Until Marie's young daughter Peggy (Rosalyn Landor) enters the room and
breaks her mother's trance, Mocata provides the most philosophical explanation
of magic ever heard in any film. Simultaneous ly, Fisher marvellously conveys
mag ic's power in purely cinematic terms. Dropping all pretences of stra ined
cou rtesy, Marie demands that Mocata leave immediately. The Satanist's parting
shot is delivered with icy resolve: "I shall not be back, but someth ing will. Tonight.
Something will come for Simon and the girl." Gray del ivers his lines with all the
smug threat he can muster.
Forewarned, de Richleau realizes that he can only fight magic with magic.
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s • 129
Preparing for a n expected onslaught from the Satan ists, he draws a protective
magical circle around h i mself and his all ies. Mocata begins by hypnotically
persuading one of d e Richleau's friends that such measures are merely
superstition. When this fails, apparitions are sent to tempt them from the circle,
one of which is a huge hallucinated tarantula. Mocata, fearing magical reprisal,
forces his acolyte Tanith to call on the Angel of Death to destroy his opponents.
Attacking the circle on a rearing steed, Death is only d issuaded when the Due
utters the words of the Susamma ritual, a spell that has the power to warp space
and time.
It is typical of Christopher Lee's total dedication to his role that he
researched the Susamma ritual at the British Museum Library, to assure that his
delivery of the text was correct. The dialogue in the scene is not a figment of
Richard Matheson's imagination, but the actual ritual. Although the Angel of
Death is ban ished, Tanith dies as a consequence - it was she who summoned the
entity. When Mocata assembles his disciples at a desecrated church to celebrate
the sacrifice of the child Peggy, de Richleau disrupts the ceremony. The Due
destroys the black magicians with an invocation of the Lords of Lig ht. The
Susamma ritual has worked: time is altered and Tanith is restored to life. The
Angel of Death, who can never return empty-handed, has taken Mocata instead.
Fisher was very often a journeyman director who accepted whatever work
was assigned to him. In the case of THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, he was deeply involved
with aspects of production he had previously left to Hammer executives. For
instance, he personally selected the performers for two of the most important
roles. His choice of Charles Gray in the part of Mocata was inspired. In Wheatley's
novel, Mocata is simply a cardboard villain, a nasty foreigner left over from the
age of the penny-dreadfuls. Gray's interpretation of Mocata is a far more subtle
and attractive personality, the living incarnation of what Fisher often called "the
charm of evil" In the important supporting role of Tanith Carlise. Mocata's
disciple, Fisher decided on casting N ike Arrighi. Her qu irky personality and odd
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beauty are well suited to her role as a woman search ing for spiritual answers in
the dark teachings of lpsissimus Mocata. The Hammer front office would have
preferred to see one of the feather-weight blonde and buxom heroines they
usually decorated their horror films with, but Fisher insisted on Arrighi.
There are a few weakn esses that undermine the total success of the film.
Particularly in the scene where all of Mocata's powers are u nleashed against de
Richleau's magic circle, the special effects seem cheap and poorly executed. A
d i m ly conceived Angel of Death, which should inspire awesome dread, is distinctly
unimpressive. The ostensibly wild orgy scene that presages the appearance of the
Goat of Mendes is much too tame to seem very diabolical, even by 1 967 standards.
Although Hammer originally planned a more appropriately erotic bacchanal, the
prudish censor insisted that proper Br itish Satanists must keep all their clothes on
whilst o rgying.
THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, for all of its strengths, was not the box office
success Hammer had hoped for. When d istributors feared that the title THE DEVIL
RIDES OUT might give American aud iences the false idea that the film was a
western, the title was changed to the bland THE DEVIL'S BRIDE for its U.S. release.
In production before ROSEMARY'S BABY, the film must be considered the true
forerunner of the major diabolical cycle that swept through the cinema from
1 968-1 976.
During one of tlie promotional interviews Christopher Lee provided at the
'
time of TH E DEVIL RIDES OUT's release in early 1968, the actor noted that
"Satanism is rampant in London today. It's generally acknowledged in certain
circles that the so-called swinging city is a hot-bed of Devil worship and such
practices - just ask the police." But one hardly needed to consult the authorities
to verify Lee's claim. Devil Chic was as much a part of the nouveau riche h i ppie
scene as LSD, ha lf-baked Eastern mysticism, and pseudo-Edward ian clothing. The
Rolling Stones' mind-blown 1 967 man ifesto Their Satanic Majesties Request had
already illustrated the dark d i rection they were taking. On the specially printed
3-D album photo, the surly musicians posed as medieval wizards, signalling their
recently discovered interest in black magic. One of their more successful groupies,
the sin ister bea uty Anita Pallen berg, scion of an aristocratic fami ly, had introduced
the Rolling Stones' doomed bassist Brian Jones to her Satanic practise. Pallenberg
essayed a sadistic space siren in Vadim's camp living comic book BARBARELLA
(1 967), and would go on to appear as an ambisexual seductress in 1 968's
PERFORMANCE (released in 1970). The latter, disturbing fi l m was co-directed by
Donald Cam me II, whose father was the poet Charles Richard Cammell, a one-time
associate of Crowley in the thirties. Donald Cammell's remin iscences of being
bounced on an avuncular Great Beast's knees as a lad earned him a certa in
amount of cachet in Luciferian London, as well as the role of Osiris in fellow
Thelemite Kenneth Anger's LUCIFER RISING.
As Brian Jones drifted into narcotic oblivion, Pallen berg shared her witchy
charms with Mick Jagger and Keith Richard, who subsequently went through their
own di lettantism with diabol ism. It was into this climate that temperamental
Crowleyite film-maker Kenneth Anger drifted, promising to be the Rolling Stones'
tutelary Magus. Anita Pallenberg was particularly impressed with Anger's
reputation as a sorcerer. Jagger, flirting with film himself, was intrigued with
what he heard of Anger's latest opus in progress, known as LUCIFER RISING. The
film-maker promised that his new film would be the last word on "the angel­
demon of light and beauty named Lucifer Lucifer is the Rebel Angel behind
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s • 131
Anita Pallenberg, Mick Jagger in Donald Cammell's Performance.
what's happening in the world today. His message is that the Key of Joy is
disobedience." Anger hoped that Jagger would take on the role of Lucifer in his
bedeviled production, which had already gained the reputation of being a cursed
film. The legend of LUCIFER RISING's bad vibes fascinated Pallenberg and Jagger
The film's first Lucifer, a child named Godot, died before any footage
could be shot. Godot's death was as existentially absurd as his B eckettian name
- like the fallen angel he had been cast as, he tumbled to his death through a
skylight at the age of five. Anger's next dark star was Bobby "Lucifer" Beausoleil,
a devilishly handsome musician with amb itions to appear in the movies. Anger did
manage to shoot a few scenes of Beausoleil for his Aquarian epic but Lucifer #2
abandoned the project - and Anger - after the inevitable falling out. According
to Anger, Beausoleil had sto len reels of LUCIFER RISING at a celebrated San
Fran cisco ritual/happening known as the Equ inox of the Gods, celebrated on the
Fall Equi nox of 1 967. The legend, perpetuated by Anger, maintains that Bobby
buried the footage in the desert. Beausoleil insists that these events never
happened, and that he was simply being scapegoated by the notoriously vind ictive
- an d imaginative - movie-making Magus. Beausoleil has also stated that Anger
couldn't afford the cost of getting what little footage actually existed from the
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
developing lab, and concocted the accusation to appease creditors. Whatever the
facts may be, Anger duly placed one of his famous curses on h is protege. When
Beausoleil was convicted in 1 969 for his compl icity in one of the first of the
Manson related murders, Anger announced that his curse had been efficacious.
The Magus m used that "One thing I've found is that since my film is
about demons - but love demons - I have to work fairly fast because they tend
to come and go ... a demon is just a convenient way of labelling a force." He
hoped that his prospective third Lucifer, M ick Jagger, would prove to be a more
stable elemental. The Magus instructed Jagger as to what rare occult books to
purchase at London's more exclusive antiquaries. It was during the time that
Anger served as the Rolling Stones' court wizard that Jagger read the 1 930s novel
The Master And Margherita by Mikhail Bulgakov, which tells the tale of Satan's
visit to Russia after the revolution. The novel, and Anger's positive conception of
Lucifer, inspired Jagger to write that enduring infernal anthem " Sympathy For the
Devil" (Yugoslavian d i rector Alexander Petrovic later adapted the novel into his
u neven 1 972 film THE MASTER AND MARGHER ITA.)
Director Jean-Luc Godard, Gallic pioneer of nouvelle vague cinema,
perhaps intrigued by the radical potential of Lucifer as ultimate revolutionary,
filmed the recor.ding sessions in which "Sympathy For The Devil" was laid on tape.
H i s 1 968 documentary ONE PLUS ONE (SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL) intersperses
·
the creation of the Rolling Stones' popular Satanic psalm with didactic readings
of Marxist tracts. Godard's film is an unholy marriage of left hand path
romanticism and left wing dogma, echoing some of the politically charged pro­
Sata n ic sentiment of pre-Soviet ana rchists like Bakunin. SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL
also shows how the song was transformed from a mock-religious piece replete
with pipe organ to its less interesting blues-based form. On a human level, it is a
tragic document of the d isintegration of Brian Jones, who seems to wither
onscreen like a living portrait of Dorian Gray. Jones would meet his mysterious
death shortly after the film's completion. Hardly one of Godard's greatest
ach ievem ents, it remains worthwhile for its documentary value, freezing an exotic
moment in time in the cruel lucid ity of the director's icy gaze.
It's rather surprising that Feder ico Fellini, whose work overflows with
terrifying and satiric images inspired by religion, only briefly turned his
phantasmagoric lens on the figure of the Devil. Fellini's short but sweet
contribution to the Satanic cinema is the final episode in 1 968's Edgar Allan Poe
anthology HISTOIRES EXTRAORDINAIRE, released in the English speaking world as
SPIRITS OF THE DEAD. Inspired only by the most tenuous thread of Felliniesque
fancy on Poe's short story "Never Bet The Devil Your Head", the brief but striking
sequence features Terence Stamp as Toby Dammitt, an arrogant English movie
star. He arrives in Rome practica lly pickled in booze, prepared to shoot the first
Catholic Western. Damm itt is haunted by the apparition of a n enigmatically
smiling little girl (Marian Yaru) who mockingly bounces a white ball. When the
actor is given a new Maserati by the producers of the film, he drives drunkenly
over a dilapidated bridge. In a daredevi l mood, he promises his head to the Devil
if he doesn't survive the jump. Sure enough, he's decapitated by a hidden wire.
The little girl, who is actually the Devil, now bounces Toby's head in place of her
ball. It seems fitting that Fellini, obsessed with womankind, would imagine Lucifer
as a perversely seductive girl-child.
A psychopathic transvestite in love with his mummified mother
M u rderous flocks of birds that seemed to herald the apocalypse. Such strangeness
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
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133
had long been� Alfred H itchcock's cup of tea. However, the gal leys for an
unpublished novel he had been sent as a possible film project by agent Martin
Birdt was going too far even for the master of suspense. The book concerned a
young woman in modern Manhattan that comes to suspect her seemingly
innocuous neighbours of involvement with witchcraft. As her fears deepen, she
realizes that her own husband has conspired with the coven next door to provide
her soon-to-be-born baby to the cultists. The witches believe that her child is the
literal spawn of Satan, awaiting his birth as the dawn of a new demonic age.
The unshockable H itchcock was appalled. He had, after all, been brought
up as a good Roman Catholic. This sinister new book offended the portly British­
born auteur's pious nature, and he turned the project down. Disappointed, B i rdt
offered his property to the poor man's Hitchcock, horror kingpin William Castle.
The brash di rector of such exploitation scare shows as THE TINGLER and HOUSE
ON HAUNTED HILL had none of H itch's moral misgivings. Castle placed his bet o n
Beelzebub and purchased the fi l m rights for Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin for
$ 1 00,000. When the novel was published, it became an immediate best-seller,
sparking a wave of popular fascination with Satan ism that hit much deeper than
the previously discussed diabolism of the counterculture underground. Although
it wasn't a particularly accomplished work i n terms of literary style, Levin's book
resonated with an undetected shadow zone in the 1 960s zeitgeist. Thanks to
Rosemary's Lucifer ian labour pains, housewives and harried hubbies were chatting
about Devil worship at suburban cocktail parties.
The somewhat shady Robert Evans from Paramount struck a deal with
Castle to rush a film of the bestseller into production. Castle hoped to direct
h imself, but Paramount snubbed him by insisting that ROSEMARY'S BABY required
a "real director" Polish emigre Roman Polanski, late of DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES,
struck Evans as possessing the dark sensibility the film called for. In REPULSION
(1 965), Polanski had already laid bare a young woman's claustrophobic descent
into paranoia with nightmarish realism. Like ROSEMARY'S BABY, the earlier film
was set in the cloistered confines of an apartment house, made sinister by the
central character's fearful fantasies.
A haunting lullaby theme by Krysztof Komeda begins the film on a
deceptively lyrical note, as Polanski pans across the New York skyline. Fresh and
innocent Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and ambitious actor husband Guy Woodhouse
(John Cassavetes) are shown an odd but enchanting apartment in the
distinguished Bramford Building (actually the Dakota). Rosemary's avuncular older
friend Hutch (Maurice Evans) warns Rosemary that the Bramford has a dark
history of suicide, cannibalism, and even a reputed invocation of the Devil by
infamous warlock Adrian Marcato. The couple move into the gothic edifice a l l the
same. One o f their neigh bours, a young woman named Terry, leaps to her death
one night. At the scene of the tragedy, the Woodhouses meet the elderly Roman
(Sidney Blackmer) and Minnie (Ruth Gordon) Castavet, with whom Terry lived.
Invited to dinner by the eccentric couple, Rosemary is slightly offended by
Roman's anti-Catholic remarks. Although Guy initially insists on keeping his
distance from the nosy pair, he surprisingly begins to visit them regularly on his
own. A rival for a part Guy wants is struck blind, and h e wins the role instead.
Guy is suddenly taken with the idea of having a baby. They prepare a romantic
dinner at home to set the mood for conception, when Minnie drops off a specially
made batch of chocolate mousse, which has a d istinct "chalky" undertaste.
Rosemary passes out on their bed, drugged, and experiences a very realistic
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
Rosemary's
Baby.
nightmare. One of the best dream sequences ever filmed, it concludes with visions
of the Castavets and others chanting in the nude while what appears to be the
bestial figure of Satan (Clay Tanner) rapes her "This isn't a dream, this is really
happening ! " Rosemary screams.
This scene, filmed beautifully by cinematographer Bill Fraker seems to
reflect Polanski's own negative experiences with LSD, which he recounts in his
autobiography. The dream sequence was latched onto by acid-heads of t he time
as the perfect visual accompaniment for their mind-manifesting experiences, a n d
ROSEMARY'S BABY became a favoured movie to watch while dropping acid.
When Rosemary awakens from her drugged visitation, there are deep
scratches o n her back, which Guy claims he made while having sex with her
u n conscious body. When she learns that she's pregnant, the Castavets i nsist that
she allow their friend Dr. Sapirstein to attend to her. H e suggests that she drink
a herbal potion that Minnie makes for her every day with plants from her garden.
From a state of unease, she becomes completely paranoid. Her friend Hutch dies
mysteriously, leaving her a book called All Of Them Witches, from which she
learns that Roman Castavet is actually Steven Marcato, son of Satan ist Adrian
M arcato, who once lived in the Bramford.
She despairingly realizes that G uy's sudden success as an actor is due to
his i nitiation into the Castavet's Satanic coven, and that he has promised them her
baby for their rituals. Suspecti n g that they plan to sacrifice the i nfant, she
attempts to escape, to n o avail. She is abducted from a doctor's office where she
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
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Rosemary's Baby.
attempted to hide a n d brought back to the Bramford. Dr. Sapirstein injects her,
and she's knocked out. When she awakens she's told that her baby died, but
when she hears an infant's cry she enters the Castavet's apartment, armed with
a kitchen knife. There she finds a gathering of Satanists from all over the world.
They're celebrating the birth of her son, who is d isplayed in a black cradle. Named
Adrian after Roman's father, Rosemary's baby symbolizes the advent of a new
Satanic age. Her maternal insti ncts win out over her fear, and she rocks the cradle
lovingly. "What have you done to his eyes?" she asks. "He has his father's eyes,"
Castavet smi les.
The film is remarkably free of the cliches that marred previous films of
Satan ism. To cite only one of the most obvious examples, Castavet's coven are not
bloodth irsty fiends slavering to commit blood sacrifices.
ROSEMARY'S BABY is brilliantly directed, and superbly acted by its entire
cast. For a l l that, the i mportance of Krysztof Komeda's excellent score to building
the atmosphere cannot be overestimated. The tremendous commercial and artistic
success of ROSEMARY'S BABY transformed-the film into an unprecedented cultural
phenomenon. Like all media events that touch the collective unconscious, a
mythology of its own was generated, which still has a life of its own some thirty
years later Few films have been so written about, analyzed, and d issected. Rather
than rehashing these a n alyses, I prefer to examine the ROSEMARY'S BABY
mystique, in an attempt to extricate the actual film Polanski created from the
manifold legends it has inspired.
136 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
Rosemary's Baby.
One of the most persistent of these romantic concepts is that Roman
Polanski is h imself a devotee of the Black Arts, and that his film was constructed
as a del iberate diabolical man ifesto. In fact, nothing could be further from the
truth. Possessed of a deep Eastern European existentialist pessimism, Polanski has
never evidenced the least interest in Satanism o r witchcraft, or any other mystica l
creed. In writing the screenplay, Polanski grappled with his own phi losophy. As
an agnostic, he believed neither in Satan as the incarnation of evil, or in a
personal God; such ideas contradicted his rational world view. He considered black
magic to be nothing but archaic superstition, the stuff of fairytales; it was the
story's themes of alienation, betrayal and isolation - emotions that surface in all
of his work - that attracted him. He resisted presenting the story as if Rosemary's
occult experiences were unquestionably real. Polanski preferred to leave the
possibility open that the seemingly supernatural events were nothing more than
delusions of her fevered imagination. To establish this basic uncertainty about
Rosemary's sanity he decided to film the entire drama through her point of view
alone.
Polanski was strongly influenced i n this by his reading of Professor R . L.
Gregory's Eye And Brain: The Psychology Of Seeing. Accord ing to Gregory, we
actually see much less than we like to believe, and most of our ideas of reality are
based on earlier perceived impressions, d istorted and altered by faulty memory.
By only allowing us to see the world through Rosemary's eyes, Polanski challenges
his audience to question their own perceptions. As an example of how powerfully
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137
this technique worked, it's interesting to note that many viewers of the film have
reported seeing such traditional Satanic features as cloven hoofs and horns in the
final shot of the baby despite the fact that nothing of the kind was actually
fil med. ROSEMARY'S BABY is a precisely targeted exercise in the power of
suggestion. One of the reasons that Satan ists and other metaphysicians have
wrongly assumed that Polanski was one of their own may be the film's surprise
ending, in which Adrian Marcato's coven succeeds in overseeing the birth of the
Devil's son. This victory of Satan must be viewed in context with of all of
Polanski's other work, in which the forces of evil always prevail over the film's
protagonists.
While Polanski may have only intended to create a disquieting study of
psychic pan ic, audiences had been primed by the success of Levin's book and the
growing pop interest in the Satanic to expect the u ltimate cinematic essay on the
Devil. Subsequently, no other film covered in this study was to have such a d irect
effect on common perceptions of Satanism, even influencing would-be Satan ists
t hemselves. ROSEMARY'S BABY became a kind of blueprint for the occult
renaissance of the late 1 960s, quite unintentionally placing the Hollywood seal of
approval on the Black Arts. Putting the cart before the horse, both occultists and
Christians of different stripes have looked i n the film for hidden magical messages
and authentic Satanic lore. Rumours have spread that the film-maker must have
sought technical advice from "real" Satan ists to imbue the film with such seeming
authenticity.
When I asked Gene Gutowski - who was Polanski's closest creative and
business partner in 1 968 - about these speculations, h e assured me the director
was faithfully meticulous in following the dialogue and descriptions in Ira Levin's
book, consulting no technical advisers of any kind.
Of course, no amount of prosa ic facts can stand in the way of the
credulous cult mental ity. More than one relig ious group denounced ROSEMARY'S
BABY as a deliberate propaganda tool of the Devil. At one extreme, there are the
conspiratorial fulminations of the Nubian lslaamic Hebrews. This New York based
black supremacy group proclaimed in their 1984 publ ication L e viathan: 666 that:
" I n the year 1 966, th e Devil. .. gave birth to thirteen children . . . In June 6, 1 966,
Satan gave birth to his son in the western hemisphere (right here in New York).
We the black and Latin populace did not even know what was going on. The
Devil has camouflaged these factual events in a series of movies, and has told you
the truth without you even realizing it! The first movie that dealt with the birth
of his son was ROSEMARY'S BABY On June 6, 1 966 Satan was born in the flesh
unto Rosemary in New York ... " The author, Al lmaam lsa AI Haadi al Mahdi, goes
on to inform us that "Rosemary was not a fictitious character, she was a real
Amorite. The name Rosemary (Satan's Mother) was chosen because it symbolizes
the ancestral background of the physical Devil, the Amorites ... " A detailed
etymological analysis of the occult meaning of the name "Rosemary" completes
the argument.
In a similar lunatic vein, the Church of Satan has officia lly maintained since
1 968 that its founder, Anton Szandor LaVey, was hired by Roman Polanski to
provide technical advice for the film. Going one step further, LaVey's fol lowers
also insist that their guru even played a (conveniently uncredited) cameo role as
the Devil in ROSEMARY'S BABY's famous dream-rape sequence. In The Devil's
Avenger, the first of two misleading "objective" pseudo-biographies written
under LaVey's supervision, it is bold-faced ly stated that "In October of 1 967 Anton
138
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski.
was flown to Hollywood for two weeks ... Despite his presence, the Paramount­
Polanski film did not convey a true portrait of a modern Satanic cult... At least the
demon used to sire Rosemary's baby was close to being an authentic devil. It was
Anton, dressed in a costume of latex fur and reptilian scales ...
There was indeed such a costume. However, the actor who wore it was
not LaVey, but an actor named Clay Tanner, credited as playing the Devil in
Paramou nt's cast information. Still photographs taken on the set by photographer
Bob Willoughby clearly show the Satanically costumed Tanner standing astride a
prone Mia Farrow. When I asked Gene Gutowski about the persistent LaVey
rumour, he laughingly denied that the Church of Satan, or any other sect, had any
association with ROSEMARY'S BABY In the extensive coverage which William
Castle gives the production of the film in his 1 992 autobiography Step Right Up!
I'm Gonna Scare The Pants Right Off America, there is no hint of LaVey's
involvement, nor has any one involved with the film ever supported this claim.
Roman Polanski's 1 984 autobiography also covers every aspect of his most famous
film without ever mentioning LaVey.
Despite this abundance of evidence to the contrary, LaVey's putative
cameo became an article of faith among the Church of Satan's true believers.
Indeed, for the subscribers of LaVey's cult of perso nality to question their leader's
bogus claim would be the most unthinkable heresy. (The Church of Satan is surely
the only religious body to include belief in its founder's appearance in a movie as
part of its official dogma.) This Warholian twentieth century phenomenon is
"
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
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139
reflective of the thin line between show biz celebrity and religious veneration.
When I first interviewed LaVey in 1 988, he was still m i lking this fabrication
for all it was worth. Like many an unwary researcher before and since, I repeated
his tall tale, not yet aware of his penchant for deception. LaVey did have one
tenuous connection with the film: He appeared at its San Francisco premiere as
a publicity gimmick to d rum up business. Perhaps it was his participation in this
promotional event that inspired him to invent the story. Ironically, when LaVey
died i n 1 997, obituaries often cited his purported appearance in ROSEMARY'S
BABY as one of his life's accomplishments.
Finally, there is the stubborn legend of the curse of ROSEMARY'S BABY
Informing this superstitious mythology seems to be the notion that anyone who
dares to make a film about the Devil is asking for trouble, and deserves to die.
Cited as "proof" of the-curse is the fatal brain aneurysm of the film's composer,
Krysztof Komeda, the uremic poisoning that forced producer William Castle into
the hospital, and most melodramatically, the 1 969 murder of Polanski's wife
Sharon Tate. The culprit gui lty of connecting these three incidents and inflating
them into a supernatural malediction would appear to be William Castle himself.
One must keep in mind that Castle had long been a master of contriving
the most outlandish publ icity for his films; exploiting the unrelated deaths of
others to garner more attention for his film would not be beyond him. In
interview after interview, Castle pitched his tales of diabolical influence to
potential customers, sounding like a spook-show barker at the carnival. He told
interviewer John Brosnan that "I went through several experiences on that film
that can be put down to coincidence or the occult, depending on which side
you're on. Many unexplainable things happened. It was quite phenomenal. . . After
a l l the peculiar things that happened I just fell apart. I was recuperating in San
Francisco when I saw the headlines about the Sharon Tate murders. That was all
I needed. I drove right down to Los Angeles, went to Paramount where Roman
was and fell apart aga in.'; To his credit, Polanski has never contributed to this
nonsense, which Castle seemed to resent, saying that, "Roman is a strange man.
He believes in nothing except what he sees, whereas I bel ieve in the occult and
evil forces ... That sort of thing had never happened on any of my other horror
films, but the ones I made before ROSEMARY were on a superficial level. They
didn't deal with the Devil or the occult. . . I do believe that the film which I lived
through and almost died through was controlled by some unexplainable force ...
When Sharon Tate was killed, it became popular wisdom to assert that the
actress' death was Satanic retribution against Polanski, or perhaps divine
punishment for his making of the blasphemous ROSEMARY'S BABY Polanski
received a torrent of hate mail from religious fanatics, offended by his film. When
he was interviewed by Lt. Earl Deemer of the Los Angles Po lice after the murders,
Polanski speculated: "I wouldn't be surprised if I were the target... it could be
some kind of witchcraft, you know." The symbolism of the pregnant woman
menaced by supposed Devil worshippers was seen by many as an example of life
imitating art. That the true motives for the crime had nothing to do with
Satanism, and that the Manson Family were actually far more Christian in their
beliefs than anyth ing else did not dissuade these wild theories.
The impact of ROSEMARY'S BABY on the Satanic cinema can hardly be
overestimated. Its popular success moved the Devil from the margins of the film
world to the centre, d irectly inspiring a tidal wave of d iabolical movies that
surged around the world for a fu ll decade after its release. One of those rare films
"
140
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Curse Of The Crimson Altar.
that transcends its original beginnings as simple escapist enterta inm ent, it was
e levated by its myste rious inner force into its own dark myth. ROSEMARY'S BABY
was fortuitously released at exactly the right time, capitalizing on and helping to
create the sixties occult revival that it will always be associated with.
The first film rushed into production to cash in on the ROSEMARY-inspired
Devil craze is THE CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR aka THE CRIMSON CULT (1 968),
produced by former Polanski associate Tony Tenser. Suggested by H.P. Lovecraft's
moody short story "The Dreams In The Witch-House", and featuring an excellent
once-in-a-lifetime cast of Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee and Barbara Steele, the
film had all the ingredients required to mix a superior witch's brew.
U nfortunately, a badly constructed and confusing screenp lay, misdirected by the
un inspired and elderly Vernon Sewell, botches the job. Although there's a few
eye-catching images, this must be counted a m issed opportunity . Antique dealer
Manning (Mark Eden), visits Greymarsh Lodge, where his missing brother was last
seen. The Lodge's squi re, J.D. Morley (Christopher Lee), who seems a pleasant
enough chap, informs him that he's never met his brother. That night, an ancient
folk festival known as Witch's Night is celebrated, commemorating the burning
of the witch Lavinia (Barbara Steele) in the 1 7th century. Manning experiences a
series of vivid dreams of Lavinia, in which she presides over sadomasochistic arcane
rites with the cruel command of a demonic. dominatrix. These dream sequences,
filmed with flair by the always inventive John Coquillon, provide the picture with
its only cinematic interest. The formidably photogenic Steele is ma levolence
personified - daubed in green, bedecked with ram's horns, seated haughtily o n
a throne. Coquillon shoots the dream sequences with a striking use o f coloured
fi lters, although the psychedelic influence of the nightmare in ROSEMARY'S BABY
is q u ite apparent. Karloff, as wheelchair-bound occult expert Professor Marsh is
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE 1960s
•
141
given I ittle to do. He warns the hero that Morley is a warlock with the blood of
Lavinia in his veins, who plans to avenge his ancestress by killing him. It's quite a
come-down from Karloff's heyday as Hjalmar Poelzig in THE BLACK CAT In the
final scene, Lee transforms into Lavinia, shortly before the manor is consumed in
the inevitable flames. It's a sign of the film-maker's lack of insight that Lee,
Karloff and Steele never appear together in the same scene. Some atmosphere is
added by the location shooting at the famously haunted Grimsdyke Hall. THE
CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR marked the end of Barbara Steele's reluctant
reign as '60s Queen of the Witches, and she never appeared in another occult
role. With the refreshing honesty that has so endeared her to the film ind ustry,
Steele adm itted that, " I just flew in and did that one to pay the rent."
Unfortunately, the film itself seems to have been made in the same cava lier spirit.
The libidinous ways of Satan were emphasized again in the lud icrous TO
HEX WITH SEX (1 969), which exploited the growing fascination with witchcraft
and the simultaneous relaxation of pornography laws in one fell swoop. The
luscious Lucibel (Paula Shaw) is a d istaff Devil who promises a world of erotic
delight to the introverted Marvin (Stefan Peters) - in exchange for the traditional
promise of his soul. The thin overlay of diabolism is basically a pretext for some
rather predictable scenes in which Martin's sexual fantasies are realized. Di rector
Simon Nuchtern's films usually only found distribution on the American South's
sleaze circuit. This opus is only notable as the harbinger of an increasing trend for
blue movies about black magic that would take on steam in the '70s.
There could be no more fitting coda for the age of cinematic psychedelic
Satanism than Kenneth Anger's INVOCATION OF MY DEMON BROTHER (1 969). Its
eleven intense minutes of hallucinatory imagery comprise an essential time capsule
of the '60s' dark side. Although it consists of a few condensed fragments from the
d irector's never completed first version of LUCIFER RISING, his original concept of
Lucifer as angel of Love has been entirely altered. The mood is aggressive,
assaulting the viewer with the shadowy spirit of violence that had overtaken the
Age of Aquarius. At the centre of the kaleidoscope is Anger, seen in the robes of
a ceremonial magician, man ically performing a cryptic ritual. The di rector,
describing his original conception of LUCIFER RISING said: " I'm showing actual
ceremonies in the film; what is performed in front of the camera won't be a re­
enactment and the purpose will be to make Lucifer rise ... " We observe flashes of
conjurations and group workings, a rapid onslaught of superimpositions building
to a hypnotic rhythm, imprinting a lmost imperceptible glimpses of occult talismans
and Crowleyan symbols on the spectator's mind. Anger isn't using his visuals to
commun icate to the observer, but to impose his hermetic inner world on to the
onlooker's subconscious.
Most prominently featured, in the role of Lucifer, is Bobby Beausoleil,
Anger's lost fallen angel. At the same time the film premiered, August of 1 969,
Beausoleil was arrested for the murder of drug-dealer Gary Hinman. In one scene
in INVOCATION OF MY DEMON BROTHER, Beausoleil is seen brandishing a k nife.
Anger provided his erstwhile friend Anton LaVey with his first screen appearance,
filming the so-ca lled Black Pope glaring for a few seconds in his usual Devil
costume. Apparently, the Satanic generation gap produced a few tense moments
between LaVey and Anger's current inamorata Bobby Beausoleil. The two Devils
locked horns during the shoot. Beausoleil, interviewed by Anger's biographer Bill
Landis, remembered LaVey wearing "the cap with the plastic horns on it - That's
why 1 cal l him the plastic devil... There's such a contrast between him and me ... l
142
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Kenneth Anger in his own Invocation OfMy Demon Brother.
always knew I was a presence. What comes naturally to me was like plastic horns
to him . . I thought he was a fuckin' jerk ...
Propelling the film is Mick Jagger's deliberately repetitive electronic score,
played on one of the fi rst commercially available Moog synthesizers. Jagger is a lso
seen briefly, in footage shot by Anger at the memorial concert for Brian Jones.
Jagger would himself witness death in 1 969, at the fiasco of the free concert he
held at Altamont. Tiring of dabbling with the Devil, he eventually burnt all the
magical gifts Anger had given him, and took to wearing a prominent crucifix. The
Altamont murder seems eerily prophesied by Anger's superimposition of a skull
over a shot of lurking Hell's Angels. Quick red flashes of U.S. soldiers jumping
from a helicopter evoke the gods of War. While the dated hippie extras and
general druggie am bience mitigate against the sense of time lessness Anger aimed
for, the film's in-depth focus on black magic ritual and the figures of lucifer and
Satan assure its place in the diabolical cinema. INVOCATION OF MY DEMON
BROTHER is the secret threnody for the '60s, summoning all the demons of a
decade for one last hurrah.
.
"
DELUGE AND BACKLASH :
THE 1970s
Rosemary was more fertile than she could have known. Inspired by the box-office
muscle of Polanski's break-through film, and the concomitant rise of i nterest in
occultism, 1 970s moviemakers churned out more Satanic films than at any other
time in the twentieth century.
Quantity, of course, rarely betokens quality. Indeed, one unfortunate side­
effect of the ROSEMARY phenomenon was that the Devil was now relegated
a l most exclusively to the ghetto of the horror film. Satanism on screen quickly
ossified into a formulaic subgenre of m onster movie, which only occasionally
a l lowed for personal vision to break through a rapidly congealing formula.
Neverthe less, with such an abundance of activity in the field all over the world,
more than a few dark gems were crafted. The sheer immensity of the 1 970s glut
forbids coveri ng a// of the relevant pictures produced in those years; the most that
can be provided is a general overview of the most im portant trends.
Considering the media-fuelled expansion of public participation in pop
Satanism and witchcraft in the early '70s, perhaps it is appropriate that we
commence our study of Satanic cinema in this era with a trio of documentaries
rather than a fictional work. On a slightly more elevated plane than the average
Mondo film is SATANIS: THE DEVIL'S MASS (1 970), Ray Laurent's documentary
study of Anton Szandor LaVey's Church of Satan. Although the film received no
distribution beyond its brief run at one San Francisco theatre, it's worth seeing as
a candid snapshot of one of the '60s' most amusing fad religions.
The Church of Satan was founded by San Francisco based Anton Szandor
LaVey, who came into this world in 1 930 as Howard Stanton Levey. Although he
falsely claimed a colourful background as a circus l ion trainer and a police
photographer, the facts show that he really made his living as a lounge organ ist.
In the m i d -'60s, LaVey began holding Friday night lectures in the living room of
his home on such topics as hau nted houses, vampirism, cannibalism, and ESP.
Charging two dollars a head for these talks, the occult impresario began to make
a name for h i mself as a local eccentric, while augmenting his income at the same
time. Edward Webber, a regular at the bar where LaVey was employed, happened
to be a professional publicity agent. He suggested that LaVey should "start some
kind of religion" to capitalize on h is new-found celebrity. After a n ewspaper
article happened to off-handedly call LaVey "the priest of the Devil", a gimmick
was born. In 1 966, Webber helped LaVey officially incorporate a small business
registered as The Church of Satan, Inc.
At first, the Church of Satan was primarily covered by the then preva lent
nudie magazines that featured several spreads of LaVey posing with naked
witches on his altar In his exalted position as High Pr iest, LaVey began wearing
a plastic devil horn cap and carrying a pitchfork as signs of his office. All of this
had been seen before in Paris of the 1 890s. when earlier entrepreneurs had
charged tourists admission to theatrical Black Masses that featured cavorting
demi-mondaines.
Fad ing screen sex symbol Jayne Mansfield was briefly involved with LaVey,
until her manager decided that a publ icly perceived connection with Satanism
might not be useful for her none too robust film career. When Mansfield died in
an automobile accident, LaVey wasted no time in al lowing certa in journalists to
144
THE SATANIC SCREEN
•
cult In San Francisco that advocates evil:
wltchcr�ft, Just irJI!lals, black maclc, h ���� ·
:� r- .
sacrifices, and total se1ual freedom.
A
·
·
·
'
l
·· ·
Satan is
In l lltmaneolor • A m,., by "•Y laurent
Under 11 Hot Acfmlt1atl
• A lharpht ,.•1•••• • P'araone
''Anton LaVey, t h fl Pope or the Chu rch of S a t a n .
looms large i n ' S a t � n i a '
I c a n hones tly s a y
that I view t h e Church of Sata11 w1t h tu lly a s much
respect as I "View any church."
-John Waa . . rman, S.F. Chronicle
••
·
•
•
A nton LaVey
Occult lor•arer
know that she had been the accidental victim of one of his Satanic curses. Just as
he traded on his little white lie concerning his claimed involvement with
ROSEMARY'S BABY, the High Priest found that he could ride on the coat-tails of
even the least im pressive celebrities for years.
In 1 967, several media events were staged in rapid succession, and with
Webber's journalistic conn ections, the new religion/business was up .a nd running.
The work of attracting customers now began in ea rnest. LaVey invited the media
to witness "the first Sata nic wedding", in which a local social ite and journalist
pretended to take their vows with LaVey presiding over the ceremony. John
Raymond, who posed as the groom, later remembered LaVey laughing at how
"the rubes" had been taken in by the bogus rite. Like all con artists, he reserved
a special contempt for those who were taken in by his act, especially his naive
followers. Next, LaVey opened the doors of his home for journalists to document
"the first Satanic Baptism" The couple whose child was to be baptized backed out
at the last m in ute, but the show had to go on. LaVey substituted his own
daughter, obligingly performing a ceremony of baptism no less than three times
for the clicking cameras. The final diabolic photo op of 1 967 was "the first Satanic
funeral", which found black-robed LaVey followers posing grimly with the coffin
of a sailor who had joined the Church.
Venturing into a less disguised form of enterta inment was Anton LaVey's
Top less Witches Review, a nude revue at a strip club. Briefly employed by LaVey
for the act was a strung-out stripper named Susan Atkins, who went on to join
that other 1 960s performance artist Charles Manson, in his travelling troupe of
performers. We have already discussed LaVey's publicity stunt of 1 968, which
found him driving up in a hearse to a San Francisco theatre showing ROSEMARY'S
DELUGE AND BACKLASH: THE 1970s
•
145
BABY
In 1 969, LaVey was commissioned by paperback publisher Avon to put
together a book designed to capture the growing occult market ROSEMARY'S
BABY had helped to spawn. Despite its paucity of content, and several allegedly
plag iarized passages, the book establ ished LaVey as the brand name of pop
Satan ism. The Satanic Bible became an obligatory prop for novice magicians and
d isaffected teenagers of all ages. The adolescent pseudo-philosophy espoused in
its pages has no connection to the left hand path in its metaphysical sense, and
is in fact nothing more than a crude exegesis of simple materialism, embellished
with a few elementary spells. What LaVey rather arbitrarily termed "Satanism"
was really atheism sprinkled with diabolical trappings; he made it very clear that
the Devil was nothing more than a symbolic archetype to him, and not an actual
spiritual entity. The very simplicity of these ideas guaranteed the book's success
with LaVey's midd le-brow constituency and offered an instant identity to its
readers.
In 1 970, at the time di rector Ray Laurent was filming SATANIS: THE
DEVIL'S MASS, the Church of Satan was still holding Friday night rituals for its
mem bers at LaVey's home, which he grandly dubbed "the Black House" A few
of these ceremonies are enacted for the camera, with LaVey in full Devil drag for
the occasion. The banal ity of these proceedings is exemplified by LaVey's blessing
of a follower's pen is, in hopes that this consecration will bring the parishioner
better luck with the ladies. One is struck by how terribly middle-class LaVey's
followers are, and for all the nude altars and Beezlebubian bombast, this could
be any '60s encounter group. One female LaVeyist recounts her son's
breakthroughs with masturbation, making it apparent that these individuals are
only marginally concerned with Satanism; they've really come to the Church of
Satan for counse lling with their sex problems. In the context of the sexual
revo lution then in full swing in the San Francisco of 1 970, and LaVey's own talk
of lust and indu lgence, this day in the life of the Church of Satan is curiously
tame. Later that year, LaVey put an end . to the public ceremonies which were
increasingly attracting dangerous lunatics to his doors. It should be noted that
despite his coming to notoriety during the late 1 960s, LaVey always strongly
condemned such man ifestations of the times as rock music and the drug culture.
Ironical ly, after his fall from mass media grace, it was primarily a drugged rock fan
constituency enamoured of heavy metal music that showed any interest in h im.
Ultimately, a consideration of the Church of Satan has surprisingly little
to tell us about the much larger phenomenon of Satan ism it sought to corner the
market on. In actuality, this curious amalgam of business and personal ity cult was
nothing more than an Anton LaVey fan club, and upon its guru's untimely demise,
its break-up into several in-fighting factions was almost inevitable. As for LaVey
himself, he belongs to the shabby h istory of so many contemporary American cult
leaders, who have always exploited Americans' perennial relig ious search by
selling them spiritual snake-oil.
WITCHCRAFT '70 is the U.S. version of a 1 969 Italian Mondo film originally
known as ANGELl BIANCHI. .. ANGELl NERI (WHITE ANGELS... BLACK ANG ELS). Luigi
Scattin i's original European version was fairly thoughtful as far as Mondo films go.
Once in the hands of American Mondo specialist R.L. Frost, it became the usual
exercise in heavy-breathing voyeurism. Frost also had his hand in ECCO and
MONDO FREUDO, two '60s shockumentaries that titillated audiences with Satanic
rites. As is so often the case, the naked witch on the poster art beckoning
146 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
customers into the theatre to see WITCHCRAFT '70 was far more sensational than
anyth ing in the actual film. Although Edmund Purdom's solemn narration
prom ises much, there's only one scene of diabolical relevance: A theatrical
celebration of the Church of Satan's rather chaste Black Mass recreated for the
cameras by Anton LaVey, who obligingly scowls for the camera.
Along the same lines is SEX RITUALS OF THE OCCULT ( 1970) which despite
its proudly lurid title is something of a let-down. We are told that this string of
awkwardly staged ceremonies of fake Satan ism, phoney voodoo, a n d posed sado­
masochism are the genu-ine article. One uncomfortable couple are filmed while
copulating in a coffin, while elsewhere sullen models feign torment in shackles
and chains. I have to admit that this literally put me to sleep, but perhaps I was
hypnotized by the doubtlessly potent gibberish being chanted.
Director Ray Dennis Steckler created a string of obscure exploitation
vehicles (INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES . . . , RAT PFINK A BOO-BOO) that have
since achieved ironic cult status, despite their singular technical incompetence.
Steckler's 1 970 release SINTHIA, THE DEVIL'S DOLL, which began production two
years earlier, claims our attention as his inevitable nod to the Sata n ic fad of the
'60s. This d isjointed assemblage of flash-backs, nudie dream sequences, and murky
drive-in psychology tells the tale of young Sinthia (Shula Roan), who fantasizes
patricide and softcore depravity aplenty, seemingly under the Devil's command.
Here, Steckler's typically crude portrayal of good old sex and violence is blunted
by a dash of self-conscious European art-house pretension. Ever the optim ist, the
d irector has compared his camera work in SINTHIA to that of lngmar Bergman.
One certai n ly sees the awkward attempt at aping the Swede's style, but lngmar
never asked the tantalizing question posed by SINTHIA's poster blurb: "Half
Child ... But All Woman . . . How Abnormal Can a Girl Be?"
TH E DUNWICH HORROR (1 970), obviously designed to appeal to the with­
it witch and warlock movement mushrooming across America, was American
International's experiment in reworking their establ ished formula to fit freakier
times. Earlier, this occult tale would certa inly have been a period piece starring
Vincent Price. With ROSEMARY'S BABY's success, AlP realized that a u diences now
wanted to see black magical stories set in th e present day. Instead of the aging
Price - a grandfatherly figure by 1 970 - the ostensibly g roovier Dean Stockwell
was cast as the heavy. Rather than turning to tried-and-true Poe, the weirder
work of H.P. Lovecraft was mined. The unholy Whateley family have been the
subject of terrified rumour in a New England town for decades. Now, Wilbur
(Dean Stockwell), the youngest of the brood, seeks to evoke the elder gods with
the help of the Necronomicon, that fabled tome of black sorcery. Of course, a
sacrifice is needed, and pert Sandra Dee makes for an ideal altar decoration.
D i rector Daniel Haller, once Corman's ace art d irector, occasionally achieves a n
uncanny atmosphere, sometimes utilizing inventive photographic effects.
Unfortunately, Stockwell wanders through h is role of demonologist for the Now
Generation in a curiously disaffected daze. With his fashionable sideburns and
stoned demeanour, one gets the impression that Wilbur may spend his nights
invoking name less entities from a lternate d imensions, but by day he's probably
protesting against the war in Vietnam with the other students at Miskatonic
U niversity.
Les Baxter's score is effective at first, incorporating some unusual
electronic sanies, but it wears out its welcome through almost laughable
repetition. Despite its attempt to bring gothic occultism into the modern age, THE
DELUGE AND BACKLASH: THE 1970s
•
147
The Dunwicb HoTTOr.
DUNWICH HORROR seems far more dated today than the earlier period pieces it
sought to supplant. Particu larly silly are the pseudo-psychedelic ritual sequences
that feature demonic flower children cavorting before a gauze-covered fish-eye
lens.
American International's CRY OF THE BANSHEE (1 970) has little to do with
the eerie Celtic folklore its title would suggest. An inferior follow-up to the non­
occult historical drama WITCHFINDER GEN ERAL (1 968), the film features Vincent
Price as Lord Edward Whitman, puritanical English witchhunter. A 17th century
provincial mag istrate, Whitman cruelly persecutes a seemingly benevolent Druidic
cult. The presiding witch, Oona (Elisabeth Bergner), in a plot device now taking
on almost painful familiarity, swears revenge on Price's kith and kin. Satan is duly
summoned and beseeched. Oona's vengea nce materializes in the form of a demon
disguised as a handsome young groom, played by Patrick Mower, a veteran of THE
DEVIL RIDES OUT The disgu ised incubus penetrates the sanctity of the
mag istrate's home, where he also penetrates the pious official's comely daughter
Maureen (Hilary Dwyer.) Satan, as embodied by the demonic groom, is a rampant
libido intruding on social modesty, subverting the repression of hypocritical
Christian culture. Playing to the anti-authority attitude of the under-30 audience
to whom the film was marketed, director Gordon Hessler sh ifts our sympathies to
the demonic avenger and the oppressed daughter he sexually liberates. Price
represents the villainous establishment, stamping out the occultism and eroticism
of the younger generation, while masking his own repressed desires (he entertains
incestuous longings for his daughter, even while decrying the wickedness of
others.) The period trappings are merely set decorations that disguise a
generational conflict more relevant to 1 970 than the 1 670s. In its depiction of the
148
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
B/cod On Satan's Claw.
outwardly virtuous magistrate as the malefactor and the sexy demon as anti-hero,
CRY OF THE BANSHEE exalts the Other, albeit in the crude iconography of a
routine monster movie.
Very much in the same English rural witch-burning subgenre is Piers
Haggard's minor but interm ittently intriguing BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW (1970).
When the carcass of the Devil is ploughed up in a 1 7th century rural community,
Satanic influences begin to undermine the town. Sceptical witchfinder Patrick
Wymark i nvestigates, discovering that '70s horror sex symbol Linda Hayden has
formed a coven centred around the macabre relics. Like the Pied Piper, the local
witch has lured the town's children into her demonic fold. The rebellion of these
devilish children against their horrified elders seems to reflect the mood of the
times in fantastic guise. Here, Satanism is depicted as a kind of devolution to an
a n i mal state, in which human skin is supplanted by bestia l fur. The actual
manifestation of this disturbing idea sometimes bord ers on the lud icrous in its
actual handling, but Hayden's transformation from innocent ingenue to demonic
creature is unsettling.
The finale finds the heroic magistrate intruding on a ritual in a desecrated
church, arriving just in time for the Devil himself to be summoned. Alas, Satan's
apparition as a particularly il l-conceived rubber monster is a considerable let-down
after the build-up of mood leading us to this point. Sometimes disjointed and
unfocused, Haggard's style does occasionally allow for a genuinely uncanny
presence to intrude.
In 1 970, presumably Satanic happenings more timely than the 17th
century were readily available on the evening news. The public was seized with
ghoulish fascination by the trial of the recently arrested Manson Family, whose
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m urders were, according to rumour, motivated by dark Satanic currents. Whether
or not the mu rders had any connection to Devil worsh ip - my researches have
ind icated that they did not - was really besides the point to a sensation-starved
public. It was thrilling to think so, and that was good enough for low-budget
producers with a pecuniary interest in giving their undemanding clientele what
they wanted. Diabolic films have always demonized those social forces currently
feared by the masses. Now, an America phobic of its own rebellious off-spring
learned at the movies that h ippies were indeed the Devil's Contemplatives. Several
films released in the bloody wake of the Manson slayings pandered to aud ience's
fears of a counter-culture suddenly deemed to be dangerous.
Puerile Satanic fantasies and fabrications of this kind have continued to
obscure the much more mundane motives that actually led the Manson Family to
commit those supposedly "random" crimes. Such films helped to blur the line
between flig hts of fancy and cold reality, confirming that the lurking h ippy's long
hair was surely concea ling a pair of horns. Since the Mansonoid Satanic film was
a short-lived but lively subgenre that only lasted until 1 972, I'll consider them a l l
in o n e fell swoop.
I DRINK YOUR BLOOD (1971) directed by David Durston, focuses on a
hippy family led by Horace Bones (the Indian dancer Bhaksar). We first see Bones
officiating over his group, the Sons and Daughters of Satan, performing a
nocturnal black magic rite in the woods. His face lit infernally by a blazing fire,
he utters the u nforgettable theological declaration that "Satan is an Acid Head ! "
When the hippies rape a local girl from a nearby town, her young brother
retaliates. He injects a rabid rat's blood into pies which he distributes to the
Satan ists, infecting them with rabies. All Hell breaks loose, and the entire town
of upright establishment types become rabid bloodthirsty fiends. Durston's
comment on the hidden violence of small-town America is unmistakable. One
particularly archetypal scene shows a rabies-demented crew of hard-hatted
construction workers chasing the hippies with murderous intent, a vision torn
from the fantasies of many Americans of the time. Here, Satan ism is a dangerous
social contagion that spreads its infection through such currently feared youth
phenomena as LSD. Far from the refined image of the diabol ists in THE DEVIL
RIDES OUT or ROSEMARY'S BABY, these down-sca le Devil worshippers enterta in
themselves by torturing rats and each other in squalid conditions. The film broke
1 970 boundaries for the sheer amount of blood on screen, its sanguinary scenes
surpassing then-current goremeister Herschel! Gordon Lewis in realism. Redeemed
by its black humour, I DRINK YOUR BLOOD is as sleazily entertaining as an urban
legend.
In Boris Sagal's THE OMEGA MAN (1971), Charlton Heston fends off a
mutant race of cult-like vampires bred by fallout from a thermonuclear war. Based
on Richard Matheson's novella I Am Legend, the film draws deeply from the '70s'
pan icky awareness of youthful Satanism and occult sects. The clan gathers for
nocturnal rituals, garbed in the black hooded robes sported by traditionalist black
magicians. Indeed, the vampires' fashion statement and doomsday philosophy is
more than reminiscent of the contemporary Satanic group Process Church of the
Final Judgement, which had recently become notorious due to a pu rported
connection with Charles Manson. In an unsubtle nod to the recent crime
sensation, the cult even refer to themse lves as "The Family" Their albino guru,
Matthias, is played with ominous charisma by Anthony Zerbe. The Satanic
apocalyptic aesthetic of the film is und erscored by the final scene, in which the
150 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
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1 9 7 1 's catchily titled WER EWOLVES ON WHEELS, directed by Michel
Levesque, borrowed several d istorted elem ents from the Manson myth. The Devil's
Advocates, a biker gang led by Adam (Stephen Ol iver), pass through a desolate
California desert. Tarot (Deuce Berry) "hung up on the occult", reads the cards for
Adam's "mama" Helen, (D. J Anderson), prophesying dark tidings. The bikers
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151
Tbe Dealbmaster.
encamp in a compound inhabited by an order of Satanic mon ks, where the
mysterious leader of the cult, known only as One (Severn Darden), inca pacitates
his guests with drugged bread and wine. Helen, entranced by a spell, rises from
her sleep and joins the Satanists at their altar. There. she strips, and performs an
erotic dance with a human skull, writh ing with a serpent as incantations are
uttered.
She's ordained as the bride of Satan in a ritual sequence that's actually
more effective than many occult epics of the period. The bikers awaken, rescu ing
the hypnotized Helen. However, the Evil One has already claimed her. for her
passionate bite turns Adam into a werewolf. Although the Devil's Advocates
destroy the werewo lves in their midst, they are powerless against One's cult.
When the bikers return for a rumble with the Satan ists, they become the Devil's
disciples themselves. This is a weirdly watchable concoction, a mutant of the '60s
biker film and the '70s Satan flick. It d iffers from most exploitation films in that
there are no "normal" characters; both its protagonists and antagonists hail from
the anti-social fringes of society. The triumph of the Sata nic monks also comes as
a surprise, adding this obscure entry to the short list of films in which the Devil
preva ils.
Hippy Satanism reared its shaggy head again in THE DEATHMASTER
(1 972). The film's star, Robert Quarry, had achieved a certa in amount of success
as the modern-day vampire Count Yorga in two clever American International
films, which established h i m as the only '70s horror star in the Price-Lee-Cushing
152
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Taste Tbe Blood OfDracula.
mold. Inspired by the diabolical rumours swirling around the Manson case, Quarry
co-produced this dismally conceived production in hopes of commingling his
vampiric screen persona with freshly minted fears of black magical youth cults.
Here, in the role of Satanic guru Khorda, the actor's distinguished features are
hidden beneath a laughable long-haired wig and beard. The film begins with a
striking image of Khorda washing up on a California beach in his coffin, but
swiftly degenerates from there. The failure of the film must largely be attributed
to d irector Ray Danton, who disp lays absolutely no sense of style. Quarry does his
best, performing a n undead Mass with his usual flair, but his efforts are in vain.
THE DEATHMASTER only retains interest today as a document of its occult­
obsessed times.
An interesting Latin American mutation of the Manson-as-Satanist
subgenre is GURU DAS SIETE CIDADES (1 972) by Carlos Bini. Otavio Terceiro p lays
the diabolical guru of a black-robed hippy cult that amuses itself with Lucifer ian
games and orgies. Rejane Medeiros, paralleling the rich celebrities who got their
kicks by slumming with the Manson fami ly, is a Brazilian mill ionaire's jaded wife.
She finds the thrills she's lacking in her marriage in the sect's Satanic rites. Losing
all sense of moral propriety under the guru's spell, Medeiros suggests that her
unsuspecting husband should be sacrificed to the Devil. Learning too late that her
initiation into evil has gone too far to turn back, the guru decides that she will
be sacrificed next. A heavy-handed warning against dabbling with diabolism,
G U R U DAS SIETE CIDADES is just as sensationalistic as any of the North American
films inspired by the Manson murders. It offers its viewers the excitement of a
voyeuristic peek at sexually depraved Satanic youth at the same time as it clucks
its tongue.
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153
1be Devils.
Although their production of THE DEVIL RIDES OUT was released too early
to capitalize on the worldwide vogue for black magic, Hammer Film executives
were not slow in exploiting the new Satanic revival. The studio's profitable line
of vampire films had a lways made subtle reference to the Black Arts. With Peter
Sasdy's TASTE T H E BLOOD OF DRACULA (1 970), the fourth instalment in Hammer's
most successful franchise, Dracula's diabolical connection was made quite explicit
for the first time. Lord Courtley (Ralph Bates), a dissolute young diabol ist in
Victorian London, makes the acquaintance of three older gentlemen, respectable
pillars of society a l l . When the trio grow tired of the illicit p l easures to be found
in their secretive visits to bordel los, Courtley introduces them to the Black Arts.
Having squandered his own patrimony, he persuades the men to finance his
purchase of a rare magical relic; the ashes of Count Dracula. Courtley's patrons are
invited to a midnight ritual in a desecrated church appointed with Satanic regalia.
There, before an altar decorated with the goat of Mendes, Dracula's disciple m ixes
his own blood with the ashes of the Count, undergoing a deadly metamorphosis.
Courtley, the Victorian magician of soiled reputation, is more than a little
remin iscent of the young Aleister Crowley of the 1 890s, who must have been an
inspiration. R a l p h Bates makes for one of the more charming Satanic characters
of the 1 970s as the libertine aristocrat. TASTE TH E BLOOD OF DRACULA is by far
the best of an unholy trinity of Satanic Dracula films produced by Hammer in the
'70s.
Ken Russell's THE DEVILS ( 1 970), despite its title, is really of only
tangential importance to our study. This b r i lliantly executed examination of
religious mania and the witch-hunting mentality does concern the historic
accusations of Devil worsh ip mounted by a convent in Loudon against the p riest
154
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Vitgin WiJcb.
Urbain Grandier. However, that's only a framing device for Russell to focus o n his
real theme: the pathological nature of Christian sexual repression. Anticipating
the possession hysteria that would so fervently take hold of the Satanic cinema
in a few years, THE DEVILS takes a more sophisticated psychological look at such
phenomena than the Biblically orthodox THE EXORCIST A scene in the later film,
depicting masturbation with a crucifix, was actually seen here first.
British sexploitation specialists Tigon, having dipped their toes i n the
Satanic pool with their earlier CURSE OF TH E CRIMSON ALTAR plunged into
softcore devi ltry again with the unabashedly lurid VIRGIN WITCH (1 970). The most
explicitly sexual Satanic film up to that date, the scanty plot centres on the
machinations of a depraved lesbian modelling agent who lures a pair of naive
girls (sister team Anne and Vicki Michelle) to a country manor owned by a Sata nic
cult. Of course, the only modelling required of them there is a terminal pose on
the usual sacrificial a ltar. Underneath this thin veneer of trendy occultism, the
film's real raison d'etre is a simple one: to assure that the siblings take their
clothes off as frequently as possible. Director Ray Austin usually gets his stars i n
frame and i n focus, paying only perfunctory attention to the peripheral building
up of any diabolical mood. The classic exploitation title actually does have
something to do with the story. Once the slow-on-the-uptake sisters realize that
their modelling assignment is less than legitimate, they begin to develop hitherto
unsuspected witchy powers to combat the lustful Devil worsh ippers. While this
forgotten tentative step on the path of Satanic porn must have seemed fairly
feeble at the time of its release, the patina of time has lent it an a lmost quaint
air
Spanish d irector Amando de Ossorio dipped into the blackest pages of
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Tombs OJ Tbe Blind Dead.
European h istory to create his inventive contribution to the Satanic cinema. LA
NOCHE DEL TERROR CIEGO (1971) aka TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD. Rather than
invent his diabolical menace from whole cloth. de Ossorio revived the 14th century
legends surrounding the powerful Knights Templar. An Order of Christian
crusaders accused of practising Satanism by France's King Philip, the Templars
present one of the most intriguing mysteries in the chronicles of the Black Arts.
Under torture, many of the brothers confessed to worshipping a god named
Baphomet, trampl ing the cross, and participating in sexual rituals. Whatever the
truth may be behind these accounts, the Templar mystique has had a decisive
influence on the black magical tradition. While LA NOCHE DEL TERROR CIEGO
only scrapes the surface of this potent material, de Ossorio created some of the
most macabre imagery in the European cinema of the 1 970s with h is series of
Templar films. Quite frankly, the plots are superfluous to the surreal poetry of the
sightless Templar Knights, revived from their restless sleep of centuries as robed
living corpses. De Ossorio films his superbly ominous Satanic Knig hts in slow
motion, a cheap but effective trick which works just as well in a number of
sequels. In EL ATAQ UE DE LOS M U ERTOS SIN OJOS ( 1 973) the Templars return
during an annual celebration of their massacre, taking to horseback. EL BULQUE
MALD ITO (1 974) finds the revenant Templars stalking their victims at sea. The last
appearance of the undead Templars was in de Ossorio's LA NOCHE DE LAS
156
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
1be Mepbisto Waltz.
GAVIOTAS ( 1 975) which took advantage of post-Franco Spain's new permissiveness
by upping the sex quotient considerably. The d irector has claimed that his
moldering Templars were intended as an allegory for the moribund Franco
d ictatorship, but sometimes a corpse is only a corpse.
THE MEPH ISTO WALTZ (1971), which takes its name from the devilishly
complicated piano composition by Hungary's n ineteenth century keyboard genius
Franz Liszt, has hardly been accorded the same classic status. Upon the time of its
release the film was a lmost un iversally lambasted by critics as a pale imitation of
ROSEMARY'S BABY Certainly, there's no denying that the Fred Mustard Stewart
novel it's based on was clearly modeled on Ira Levin's basic plot. But even if the
picture doesn't bear comparison to Polanski's masterpiece, it's still a cut above the
many mediocre Satanic knock-offs the that earlier film inspired.
Directed with a certain amount of polish by Paul Wendkos, it's rather
subversive for a major Hollywood studio production, and deserves to be viewed
as more than the experience in deja vu it's usually dism issed as. The plot revolves
around the strivings of Myles Clarkson (Alan Aida), an ambitious but fatal ly nice
young pian ist, who's taken under the Mephistophelean wing of Duncan Ely, a
famous aging virtuoso who owes his tremendous success to a Lucifer ian pact. The
similarity between this mentorsh ip and the relationship between ambitious actor
Guy Woodhouse and the elderly Roman Castavet in ROSEMARY'S BABY need
hardly be pointed out. However, the woman in Ely's life is not a cantankerous old
meddler l ike Minnie Castavet, but his daughter Roxanne, played by the witchy
stunner Barbara Parkins. Clarkson's wife Paula (Jacq ueline B isset) is suspicious of
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The Brolherbood Of Satan.
the E lys' influence on her husband, and especially so when she observes Sata nic
goings-on at a bizarre New Year's Eve party held at the maestro's home. The party
sequence boasts a few striking images, such as Roxanne's menacing black hound
wearing a human mask. When Duncan Ely dies of leukaemia, Myles magically
inherits h is mentor's stupendous talent, and his career as a musician soars. At the
same time, he begins a passionate affair with Roxanne, much to Paula's dismay.
She learns that Myles' body has actually been inhabited by the late Ely, who
simply needed a new hea lthy body to continue the incestuous relationship he
enjoyed with his daughter in life.
Roxanne and Myles/Duncan nearly destroy Paula with black magic as she
discovers their secrets. In a surprising twist on the usual finale, Paula forms her
own pact with the Devil. She commits suicide so that her soul can reincarnate in
her rival Roxanne's body, thus reuniting with her husband. As Duncan Ely, Curt
Jurgens movingly portrays the black magician's furious will to live. The theme of
attaining im mortal ity, a concept central to the left hand path, is convincingly
handled. The notion that genius and artistic talent is inspired by a diabolical gift
is also interestingly evoked. THE MEPHISTO WALTZ is greatly enhanced by Jerry
Goldsm ith's score, wh ich showcases a darker than usual arrangement of Liszt's
title wmposition.
TH E BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN ( 1 97 1 ) echoed THE MEPH ISTO WALTZ's
idea of aging Satanists seeking supernatural rejuvenation. Produced by low­
budget dynamo L.Q. Jones, and directed by Bernard McEveety, the film's off-beat
rural setting and frequently poetic imagery make this one of the most original of
the post-ROSEMARY's crop.
158
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
La Plus Longue Nuit Du Diable.
The obliquely told story begins when a vacationing couple and their ch ild
drive through an isolated New Mexico town whose children are inexplicably
vanishing. Dr. Duncan (Strother Martin), the town's kindly physician, is actually the
leader of the local coven, the Brotherhood of Satan. The sometimes tortuous
na rrative slowly reveals that the elderly Brotherhood intend to inhabit the bodies
of the missing children, who have been lured to the coven's otherworldly
clubhouse. When the couple's daughter also disappears, the aid of the town priest
is enlisted. He suspects "metaphysica l" motives, an idea Dr. Duncan naturally
dismisses.
The geriatric Brotherhood's ceremonies, held in an imagin atively
appointed ritual chamber, have an odd air of authenticity about them, thanks
especially to Strother Martin's fru ity but comm itted performance. Somethi n g
about his delivery h a s a lways reminded me o f another eccentric religious leader,
the Rev. Jim Jones. Satan's presence is ind icated simply but effectively by a sudden
rush of wind and flickering lights, to which Martin responds, "Greetings, dear
one." The child actors convincingly suggest the trance they've supposedly fallen
into. The hero's m issing daughter arrives at a very sinister children's pa rty hosted
incongruously by two sin ister robed figures. By the time the good guys have
figured out what's going on, the Brotherhood of Satan are greeting their deaths
glad ly, slain by flaming swords. When the heroic band arrive at the cu lt's manor,
there's no sign of the lavish ritual chamber or the massacred Satanists. Only the
(seeming ly) innocent missing children remain, possessed by the souls of the
Brotherhood. Unnoticed are the small dolls laying on the floor in the same
positions as the dead Satanists.
DELUGE AND BACKLASH: THE 1970s • 159
Director McEveety instills THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN with quite a few
visual flourishes, a n d slightly off-kilter cutting lends the whole affair a n
intriguingly surreal tone. Many of the diabolical happenings here are never
explained in any linear sense, which shrouds the film with a sense of mystery so
often lacking in such pictures.
LA PLUS LONGUE N U IT DU DIABLE ( 1 9 7 1 ) aka THE DEVIL'S N IG HTMARE is
one of several stylistically attractive fantastic films produced in Belgium during the
early 1 970s. Starring as the Devil's lethal succubus is Erika Blanc, an Italian Playboy
model who graced many European horror films as victimizer and victim. Here, she
plays the kind of vengeful sorceress role earlier written for Barbara Steele. She's
the illegitimate daughter of the von Rumberg clan, and as such i s doomed to be
that generation's servant of Satan, accord ing to a centuries-o ld curse. Seven
travellers - representing the seven deadly sins - encounter a forbidding stranger
in black (Daniel Emiifork}, who is apparently the Devil. He sends them to the
gothic residence of the von Rumbergs, where the she-demon systematically kills
them off during a night of relentless ghastliness. Blanc strikes when her victims
reveal the particular sin they incarnate. A priest, apparently without sin, survives
the carnage to confront the Devil.
Although the fil m's obviously designed to serve as an excuse to show the
series of violent deaths, first-time director Jean Brismee displays enough
atmosphere and personal touches to d istract from the sometimes mechanical
nature of the plot. Emi lfork makes for a fine fiend in human form, and Blanc
plays her succubus with the right m ixture of Eros and Thanatos.
1 97 1 's LUST FOR A VAMPIRE, di rected by Jimmy Sangster, is one of
Hammer Film's weakest productions. Although its lead vampirette, actress Yutte
Stensgaard, has since become the object of a drooling cult of adm irers, its only
relevance to this study is its Satanic sacrifice, conducted by one Count Karnstein
(Mike Raven). An in nocent girl in white is laid out on an altar, as the red-cloaked
Karnstein calls upon the forces of darkness to witness the resuscitation of a female
vampire.
M i ke Raven, the actor who played Karnstein, is an interesting footnote to
the study of the Satanic cinema. A former DJ, his serious interest in the
supernatural and the practice of magic preceded his stint as an actor in occult­
themed films. "I know a great deal about a l l aspects of the occult. I have one of
the largest libraries in England, and I can claim to be fairly knowledgeable about
a lmost anything in the field that you might care to mention; it's been a life-long
interest," he told writer Denis Meikle in 1 995. Whereas many horror actors have
been eager to prove their normal ity, insisting that they have nothing in common
with the dark personalities they portray on screen, Raven revelled in styling an
ominous image for h i mself in his private life. Usually clad in black attire, and
sporting a devilish goatee, Raven's everyday persona was as sin ister as any of the
uncanny characters he p layed during h is brief film career Concerning his role in
LUST FOR A VAMPIRE, h e commented that, " I didn't want the character to actually
be a vampire; I wanted him to appear as the devil's em issary - or an agent of
evil. . . " Raven also contributed his own dia logue to his Satanic role, reca l l ing to
Meikle that "there was no script there at all. All the invocations I did over the
body I brought out of my magical books."
The budding actor, eager to move into larger parts, wrote a script for his
own Satanic film, which Hammer originally agreed to produce. When the
independent film market suddenly collapsed, he resorted to financing it himself
160
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Lust For A Vampire.
with an extremely skimpy budget, forced to film in the super 1 6mm format.
Unfortunately, THE DISCIPLE OF DEATH (1 972) gracelessly co-directed by Tom
Parkinson and Raven is a decidedly amateurish effort. In 1 8th century England, a
demonic being called the Stranger is brought back to this world by a stray drop
of blood left on his tomb by careless lovers. During h is quest for a virginai bride
willing to share his hell ish existence, he makes a gory sacrifice of seasoned horror
heroine Virginia Wetheral. Raven's authentic knowledge of magical tradition does
DELUGE AND BACKLASH: THE 1 970s
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161
surface here and there, but it's all
wasted on this embarrassingly
bottom-of-the-barrel visitation from
Hell. Raven, whose amb itions
exceeded his talents to a painful
degree, wisely retired to the life of a
sheep-farmer
Hammer's TWINS OF EVIL
(1 972), by John Hough, was a sequel
of sorts to LUST FOR A VAMPIRE.
Again, the Devil was used as a box­
office lure. Lest anyone miss the
connection, the poster trumpeted:
"They use the sata nic power of their
bodies to turn men and women into
their blood slaves." Peter Cushing,
cast as the self-righteous slayer of
the undead in so many previous
Hammer films, is here the in­
tentionally unlikeable puritan do­
gooder G ustav Weil. As leader of a
sect called the Brotherhood, he
imparts Christian justice on twin
Playboy models Mary and Madeline
Collinson - an erotic double whammy
sym bolizing the light and dark sides
of fem ininity.
One of the film's best scenes
is a superior rendering of the Black
Mass sequence from LUST FOR A
VAMPIRE. The decadent Count
Karnstein, this time played by Damien Thomas, performs a ritual in which h e
inadvertently revives one o f the undead. After asking Satan to bestow undreamt­
of pleasures upon him, he falls prey to the vampire's kiss. Damien Thomas, who
was being groomed by Hammer as their new horror star, is im pressively sinister
Failing miserably with the same Satanic vampirism theme is DRACULA A.D.
72 (1 972), d irected by Alan G i bson. Despite the novelty of being set in a banal,
and already dated "swinging London" milieu, another il l-advised attempt to
appeal to increasingly juvenile audiences, entire plot devices are swiped from the
previous TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACU LA. Again, Christopher Lee is revived due
to the agency of the witlessly named Johnny Alucard, a young Satanist who gets
hold of the Count's ashes. Again, the now obligatory revival scene is played out
as a Black Mass in a defiled church. This shameless rehashing of scenes that had
been executed with more verve the first time around attests to the general
paucity of imagination. The Black Mass scene that worked so well in TASTE THE
BLOOD OF DRACULA was now being replayed again and again in Hammer's
vampire films, as the studio desperately sought to wring new blood from their
fading Gothic franchise.
Bottom of the barrel sexploitation auteur Ted V. Mikels hopped unsteadily
on the Satan bandwagon with BLOOD ORGY OF THE SH E-DEVILS ( 1 972).
162 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
Necromancy- nude scene cur from final release.
Obligatory title psychedelia leads into - what else? - a blood orgy of naked she­
devils led by wicked witch Mara (Lila Zaborin). Reciting Mikels' incredibly stilted
dialogue with Bernhardtian intensity, she leads the gals in the sacrifice of a male
captive - a refresh ing change after all the damsels who've met their ends on the
a ltar. Mara's coven dance around like the moonlighting strippers they appear to
be, swaying in imitation yogic undulations to instantly dated electron ic noodlings.
There is no plot; o n ly a series of strung-together rituals, each more inane than the
last. When Mara isn't pompously procla iming maledictions, she's showing her new
she-devils their past lives as witches in centuries past. All the buzzwords of the
period are thrown about by the cardboard cast, who think heavy thoughts of
karma, vibrations, reincarnation and astrology. Although Mara calls on Lucifer's
aid, the coven's undulations are banished by four utterly square male
parapsycholog ists. In its way, this inept film tells the viewer more about its times
than many a more accom plished work.
Bert I. Gordon's N ECROMANCY {1 972), with Orson Wel les, is yet another
example of a mediocre witchcraft tale of that period attempting to add spice by
including nude coven scenes - although in this case the scenes were cut out
before release to ensure a PG rating.
In February of 1 972, the 270 members of the Church of Satan were
informed of their organization's first incursion into the movies via the official
Church newsletter, The Cloven Hoof. Editor Michael Aquino notified h is readership
that: "The Church of Satan recently completed technical assistance to the
DELUGE AND BACKLASH: THE 1970s
•
163
production of a new film entitled THE SATAN SPECTR U M. Last fall we were
contacted by Louisville's Studio One Productions; they had decided to make a
horror movie, and they wanted to outdo THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN. The
Church of Satan was invited to review the setting and script of the ritual sequence
and to coach the actor-Satan ists and the demon in their behaviour."
The producers of the film were a small, Kentucky-based technical film
company seeking to branch out into the theatrical market. The final prod uct, re­
titled THE ASYLUM OF SATAN, is one of the most excruciatingly unwatchable films
in the entire genre. Its incoherently structured plot concerns a young woman who
experiences a n ervous breakdown and is sent to a rest-home to recuperate. The
sanitarium is run by the evil D r Specter, who we learn was "picked up for devil
worsh ip" some years earlier. Dr Specter, who is killing his female patients, needs
a virgin to sacrifice to Abaddon. The demon shows up for his hideous repast, but
rejects the offering; her hymen's not intact after all. Specter, revealed to be a
transvestite, is destroyed by the demon. Di rected and written with astounding
incompetence by William G i rdler, and performed by comatose amateu rs, its only
claim to minor fame is its climactic ritual sequence.
The d irector had provided a copy of the script to Michael Aquino, then a
Priest in the Church of Satan. U nsatisfied with the tepid invocation of Abaddon
written by Girdler, Aquino added his own version, which briefly adds some colour
to the final scene. Writing in The Crystal Tablet Of Set, the introd uctory manual
for the black magical order he founded in 1 975, Aquino wrote that "the result of
all this is a turkey of a movie, with, if I may say so, a rather zesty ritual sequence."
The Devil suit used in ROSEMARY'S BABY makes a brief appearance at the end of
the film, having been flown out from Ca lifornia. But William Girdler is no
Polanski, a n d the infamous prop looks singularly uni mpressive here.
The legend of the Satanic Knights Templar was revived in 1 972's ES
ESPANTO SURGE DE LA TUMBA (HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB), a dreadfully
boring and ineptly made film by Spain's Carlos Aured. Things start off with a bang
when a Templar Knight (Paul Naschy) is gorily beheaded for practising the Black
Arts during the M iddle Ages. His wife is stripped and compelled to witness his
decapitation before her own bloody bisection. By now, you may have guessed that
before Naschy's head is lopped off, he places the usual curse on his tormentors.
Centuries later, the 20th century descendants of the Satanic knight's executioners
locate the fiend's head, which still possesses malevolent powers. As with Armando
Ossorio's Templar films, the potentially evocative legend is hardly explored beyond
its barest rudim ents. The theme of a decap itated devil worshipper's head
wreaking havoc in the present day is very reminiscent of the previously mentioned
'50s B movie THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE. Paul Naschy, Spain's only horror
star, attacks his diabolical role with his usual ene rgy, but the film is essentially a
disjointed series of unconvincing scenes of mayhem. Perhaps this undeveloped
quality is due to the fact that Naschy, by his own admission, wrote the screenplay
in only one night!
One of the towering visionary masterpieces of Satanic literature is
Matthew Greg ory Lewis' dizzyingly surreal 1 796 novel The Monk: A Romance. The
tale of the morally pure monk Ambrosio, seduced into a life of unalloyed
Lucifer ian ism by the beautiful succubus Matilda was considered the most shocking
book of its time. When Ambrosio is condemned to burn at the stake for his
wizardry, Matilda provides him with a grimoire that a l lows him to conjure the
Devil. Lucifer is pictured as a being of inhuman beauty, who leads his disciple ever
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Horror Rises From The Tomb.
onwards to unimaginable adventures. Lord Byron and de Sade were only two
literary outlaws who fell under the spell of a book condemned by Coleridge as
"poison for youth, and a provocative for the debauchee"
When the surreal ist writer Ado Kyrou announced that he intended to film
the arch-gothic classic, with a screenplay by Luis Bunuel, connoisseurs of the
fantastic expected great things. Alas, Kyrou proved a thoroughly uninspired
d irector, a flaw which even Bunuel's script cannot redeem. Consequently, Kyrou's
LE MOINE (THE MONK), filmed in France in 1 972, is a great disappointment.
Franco Nero's performance as the title character is lifeless, and Nathalie Delon, as
Matilda, doesn't suggest a fraction of the Satanic sex appeal described in the
novel.
The Devil is uncharacteristically pictured as the avenger of the wronged
in Jean Rollin's off-beat but unfocused LES D E MONIAQUES (1 973). French
DELUGE AND BACKLASH: THE 1970s • 165
sexploitation specialist Rollin, both reviled and revered, has been saddled with
such low budgets throughout his marginal career that it's difficult to say whether
the i n consistency of his work is due to his own lack of command of his chosen
med ium. Such is the case again i n this picture, in which two attractive Rollin
heroines are raped by coastal marauders. The duo ca ll upon the Devil (Misha
Zimovir) in a n abandoned church, forging a pact to exact their vengeance. Rollin
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The Deuil ln Miss jones.
does achieve a few m oments of the nee-surrealism his disciples have ascribed to
him, particularly in a sequence showing shipwrecked vessels on the desolate
Belgian coast.
According to Rollin, producer Lionel Wallman asked him to add hardcore
sequences to the film. The director refused, protesting that they would interfere
with what he described as "a poetic eroticism" he sought to create. Although his
stars strip often enough, there's none of the weird sexuality that informs his
earlier vampire films. One would have thought that the erotic aspect of Satanism
would have inspired Rollin to more hallucinatory heights.
A far more interesting take on Satanic sexuality was Gerard Damiano's
hardcore porn classic THE DEVIL I N MISS JONES (1 972) Although it has never been
thought of as an occult film, perhaps TH E DEVIL IN MISS JONES can be seen as the
h i g h watermark of cultural acceptance of the Luciferian. Despite its confused
ending, the film primarily celebrated the Satanic sexual awakening of a repressed
woman, totally reversing the anti-erotic, anti-female mindset that characterizes
right hand path domin ance of society. Furthermore, it had actually pushed the
frontiers of what was considered acceptable on screen, a supremely Satanic deed.
Relatively high production values, an actual story interestingly told, and an
excellent lead performance by Georgina Spelvin elevated Damiano's film to a level
porno films had never previously attempted to reach.
The frumpy virgin Justine Jones (Georgina Spelvin) kills herself, despa iring
of her drab existence. She finds herself in Hell, where a demon provides her with
hands-on training in the erotic arts, which includes carnal knowledge of a serpent.
Her dormant sexual ity activated for the first time, she's allowed back to earth,
where she voraciously explores her new Luciferian lust. After a series of amorous
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The Salanic Rites Of Dracula.
adventures, she returns to the inferno, where she's damned to spend the rest of
eternity alone in a room with a man tota lly uninterested in sex. After the
unrestrained celebration of demonic Eros that informs most of the film, this
moralistic climax (no pun intended) seems weirdly out of place.
As one of the first critically acclaimed hardcore films, it became something
of a phenomenon, attracting audiences that would never have previously
entertained the idea of seeing a porno movie. For the first time, women entered
the theatres where DEVIL IN MISS JONES played, briefly changing the furtive
"dirty raincoat" image associated with erotic films. Georgina Spelvin was not the
typical porno actress, and the realism of her performance al lowed women to
empathize with her character as something more than a one-dimensional male
fantasy. Appearing as it did at the height of the Satanic craze, the diabolical
aspects of the picture were well-timed, tapping into an increasing fascination with
the Devil and a rapidly expanding acceptance of sexuality. Although the period
of social respectabil ity afforded the porno film proved to be short-lived, THE
DEVIL IN MISS JONES remains a fasci nating detour in the Satanic cinema. The
international success of the film inspired Swiss d irector Erwin C. Dietrich to create
an inferior 1 974 ri p-off, DER TEUFEL IN MISS JONAS, for the German market.
Interestingly, director Damiano tur·ned to the Devil again in his next film,
1 973's THE LEGACY OF SATAN. Damiano's first "legitimate" non-porno film, it's
a fairly standard Satanic horror film, lacking any of the inventive spark that
marked MISS JONES. Talky and uncinemat ic, it had none of the previous film's
impact, and Damiano returned to toil in the X-rated field.
The final stake in the coffin for Hammer's downward spiral of black
magical Dracula films was THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA (1 973). As the title
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ind icates, this was by far the most b latantly Satanic of British vampire films.
Revived in modern London - but thankfully without the desperate attempts to
seem hip that marred DRACULA A.D. 72 - Christopher Lee's Count is now running
a Sata n ic cult in a Hampstead manor house. Participating in the implied orgies and
Black Masses are the cream of British society, including a prominent General, a
leading politician, and a noted scientist. It's interesting to observe how often
Ham mer's Satanic films present Satan ism as the secret religion of England's elite,
keeping with the Dennis Wheatley notion of aristocratic evil.
The Satanic altar is naturally draped with a pretty assortment of Hammer
pulchritude, and the sinister invocations are intoned by Lee and his demonic aide
Chin Yang (Barbara Yu-Ling) with the appropriate fervour Still, there's something
very perfunctory and tired about these potentially menacing goings-on. D irector
Alan Gibson lenses the film with a flat TV episode look, emphasizing the faults of
the shallow comic-book script. By 1 973, the imagery of Satanism had already
become such a routine aspect of exploitation fi lms, that its addition lends little
novelty to the exhausted vampire formula. While fascination with the Devil still
ran high, audiences were ready for something different than recycled Wheatley
or third-rate Polanski.
Since the mid-'60s, the Devil was a potent symbol of subversion in movies,
music, and popular fiction, representing the rebellious and revolutionary longings
of the times. A backlash was inevitable, and the spirit of Salem set i n swiftly
enough, ushered in by a religiously doctrinaire film that returned to the pious
righteousness of yore.
Turning the tide was William Fried kin's TH E EXORCIST (1 973), a big-budget
Bib le-thumper that can be seen as the reactionary answer to ROSEMARY'S BABY
One of the most culturally resonant - although artistically uninteresting - films in
Sata nic cinema history, this Judaeo-Christian demonization of female sexuality
brings us right back to the Middle Ages. The thin plot is so widely familiar that
a brief sketch should suffice. The villain of the piece is Regan Macneil (Linda Bla ir),
a twelve-year old g irl on the cusp of maturing sexuality. Her divorcee mother
(Ellen Burstyn), an actress with no religious convictions, is increasingly terrified by
her daughter's biza rre behavioral changes. When medicine fails to find an answer,
she turns to the Church, in the form of Father Damien Karras (Jason M i l ler), a
young priest strugg ling with his faith. In a series of dramatic confrontations in the
girl's bedroom, Karras determines that Regan is possessed by the Devil. He calls
in the well-known exorcist Father Merrin (Max von Sydow), who has recently had
a spiritual encounter with the Babylonian demon Pazuzu in Iraq. When all of their
efforts fail, Karras sacrifices himself, telling the Devil to "take me", instead of the
girl. He is promptly possessed, and hurls himself out the window to his death.
I am always astonished to hear how many viewers of this film consider it
the most frightening film they've ever seen. I must admit that I've a lways found
T H E EXORCIST one of the most laughable presentations of the Devil on screen.
Regan's demonic voice strikes me as absurd, the kind of spook-house effect
trotted out by evangel ists to scare their congregations. The celebrated scene of
the demon twisting its head around also seemed more risible than terrifying. Most
of all, one is struck by the triviality of the film's presentation of what is, after all,
supposed to be Satan's most malignant expressions of evil. I t seems like the Devil
could come up with something more threatening to the social order than pissing
on Mom's rug, playing with herself, throwing up, or saying "fuck" As Christian
scholar Jeffrey Burton Russell - an author I usually don't agree with - perceptively
DELUGE AND BACKLASH: THE 1970s • 169
1beE:mrcisl.
notes in Th e Devil: " I n THE EXORCIST, William B latty presents a Devil who is stupid
enough to choose to possess a little girl rather than a national government . . . "
Aside from the theological impl ications, it's this pettiness of vision that
undermines the film. Especially after the atmospheric prologue set in Iraq, which
seems to be leading into a spiritual struggle on a much larger scale, the actual
body of the film seems l ike a huge anti-climax.
In THE EXORCIST, Woman becomes quite literally the gate to Hell. I n this
astoundingly conservative work, the fi lm-makers attempt to portray metaphysical
evil by showing such physical actions as the girl's masturbation, and her use of
sexua lly explicit language. Imbued with an almost hysterical dread of the budding
fem i n i n e libido, the film pits two "good" male figures, in the form of Catholic
priests, aga inst the diabolical wiles of the dangerously pubescent girl. Truly, it is
a picture of the disturbed psychosexu al landscape of the American subconscious,
filigreed with diabolic trappings.
While the majority of viewers accepted d irector William Friedkin's
interpretation of the film as "a conflict between the forces of good and the forces
of evil", the film's anti-female undercurrents were noticed in some rather
un expected quarters. Friedkin bewilderingly recalled that "Some clergymen
suggested that the story was a homosexual fantasy, that Karras and Merrin were
in a male bond to physically torture this little girl. The girl sta bbing the vagina
was a gesture of female hatred, and the passionate involvement of these two men
ends in death over the actions of this l ittle girl and her vaginal problems." While
this curious reading of THE EXORCIST may not be exactly on targ et, it does
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suggest the unconcealed vein of misogyny that informs the film. While it is never
stated explicitly, the implicit Cath olic code of the film suggests that the mother
may be partially responsible for drawing the Devil into her home; as a sexually
active d ivorcee, she is technically guilty of sin. Female sexuality is portrayed as an
unholy aberration which must be chastised and expunged by the celibate male
figu res. What Fathers Karras and Merrin are really striving to exorcise is their own
horror of the feminine Other.
It's appropriate that this most deeply Christian of Satanic films opened on
the day after Christmas 1 973. Even before it was released, stud i o hype tried to
elevate THE EXORCIST from the level of a simple horror film to a serious religious
statement by emphasizing its purported reality. In fact, this much trumpeted
verisimilitude was a part of the cooked-up EXORCIST legend years before the film
was made. William Peter Blatty, the author of the best-selling 1 971 novel upon
which the film was based, was himself inspired by "real" events. As a student at
Georgetown Un iversity in the 1 949, Blatty heard rumours concern ing the demonic
possession of Douglas Deene, a fourteen-year-old boy in nearby Mount Rainier,
Maryland. Deene was supposedly seized by the traditional symptoms accepted by
the Roman Catholic church as indicative of Satan i c possession; po ltergeist
phenomena, the shouting out of obscenities, supposedly replying to his exorcist
in correct Latin - a language unknown to him. Publicity hound Jesuit priest
William Bowdern, who performed th irty exorcisms on the boy, went to The
Washington Post with his story. It must have been a slow news day; the usually
reputable paper pri nted the priest's account, and THE EXORCIST was born.
Director William Friedkin has repeatedly stated his belief that Deene was
really possessed by the Devil, thus lending credence to his fictionalized film of
those unlikely events: " I am totally convinced that the events upon which the film
is based occurred." Determined to maintain a sense of doctrinal authenticity
unusual in Hollywood productions, Friedkin selected Jason Miller, an actor who
had studied to be a Jesuit priest, to play the part of the troubled Father Damien
Karras. Friedkin insisted that he was "not going to hire any actor who had not
had a Catholic education" To buttress the legitimacy of the "factual" movie he
was making, Friedkin relied on the counsel of a gaggle of bona fide men of the
cloth. These theological advisers' expertise was called on in particu lar to vouch for
the authenticity of the demonic behaviour displayed by the possessed girl. There
was, for instance, the problem of the demon's voice, an essential component of
the film's credibility. What did a demon sound l ike, anyway? The Reverend
Thomas Birmin gham provided the director with a tape record ing of what was
described as an honest to goodness exorcism conducted in the hallowed halls of
the Vatican itself. Friedkin faithfully based Regan's abrasive sound on the
purported demonic voice heard on the document from the Holy See. One of the
man ifestations of Regan's inhabitation is her freq uent use of profanity. Accord ing
to Father John J. Nicola, Pazuzu's obscene dialogue just wasn't filthy enough.
Nicola insisted that the script needed beefing up; the demons he had encountered
in the exorcisms he had presided over were capable of far more extreme locution.
It is thanks to the good Father's dispensation, then, that the corru pted Regan
utters such lines as "your mother sucks cocks in he l l ! " and "Let Jesus fuck you ! "
A s part of the spooky real ity angle they were pushing, studio publicists
also fed potential ticket buyers the tale of THE EXORCIST curse. Just as William
Castle had cynically concocted the idea that the makers of ROSEMARY'S BABY had
invited the Devil's wrath, so were similar stories circu lated around the latest
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The E=rcist.
Satanic blockbuster Hol lywood has never shied away from recycl ing a successful
g i m mick. As evidence for this malediction - presumably unleashed upon the film­
makers for tampering with a subject matter meant to be left a l one - a number
of incidents have been cited. A huge statue of the winged demon Pazuzu, shipped
to Iraq for location shooting there, disappeared. Shooting was delayed for two
weeks until the statue was located in Hong Kong, where it had been sent
accidentally. The elements of water and fire seemingly turned malevolent: a fire
destroyed the entire set of the house interior, delaying production for more than
a month, when a studio sprinkler system failed. Actor Jack MacGowran actually
died a week after shooting his on-screen death scene, and Max von Sydow's
brother died on the day the actor arrived for filming. Despite h is brother's death,
von Sydow has steadfastly refused to play along with the studio-generated scare
stories. The actor has pointed out that THE EXORCIST had an unusually long
shooting schedule of fifteen months, speculating that the same amount of
mishaps would occur on any such extended production. Asked to comment on the
alleged curse on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the film's release, von Sydow said,
"it's wonderful publicity, isn't it?"
Like the symptoms of a religious mania or a plague, un precedented
visceral responses manifested in the film's aud iences. There were mass outbreaks
of hysterical fainting and vomiting, reactions which became as much a part of the
enterta inment experience as the movie itself. Disturbed watchers of the film went
to priests convinced that they were possessed, and so many fringe religion ists took
to the media with tales of demonic habitation that even the Catholic Church
advised scepticism. Evangel ist Hal Lindsey, whose apocalyptic book The Late Great
Planet Earth echoed the anti-occult tendencies of the time, warned that, "We are
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Abby.
entering a new dimension with THE EXORCIST. Satan is using fear and
intimidation to manoeuvre and manipulate. There is supernatural power operative
in this movie."
I'll leave the last word on THE EXORCIST to the Zodiac Killer, that
mysterious California based murderer whose astrologically based crimes have
never been solved. In 1 974, he sent a letter to The San Francisco Chronicle stating
that "I saw and thought THE EXORCIST was the best saterical (sic) comidy (sic) that
i (sic) have ever seen." Unfortunately, the comedy had not come to an end with
the salvation of dear little Regan. Canny producers a l l over the world contrived
to capitalize on TH E EXORCIST's phenomenal success, unleashing an epidemic of
im itations. And if there's anything worse than a really bad film, it's a score of
tenth-rate copies of that film.
Horror films had always been well received in the black American film
market, and the addition of Satanic themes already familiar from churchly
exhortations warning of sin and damnation -only intensified their appeal. In this
sense, little had changed since THE BLOOD OF JESUS. American Internatio nal
Pictures, under the always shrewd guidance of its mogul Sam Z. Arkoff,
recognized the fiscal possibi lities. The canny producer commissioned white director
William Girdler, Jr. - who had already made a stain on the Satanic cinema with
his abysmal first feature ASYLUM OF SATAN - to create 1974's ABBY, AlP's
blaxploitation answer to THE EXORCIST The tremendously dign ified
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Shakespearean actor William Marshall, who had created the first black vampire
i n BLACULA ( 1 972}, was tapped for the role of ABBY's Blaxorcist. Just as THE
EXORCIST's Father Merrin had discovered a statue of the Babylonian demon
Pazuzu in Iraq, Bishop Garnet Williams (William Marshall) brings the demon Eshu
back from Nigeria. Eshu possesses Williams' daughter-in-law Abby (Carol Speed},
inflicting her with one of the shoddiest make-ups ever seen and a penchant for
profan ity and prom iscu ity. The Bishop frees Abby from the grip of Eshu in a seedy
bar that recalls the demonic nightclubs of the black Baptist Devil movies of the
1 940s.
American International Pictures had perfected the fine art of making
cheap copies of other studio's bigger budget h its for years. With ABBY. the studio
had crossed the line into larceny. Warner Brothers, which had first vomited forth
TH E EXORCIST sent a plague of lawyers upon ABBY's creators, claiming that the
AlP copy-cat was so derivative that it infringed on their copyright. Consequently,
ABBY vanished without a trace, a rarely seen oddity from the era of EXORCIST
mania. Even the most fiendish attorneys at Warner Brothers' command couldn't
stanch the copious flow of equally plagia ristic EXORCIST rip-offs that made their
way to screens around the world. More possessed girls than you could shake a
holy water bottle at retched and blasphemed in cortex-numbing redundancy. To
document all of these mostly mediocre films from around the world would be as
painful for the reader as it would be for the author Suffice it to say that their
name was Legion.
The time-honoured theme of Satan ic possession portrayed in THE
EXORCIST struck a particular chord in Catholic countries like Italy and Spain,
steeped as they are in Holy Roman apprehension. Both countries em itted a pious
series of Latinate takes on the theme of innocent children overtaken by the
Archfiend. Spanish director Armando de Ossorio - who had already trafficked with
magica negra in his BLIND DEAD series - made his und istinctive contr ibution to
the subgenre with EL PODER D E LAS TINIEBLAS aka DEMON WITCH CHILD (1 974}.
All the familiar elements are on display: A n ine-year-old girl whose body is
inhabited by a hell-spawned hag, the hideous transformation of the girl's face,
the climactic spiritual rescue by a brave reverend. Only a week later, Spanish
cinemas were subjected to Juan Bosch's EXORCISMO (1 974). which continued the
medieval castigation-of-evil-women theme that the American film had ign ited.
Here, the Satanic possession of the pure teenager is brought on quite specifically
by her m other's sinful behaviour; she is being punished for being unfaithful to her
husband. When the cuckolded patriarch dies, he's transformed into a malevolent
demon, entering the body of his daughter and forcing her to kill, hang out with
a bad crowd, and say naug hty words in the name of Satan. Evil is portrayed as
anything that threatens the all-important family - the mothers' affair, the
daughter's impudence.
Alberto de Martino's L'ANTICHRISTO aka THE ANTICHRIST ( 1 974) may be
the best of a lousy subgenre, if only by virtue of its sometimes extravagant visuals.
Carla Gravina, a Roman princess, finds her nubile body inhabited by the soul of
one of her ancestors, a Satanist from the Middle Ages. A fairly explicit incubus
scene shows the possessed girl surrender to the amorous attentions of an unseen
demon lover The atmospheric Roman sett ing and the forbidding presence of the
Catholic Church lend the picture an entirely different mood than its suburban
American inspiration. A moody score by Ennio Morricone also elevates this from
sheer mediocrity.
1 74
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
L 'Anticbnsto.
Mario Gariazzo's L'OSSESSA aka THE SEXORCIST (1 974) largely did away
with Fried kin's pretentious religiosity, shamelessly revea ling THE EXORCIST's barely
hidden sexual agenda. It tells the tale of a young artist who seems to be possessed
by the demon of erotic repression. Disturbed but excited by her mother's flagrant
S&M l ifestyle, it takes the local Padre to release her from Satan's bondage.
L'OSSESSA d iffers from its American role model in that the self-sacrificing priest
performing the rites here is attracted by the possessed woman he seeks to
exorcise.
The would-be Orson Welles of Brazilian horror films, Jose Marins perhaps better known as Coffin Joe - was always drawn to the kind of religious
m a n ia THE EXORCIST exuded. His EXORCISMO NEGRO aka BLACK EXORCISM
( 1 974), filmed crudely in black and white, actually has little to do with the Fried kin
movie, save for a desire to cash in on the title. Here, Marins reprises his Coffin Joe
character, incoherently playing up some of the Satanic themes his previous films
had always suggested. A n acquired taste, Marin's films have never seemed as
interesting to me as they are to his considerable cult following, but I mention this
picture only to show how international in scope Exorcismania was at its height.
LISA E IL DIAVOLI aka LISA AND THE DEVIL (1972) was an atmospheric
Mario Bava film that touched tangentially on Satan through the character of Telly
Savalas, who may (or may not) be the Devil haunting the heroine's imagination.
Sadly, Bava's film was sucked into the EXORCIST black hole by an American
distributor. Whole scenes were chopped out, and hack director Alfred Leone was
hired to quickly shoot some cheapo Friedkin-like Exorcism footage that had
absolutely nothing to do with Bava's picture. The butchered mess was then
dropped on the market as HOUSE OF EXORCISM. An original cut of Bava's film has
now surfaced, and deserves a second gla nce.
M ichael Walter shot his terrible MAGDALENA - VOM TEUFEL BESESSEN
(MAGDALENA - POSSESSED BY THE DEVIL) in 1 973, while THE EXORCIST was still
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175
in production, hoping to be the first in line to cash in on all the hype. Germany's
single contribution to the possessed girl subgenre took a slightly more scientific
approach to the theme. Rather than a Catholic exorcism, it's a doctor who leads
Magdalena out of her Satanic predicament via hypnosis. Although the demon sets
his sights on a more mature body to inhabit, B latty's novel is mined extensively
all the same. There's verbal obscenity, demonic contact lenses and poltergeist
phenomena aplenty. The most commercially successful of THE EXORCIST clones
was Oliver Hellman's' execrable CHE SEI? aka BEYOND THE DOOR ( 1 974). Here,
married woman Juliet Mills must pay for the sin of having an affair with a San
Francisco Satanist by developing all of Linda Blair's distressing symptoms. Despite
the American setting, this was actually yet another crude and unimaginative
Italian exercise in Catholic horror
The Faust theme was cleverly modernized into an instantly dated, but
accurately portrayed, rock music industry milieu in Brian De Palma's THE
PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1 974). A sincere but hopelessly naive songwriter
writes a rock cantata of Faust, which is prom ptly stolen by the ruthless rock
impresario Swan (Paul Williams, who wrote the film's score). Swan takes an
especial interest in the work's theme as he has h i mself made a pact with the Devil
to retain his youth for eternity. The pact is inventively portraved as a video tape
encounter with Satan (also played by Williams) that Swan must frequently watch
to retain his youth. The comparison of the small print on music industry contracts
with the diabolical pact is typical of De Palma's pointed satire. While this Faustian
element is only one of many fantastic subplots, it adds dark dimensions to a
wicked black comedy. Paul Williams is surpassingly sinister as the Devil's agent,
leading a cast filled with excellent performances.
Jack Starrett's RACE WITH THE DEVIL (1 975) is exactly what it sounds like:
a Satanic chase movie. Two perfectly nice All-American couples are passing
through Texas in their luxury camper when they come upon a local attraction
tourists weren't meant to see. The quartet witness a woman being sacrificed by
the local Satanic cult (don't Satanic cults ever do anyth ing else but sacrifice
women?) and become marked for death themselves. The cult is apparently well
equipped with a fleet of cars and pick-up trucks which follow in the proverbial
hot pursuit. There's really little to do with the Devil once the film degenerates
into non-stop action, with the Satan ists clambering out of their vehicles to get at
the terrified couples. Peter Fonda, typecast as a man on the hosti le road after
EASY RIDER, is the principal good guy. Two cast members are of interest to
observers of occult media. Lara Parker, Satanic sex symbol to .watchers of the
1 960s TV show Dark Shadows - in which she played the evil witch Angelique - is
one of the screaming wives. Local yokel Delbert is played by Clay Tanner - secret
star of the '60s Satanic cinema who Polanski cast as the Devil in ROSEMARY'S
BABY
DEVIL'S ECSTASY (1 974) fails in its attempt to crossbreed the Satanic
horror genre with hardcore porno. However, it's an interesting experiment that
captures the mood of its peculiar times, a curious era in which occult erotica
briefly came into its own as a d istinct genre. The overly familiar plot is right out
of Gothic 1 0 1 : Heroine Helen (Cyndee Summers) comes of age and is drawn into
the sinister legacy of her cheesily low-budget ancestral home. There, she is defiled
by black-robed orgiasts in pentagram bedecked ritual chambers, images that recall
the lurid fantasies inspired by media reports on contemporary Satanism so
prevalent in the mid-70s. Pred ictab ly, her clean -cut boyfriend (Rick Lutze) and a
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Race Wilb Tbe DeviL
kindly professor come to her rescue.
Despite the cliches of plot contrivance that abound, DEVIL'S ECSTASY
shuffles its narrative elements around in a pleasingly mysterious fashion, actually
creating a modicum of suspense and uncertainty. The sex scenes are actually part
of the story, rather than edited in as arbitrary icing on the cake. The fact that the
performers are not the usual types cast in porno productions adds a tone of
needed credibil ity to the proceed ings.
Considering that sex magic is actually an important aspect of the
authentic left hand path, it's significant to note that this may be the first film
dea ling with Sata n ism per se that unflinchingly incorporates blatantly carnal rites.
Even though DEVIL'S ECSTASY is groundbreaking in this respect, Spanish director
Jose Larraz's rather similar LOS RITOS SEXUALES DEL DIABLO (THE SEXUAL RITES
OF TH E DEVIL) from 1 981 is actually the more successful blending of sex and
Satan.
The short-lived Sata nic porno cycle in itiated by DEVIL IN MISS JONES
included two less interesting vehicles from 1 974. Ernest Danna's DEVIL'S DUE plays
on the early '70s folklore inspired by the omn ipresent teenage hitch-hikers
thumbing rides all across America at that time. DEVIL'S DUE spins its own salacious
version of this familiar urban legend, depicting the trava ils of young runaway
Andrea (Cindy West). Fleeing her abusive home, poor Andrea is abducted by a sect
comprised of Satanic lesbians. Once this flimsy plot is disposed of, the remainder
of this uninspired film allows us to observe the cult's prolonged cunnilingual
initiation of their captive.
The late porn superstar John Holmes featured in SUBURBAN SATAN IST
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177
Other than its wonderful title, the only possible enterta inment value to be found
in this d i m-witted waste of time lays in the highfalutin Satanic dialogue mouthed
(along with other thi ngs) by the talentless cast. It's almost as funny as the
ceremonial rhetoric indulged in by real-life suburban Satan ists.
By 1 97 4, the fascination with occultism that had briefly made Anton LaVey
a topic of interest to the popular press had all but died out. Like LSD, radical
leftist posturing, and other manifestations of the counterculture quest, the simple
pop Satanism LaVey peddled had lost its fizz. Sensing this, he nursed a desire to
move away from overseeing his increasingly un profitable and contentious Church
of Satan operation. He had always preferred hobnobbing with Hol lywood stars
to serving as pastor to his credulous followers, and he hoped to find work as a
tech n ical adviser for Satanic films.
Robert Fuest, the brilliant Br itish director responsible for T H E
ABOMINABLE D R . PHIBES (197 1 ) was offered the low-budget property THE DEVIL'S
RAIN (1 975), scheduled for a tight month-long shoot in Mexico. Based on a trite
Maud Willis novel, it was a farrago of cliches involving a reincarnated warlock's
revenge on the family whose ancestors killed him centuries earlier - a plot
identical to THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963) among many others. Fuest hired LaVey
to add some "authentic" Satanic rituals to the tired script and to supervise the
ceremonies on location. LaVey can be glimpsed for a few moments on screen
during a ritual sequence. THE DEVIL'S RAIN has the dubious distinction of being
John Travolta's first film, and LaVey poured the budding actor h is first legal drink
on his 2 1 st birthday. Show business makes for strange bedfellows, indeed.
Academy award winner Ernest Borgnine hammed it up as warlock
Jonathan Corbis, who transforms into a go at-faced Devil in the final scene of the
film. William Shatner, who played a heroic character named Marc in INCUBUS
(1 965), here portrays a heroic character named ... Mark. It's Shatner who uncaps
a "devil's rain bottle", unleashing a demonic downpour on the coven, who melt
away i n what the press book promised was "the most incredible ending of any
motion p icture ever made!" A slight exaggeration, to say the least. Surprising ly,
Fuest, who bestowed a great deal of style into every other picture he made, seems
to have lost his touch with this mediocrity. The production was supposedly
dogged by interpersonal problems, so perhaps this explains the d irector's lifeless
work here. The film enjoyed only a marginal release on the drive-in circuit before
fading from view. When THE DEVIL'S RAIN turned out to be nothing more than
a light drizzle, LaVey's hopes of making a financially reward ing transition from
cult leader to Hell's man in Hollywood as Satanist to the stars faded.
If nothing else, ALUCARDA, LA HIJA DE LAS TINIEBLAS (1 975) is easily the
best softcore Satanic lesbian nun film that Mexico has ever produced. Juan Lopez
Moctezuma's el cheapo exercise in Sapphic diablerie fol lows the carnal adventu res
of novice nuns Alucarda (Tina Romero) and Justine (Susana Kamini), who turn to
each other for forbidden comfort in a desolate convent. Adding to the smothering
atmosphere of Catholic guilt is a demon who blasphemously disguises himself as
a shepherd. The wayward sisters are seduced into an orgy after being possessed
by the Devil. Of course, all of this sinfu lness must be scourged by the wrath of
God, which comes in the form of a flaming finale that pits a vengeful Bride of
Christ aga inst the forces of Good.
The stiff mummery that passes for acting here is evenly matched by the
meagre bu dget. Not exactly Bufiuel, but the film can hardly be surpassed for
papal prurience. The discerning student of religious cinema may have luck finding
178 • THE SATANIC SCREEN
The Devil's Rain.
this cove n-in-a-convent masterpiece under the a lternate titles SISTERS OF SATAN
or INNOCENTS FROM HELL.
Proving that children should be obscene and not heard is ANGEL ABOVE,
DEVIL B ELOW ( 1 975), which entertainingly put the X into exorcism. This hardcore
porno retread gleefu lly exposes the sexual undercu rrents lurking beneath T H E
EXORCIST's mainstream veneer. More amusing than a n y o f its more legitimate
competitors in the EXORCIST rip-off sweepstakes, the film replaces Regan with the
appropriately monickered teenager Randy (Brittany Lane).
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Leon Deleon presents
TilE
DEVlL
lR�lDE
JlEB.
starring TERRI HALL
JODI MAXWELL
and ROD DUMONT as �tt e"DEVIL"
co-starring
DEAN TATE • ZEBEDY COLT • NANCY DARE
wath a specaal appearance by ANNIE SPRINKLES
DeLEON directed by HOWARD NORTH
While reading maled ictions aloud from a book of the Black Arts, Randy
is aroused by the sounds of feverish sex emanating from her mother's bedroom.
Pushing Linda Blair's original masturbation scene in THE EXORCIST to more explicit
heights, Randy strokes herself while chanting a Satanic litany. The Devil appears
and takes possession of her ravenous vulva, which continues to spew Pazuzu-style
obscenities as it takes on a life of its own. Randy's loquacious labia are
energetically exercised, then exorcised. Boasting a refresh ing sense of its own
ridicu lousness usually lacking in porno, ANGEL ABOVE, DEVIL BELOW is the perfect
antidote to the toxic Puritanism of THE EXORCIST
TH E DEVIL INSIDE HER (1 976) just comes a few pubic hairs away from
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
succeeding at pulling off the delicate balance between Satanic period horror and
porno. Zebedy Colt's study of the demons un leashed by sexual repression may be
the most extreme evocation on screen of the Devil's omn ivorous erotic appetites.
The film is set in the New England of the early 1 800s, where a puritanical farmer
(played by d irector Colt) zealously guards the budding sexu ality of his daughters
from the temptations of fleshly sin. Enraged by his youngest g i rl's crush on a local
farmhand, he sadistically punishes his entire family for her transgressions. The
farmer's eldest daughter, instructed in the Black Arts by a witch of the woods,
calls forth the Prince of Darkness to seek revenge.
The Devil (Rod Dumont) uses his powers to transform himself into each
of the cursed farmer's family members, methodically seducing them all as he sh ifts
gender and shape. Appearing and disappearing in a cloud of smoke that recalls
the quaint special effects of Melies' Sata n ic s ilents, the Devil anoints the entire
clan with his fiery tool, By the film's end, the entire cast has succumbed to
infernally inspired incestuous longings.
Although TH E DEVIL INSIDE HER transcends its essentially exploitative
nature by daring to plunge into genuinely subversive depths, there's one
unforgivable flaw that spoils Colt's strange concoction. Although Roy Dumont
performs manfully as the Devil and boasts the mythica lly appropriate phallic g i rth
required for his role, his makeup and costume are nothing short of laughable.
He's tarted up like a refugee from a Kiss concert, wearing a dog collar that
anachron istica lly betrays the film's punk-era time frame. Save for this glaring
gaffe, this little-known obscurity would have been one of the better hardcores
from Hell.
In the first ridiculous scene, third-rate diabolical doggerel is spouted from
behind a cheap Satan mask as the usual naked blonde squirms on the altar. In the
merciful finale, a botched "it's only a dream" twist ending is trotted out. I n
between these undistingu ished plot points, SATAN'S SLAVE (1 976) tries hard t o
shock with awkwardly staged spurtings of stage blood that would have been
laughed off the stage of the Grand G u ignol. Veteran screen villain Michael Gough
- the o n ly competent actor on hand - lures his niece to an English country manor,
plotting to ritually revive the soul of an ancestral witch in the unsuspecting girl's
body. Gough's sadistic son lurks in the shadows, gripped by a stabbing fetish ever
since he witnessed Dad sacrificing his mother One unatmospheric softcore
flashback, in which the family witch is seen being stripped and whipped by
inquisitors in ye good olde days, typifies the production's superficial exploitation
of the Satanic angle. Director Norman J. Warren fails to wring even a few cheap
thrills from such sensationalist material; this mess can only be said to succeed as
unintentional comedy.
Just when EXORC IST fever had mercifully begun to wane, the screen gave
birth to another demoniacal problem child in 1 976. Joining already established
siblings Adrian and Regan was new kid on the block Damien, the sandbox Satan
of THE OMEN (1976). Although mounted as a sl ick, big-budget Hol lywood
entertainment, the film was in fact deliberately conceived as a way of spreading
the apocalyptic evangel of the religious right to unsuspecting film audiences. Like
THE EXORCIST before it, which had been inspired by the previously mentioned
Jesuit Father Bowdern, THE OMEN was concealed Christian propaganda
masquerading as a mainstream movie. The clever publicity campaign for the film
commenced months before the actual release with a series of suitably ominous
black advertisements in American newspapers simply announcing: "Good Morning.
DELUGE AND BACKLASH: THE 1970s
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181
You are one day closer to the end of the world." Having garnered the public's
attention with this declaration, aud iences were primed for producer Harvey
Bernhard's pretentious lesson in Biblical conspiracy theory tarted up as a horror
movie.
At first glance, THE OMEN seems like nothing more than a succession of
shock gore scenes couched in the bland, carefu lly mediocre style of most
Hol lywood product. However, its central paranoid idea - that the imminent birth
of the Antichrist will rise from the world political landscape and signal the end
times - comes directly from a branch of the conservative fundamentalist
movement at the centre of the American religious right. The film moved a central
tenet of the theocratic agenda of extremist born-again Christianity into the m inds
of its viewers, signalling a shift in American popular consciousness toward the rise
of cultural Reaganism. The Devil seen in ROSEMARY'S BABY and the films it
influenced was a primeval force operant outside of the dying world of Judea­
Christian values. Satan, as perceived in THE OMEN, has no other meaning than as
a counterpart to Christian ity, a faith piously affirmed in the picture's solemn tone.
As such, the film has l ittle to say about Satan ism or black magic as a phenomenon
in its own right, and is purely an expression of B iblical orthodoxy. Considering
this, I've always found it rather amusing that so many would-be Satanists are fans
of this arch-Jehovan picture. Indeed, it's surprising how many modern Satan ists
call themselves "Damien", after the film's Antichrist character. (In the 1 960s and
1 970s, pop Satanists were wont to dub themselves Adrian, after the name of
Rosemary's child.)
The film was elevated from sheer exploitation status by the participation
of Gregory Peck, who does his best with some of the most wooden, awkward
dialogue ever placed in the mouth of any actor. Screenwriter David Seltzer, hired
by producer Bernhard to translate his theological message into script form,
adm itted that "I did it strictly for the money. I was flat broke . . . " Peck is a n
American ambassador posted i n Italy. When h is wife's child i s stillborn, h e is
approached by a mysterious priest who offers a living baby in its place. He accepts
the changeling, unaware that Biblical prophecy has already determined that the
Antichrist will rise from the court of St. James. Sure enough, Peck is transferred
to that post in England, and five years later, h is furtively adopted son, Damien
Thorn (Harvey Stevens}, begins to demonstrate disturbing signs of his patrimony.
Damien's nanny, under a diabolical spell, hangs herself at a birthday party in full
view of the horrified guests. Her replacement (an admirably sinister Billie
Whitelaw}, is an agent of the Satanic conspiracy surrounding the family. Among
his other odd attributes, Damien shows a hysterical aversion to being taken near
churches.
Ambassador Thorn, wondering just what kind of creature he unwittingly
adopted, is confronted by another eccentric priest, who warns him that the ch ild
is in fact the Antichrist. The priest is promptly impaled by infernal forces for his
meddling, leading Peck to do his own research in Rome, where he pieces together
the unholy plot. He learns to his horror that a birthmark on Damien's scalp is the
prophesied mark of the beast 666 (the film was originally entitled BIRTHMARK).
When Damien kills Mrs. Thorn, he resolves to follow an old exorcist's advice, and
slay the child with the daggers of Armageddon, specially crafted for just this
eventual ity. When the police break into the church and discover the Abrahamic
a mbassador about to plunge the dagger into his son, they open fire.
In the film's coda, we see an apparently unmoved Damien attending his
182
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Tbe Omen.
father's funeral in Washington D.C. The Antichrist has been adopted by the late
ambassador's friend, the President of the U n ited States. Thus THE O M EN places
the Devil's influence directly in the seat of world power, presaging the final
conflict of the Apocalypse. This was a parting message perfectly in keeping with
DELUGE AND BACKLASH: THE 1970s
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183
the conspiratoria l gospel of the religious right, which interprets political events
in light of supposed prophecies encoded in Biblical passages. While the film falls
flat except for a few well-orchestrated death scenes, mention must be made of
Jerry Goldsm ith's excellent music which provides some much needed atmosphere
to d irector Richard Donner's film. The ambitious score - stolen shamelessly from
Carl Orff's Carmina Burana - is a liturgical, Latinate High Satanic Mass featuring
a chorus singing "Ave Satani" It's far more evocative than any of the images it
accompanies.
THE OMEN solidified an odd tendency in modern American Satanic films
to depict the Devil as an innocent child. It's impossible to determine whether this
is simply a rehash of one of the more successful ingredients in ROSEMARY'S BABY,
or a particularly American unease about children and their uncertain place in the
family unit. In the 1 980s, as religious fundamentalism became an increasingly vocal
element in American society, there would be a great deal of hand-wringing over
the vulnerability of chi ldren to the (imaginary) conspiracy of Satanic cults said to
threaten the dominance of the cult of "family values"
The elevation of Satanic horror movies into big budgets and into the
mainstream of the film industry left Britain's Hammer Studios in an unsteady
position. Their low-budget Gothics, often infused with Satanic elements, simply
couldn't compete with the American majors. Hammer's president Michael Carreras,
asked about the extraordinary success of THE EXORCIST, adm itted: "To be
perfectly honest, I wish I'd made that fi lm. We are actually into this type of thing.
It's not jumping onto anyone else's bandwagon because we have been closely
associated with Dennis Wheatley for a number of years . . . "
In 1 976, Carreras announced that Hammer would be producing TO TH E
DEVIL. .. A DAUGHTER, based on the Wheatley novel. Somewhat defensively, the
producer said that "of course, somebody will compare it to THE EXORC IST, but it's
something Wheatley wrote a long time ago. Unfortunately I was unable to get
the distributors interested in Wheatley until THE EXORCIST Now, of course, they
think that anything to do with the occult is the new scene. So in one way, I
suppose, I'm exploiting the general will ingness to get into that area now, but it's
something we've wanted to make for ages."
Origina lly, Christopher Lee's short-lived production company Charlemagne
was set to produce the film, based on a personal agreement between Lee and his
friend Wheatley. When financing for this project collapsed, Hammer took over
along with German independent Terra Filmkunst. Wheatley's rather muddled 1 9 53
novel was placed in a contemporary setting by screenwriter Christopher Wicking,
responsible for some of the most interesting British horror films of the '70s
(including BLOOD FROM THE MU MMY'S TOMB and SCREAM AND SCREAM
AGAIN). Wicking removed Wheatley's subplot concerning the trauma of World
War II to concentrate on the oEcult theme. The film has often been criticized by
those who prefer Hamm er's usual Victorian mode of Gothic storyte lling as
incoherent and hard to follow, but a deliberately oblique handling of narrative
was Wicking's specialty.
Christopher Lee was a natural for the part of the Satanic Father Michael
Rayner, an excommunicate Cath olic priest. Armed with their biggest budget ever
- nearly a m i l lion dollars - Hammer sought to cast an immediately recognizable
Hol lywood actor in the part of the hero, American occult author John Verney, an
obvious Wheatley alter ego. Richard Widmark was engaged, but made no secret
of the fact that he considered the subject matter distasteful and judged
184
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
To The Devil.. A Daughter.
participation in a horror film to be beneath his dignity. During filming, he
exasperated the fi 1m's producer Roy Skeggs, by frequently threatening to abandon
the production and return to the States. Despite these behind-the-scenes
problems, the on-screen battle of wills between Lee and Widmark is o n e of the
picture's strengths.
Due to his experience with occult matters, Verney is approached by Henry
Beddows (Denholm Elliot) for assistance. He shame-facedly admits that he
promised his young daughter Catherine (Natassja Kinski) to a Satanic cult when
she was born, and now the sect are moving in on her. Catherine has returned
from Father Rayner's Satanic convent in Bavaria, and Verney finds himself pitted
against Rayner's considerable black magical powers as he tries to protect the girl.
Rayner has presided over the birth of a demon child - a plot contrivance
somewhat reminiscent of Crowley's novel Moonchild - and the creature is to be
fused with Satanic n u n Kinski to bring the demon Astaroth to earth. The struggle
between Verney and Rayner is very much like the one portrayed between Mocata
and de Richleau in Hammer's earlier THE DEVIL RIDES OUT Peter Sykes directs the
film with a quirky personal touch, avoiding the sometimes generic formula tone
of H a mmer's later films.
A strong supporting cast includes Denholm Ell iot, who turns in a superbly
hau nted, neurotic and frenzied performance as Henry Beddows, a man in mortal
fear of the Devil's powers. Honor Blackman, best known as Pussy Galore in the
James Bond film GOLDFINGER, appears as Verney's London agent dragged into
DELUGE AND BACKLASH: THE 1970s • 185
The Dwil's People.
the occult confrontation. Nastassja "N asty" Kinski, who was the scandalous
teenage paramour of ROSEMARY'S BABY director Roman Polanski at the time of
production, has the d istinction of being the last of many Hammer ingenues. She
suggests a n appropriate sin ister eroticism. but her performance is hard to judge
since her heavily accented voice was dubbed by an English actress. Kinski's final
nude scene went much further than the pulchritude of earlier Hammer films,
adding to her already notorious reputation. According to Christopher Lee, Dennis
Wheatley disliked the film "because he felt the sexua l perverseness of it was
gratuitous" The author particularly felt that the graphically depicted birth of the
Satanic child went beyond the pale. Letting the film down terribly is the tepid
ending, a n anti-climax that thoroughly deflates the atmosphere. In the final scene,
the forces of evil are suddenly routed in an abandoned church when Rayner is
suddenly hit on the head with a rock, and knocked cold. One leaves the film
feeling cheated somehow, as if the real ending was left on the cutting room floor
In fact, it was - a scene was originally shot in which Lee was devoured by demons
guarding a magic circle. When the film was rel.eased i n the summer of 1 976, THE
O M E N had already beat it to cinemas, stea ling much of its thunder H ammer's
attempt to break into another level failed, and TO THE DEVIL. .. A DAUGHTER
van ished quickly. It was the last of the Hammer horror films. Certa i n ly a flawed
picture, it was nonetheless a more interesting take on diabolism than its more
commercially successful competitors of the time.
Lee's frequent co-star Peter Cushing also found himself playing the leader
of a Satanic sect in 1 976. Unfortunately, the distinguished actor was given little
to work with in the shoddy Greek production THE DEVIL'S PEOPLE. Di rected with
186
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
a leaden hand by Costas Carayiann is, there's little to recommend this attempt at
transferring the successful strain of Sata nic shocker to Hellenic climes. Cushing is
the debased Baron Corofax, grand master of a cult venerating the M inotaur, that
ancient man-bull of Greek legend. Despite the pagan nature of the Min otaur, we
are left in no doubt as to the Satanic spirit of Corofax and his scarlet robed
disciples. Scantily clad sacrifices writhe on the altar, and hemoglobin flows
copiously, easily making this one of the most lurid films the usually restra ined
Cushing ever appeared in. Cushing, a deeply religious man in his private life, does
his sin ister best with the drab dialogue al lotted to what is the only Satanic
character he played in his long career. At least Baron Corofax is given a worthy
opponent in the form of the always interesting Donald Pleasence, cast against
type as a heroic priest. A pall of predictabil ity informs the plot, which concludes
u n imaginatively with a generic Blonde Victim (Luan Peters) barely eluding the
dagger as a generic Evil Castle explodes. THE DEVIL'S PEOPLE is slightly redeemed
by a moody Brian Eno score which far exceeds in qual ity the film it was attached
to.
German author E.T.A. Hoffmann crafted one of the best Satanic novels of
all time with his The Devil's Elixir published in 1 81 6. In that book's sin ister pages,
the Capuchine monk Medardus d iscovers an ancient wine flask said to contain the
legendary Devil's e l ixir Unable to resist its temptation, he quaffs the perilous
potion, which immediately opens occult gateways. In Rome, Medardus meets his
own double, a fiend that sets about committing every sin imaginable, dragging
the monk into hellish adventures. Hoffmann's novel was a decisive influence on
the early Sata n ic cinema, and Hanns Heinz Ewers borrowed more than an idea or
two from it for his film STUDENT VON PRAG. When Manfred Purzer set to
bringing this classic to the screen 1 60 years after its first appearance, he failed
a lmost completely in capturing its uncanny spirit. Purzer's DIE ELIXIERE DES
TEUFELS (1976) pulls its punches on almost every score, leaving us with a
superficial, uninvolving Classics I llustrated rendition. Its worst faults are the talky
screenplay and superficial atmosphere, making for a terribly unci nematic film with
none of the novel's luminous otherworldly imagery.
Alison Parker (Cristina Raines) is a fashion model who d iscovers that she's
fated to be TH E SENTINEL (1 977), the guardian of the gateway to Hell. She moves
into a venerable - and apparently haunted - apartment house in New York,
encountering eccentric and elderly Satanic neighbours obviously inspired by the
residents of the Bramford in ROSEMARY'S BABY A sin ister Bu rgess Meredith,
doting over his familiar (a black and white cat named Jezebel), is the livel iest of
several veteran character actors who appear. John Canadine's wizened
appearance is made the most of in his performance as the blind priest Father
Hal loran, glimpsed sightlessly gazing out of a top-floor window of the apartment
house.
D i rector Michael Winner's handling of the material sometimes has the
impersonal feel of a TV movie, but a few disturbing sequences and Albert
Whitlock's im pressive special effects lift this out of the ordinary. Although the film
was a failure at the box-office, a minor controversy was created by Winner's use
of genuinely deformed extras in a scene unleashing the demons of Hell. Indeed,
the self-righteous brouhaha over this politically incorrect scene has tended to
unduly tarnish the reputation of a film that's actu ally of more merit than many
better known occult films of its ilk.
A rare non-horror Satanic manifestation in the '70s was Tony Richardson's
DELUGE AND BACKLASH: THE 1970s • 187
The Senlinel.
JOSEPH ANDREWS ( 1 977), based on Henry Fielding's 1 742 novel. A follow-up of
sorts to Richardson's earlier TOM JON ES, both films take place i n a fanciful 1 8th
century Merrie England. Joseph And rews (Peter Firth), born an aristocrat, is
swapped at birth for a commoner, and grows up to become a humble servant.
Following his penis through a picaresque series of bawdy misadventures, h e
crosses the class lines a n d takes t o the bed o f the l usty Lady Booby (Ann Margret).
In the course of his travels, he finds himself in the sinister manor of a
nam eless Wicked Squire, played with hell ish relish by the excellent Kenneth
Cranham. The Squire, an unholy cross between the Hellfire Club's Sir Francis
Dashwood and the Marquis de Sade, is given to the practice of the Black Arts. This
infernal episode, considerably expanded from its brief appearance i n the original
novel, makes for one of the more enterta ining segments of the film. Cranham's
Wicked Squire is certainly one of the most elegant Satanic characters in a decade
over-run by crude cardboard Devil worshippers with l ittle personal ity. As always,
the more notable portrayals of diabolism ·are to be found outside the form u la of
genre.
By the time EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC ( 1 977) reached theatres, the market
had a l ready been saturated with innumerable i m itators of the Friedkin film.
Subsequently, this absurd sequel - d i rected by the usually capable John Boorman
- was a flop of catastrophic proportions. Pred ictably, Pazuzu returns to possess the
now eig hteen year-old Regan (Linda Blair). Replacing the original team of
188
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THE SATANIC SCREEN
Exorcist IL
Exorcists is a high-tech child psychologist (louise Fletcher) and Father Lamont
(Richard Burton), a heretical Catholic priest. Admittedly, Boorman occas ionally
creates a few visually impressive images (including a truly apocalyptic swarm of
locusts), but they all seem oddly unrelated to the incoherent plot. A mach ine
which hooks into Regan's mind seems awfully reminiscent of a similar gadget in
the far superior QUATERMASS AND THE PIT, and indeed, the swarming locusts
recall the scenes of warring Martian insect creatures in the earlier film. Richard
Burton is at his worst here, a ham with a hangover mouthing lines of pseudo­
profound religiosity. A flat and unconvincing Linda Blair demonstrates none of the
promise some critics saw in her original performance as Regan. The first screenings
of the film were greeted with derisive laughter, leading to last-m inute editing
that only made the senseless narrative more confusing.
The cheerfully inane SATAN'S CHEERLEADERS (1 977) deserves a mention
for its title alone. Whether director Greydon Clark actually intended this to be a
comedy is unclear, but this ridiculous flick provides a few laughs all the same.
While en route to a crucial football game, a qua rtet of high school rah-rah girls
are abducted by the school jan itor, who just. happens to be an in itiate of the local
Sata nic congregation. They escape, only to fa l l into the clutches of the leaders of
the cult, the town sheriff and his wife (John Ireland and Yvonne De Carlo).
Natura l l y, the Satan ists are itch ing to offer the nubile nymphets up to the dark
master but one of the girls is actually in league with the Devil. In what must be
the most banal representation of black magic i n any film, the demonic cheerleader
(Kerry Sherman) leads her team to victory with Lucifer's aid. The discriminating
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John Carradine, always a guarantee of quality in any film, makes a brief
appearance.
1 977 was definitely a vintage year for nymphettes imperilled by Satan. The
precocious kiddies frolicking on that year's THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND included
grown-up pornstresses Angela Haze and Desiree West, dressed up absurdly to
appear roughly around the age of consent in fetishistic Catholic schoolgirl and Girl
Scout garb. A lewd Lucifer (Kelly Guthrie) and his fallen partner in crime Angel
(Bonnie Holiday) drag the innocents to a particularly tacky Hell set, where they're
initiated into the pleasures of infernal concupiscience.
Prolific hardcore auteur Rik Tazino guides Lucifer's playmates well beyond
spin the bottle, documenting the girls' baptism into Satanic S&M. Not only is this
pseudo-paedophile fantasy threadbare and run of the m i ll, it's completely
unerotic. Completists will want to know that Tazino filmed his FINGER LICKIN'
GOOD, a homosexual version ofTHE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND, simultaneously on the
same shabby sets.
Marvin Birdt was the obscure agent who set the Devil film cycle into high
gear when he sold the galleys for ROSEMARY'S BABY to William Castle in 1 967.
Ten years later. he made h is own minor offering to the Satanic cinema, when he
produced THE CAR (1 977). d irected by El liot Si lverstein. Actually not as silly as it
sounds on paper, the picture's supercharged Satan is a sinister black car with no
visible driver An updated version of countless folktales concern ing the Devil's
riderless black horse, the p icture also plays knowingly on the i n nate apprehension
about the soulless nature of machines. In the film's most striking scene, the flesh
and blood protagonists manage to destroy the possessed vehicle by tricking it into
a trap filled with dynamite. At the moment of impact, a Satanic visage forms in
the fiery sky, vanishing in the inferno. Certainly no masterpiece, but the auto from
Hell emanates more genuine menace than many an actor in feeble Devil make-up.
Unwilling to let sleeping Antichrists lie, DAMIEN: THE OMEN II (1 978)
attempts to reshuffle the successful elements of its blockbuster predecessor
Replacing Gregory Peck as Damien's guardian is William Holden, another aging
star from Hollywood's golden age. Now, Damien has reached the ominous age of
13, and he traumatically begins to unravel the mystery of h is Satanic heritage.
Young actor Jonathan Scott-Taylor is very good at conveying Damien's pubescent
confusion as he learns that he bears the Mark of the Beast, and he brings a sense
of authority to the role once he accepts his destiny. Set in an exclusive military
academy, Don Taylor's fil m is actually far better constructed than the original
entry. The Presidential angle hinted at in the last film is dropped, and now
Damien is the ward of a business magnate uncle. Now, the Devil is seen to have
his eye on the sphere of high finance, a social strata that has always aroused
superstitious conspiracy theories in the masses.
When Holden learns that he's harbouring the false prophet of Revelations,
he hastens to do right by the Lord and kill the child in the proscribed ritual
manner. However, his wife (Lee Gra nt) is in league with Satan, and she manages
to save Damien in a fiery finale that suggests a small-scale apoca lypse. Jerry
Go ldsmith contrib uted another ambitious score, which was released in vinyl form
with the subtitle of A Black Mass.
Italian d i rector Alberto de Martino, whose L'ANTICHRISTO was the only
interesting EXORCIST imitator, now borrowed liberally from THE OMEN series for
his HOLOCAUST 2000 (1 978) aka THE CHOSEN. An odd mixture of the clashing
British and Italian styles of horror, this is in many ways a more compelling picture
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Damien: 1be Omen II.
than the movies it was so obviously pi lfered from.
Instead of Peck or Holden, we have a slumming Kirk Douglas as a
m i l lionaire corporate head who d iscovers that his son (Simon Ward) is the
destined heir of Satan. A late 1 970s trend of associating Satanism with rampant
capitalism continues to reveal itself here. The Apocalyptic fear factor is
emphasized by centring the action around the construction of a nuclear plant in
the suitably B iblica l locale of the Middle East. Antichrist Ward, in a notable
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performance of arrogant Evil, plans to usher in Doomsday by deliberately blasting
the nuclear reactor, in accordance with an eldritch prophecy. Perhaps it has to do
with an Italian cultural penchant for Cath olic spiritual angst, but the threat of the
Antichrist seems more pointedly realized here than in any of THE OMEN movies.
Adding an effective overlay of atmosphere is an undeservedly forgotten score by
the great Ennio Morricone. Italian Devil films have almost all been derivative of
Anglo-American models, but despite this shortcoming, HOLOCAUST 2000 is a
minor triumph of Spaghetti Satanism.
The Devil got down with his bad self in Rudy Ray Moore's blaxploitation
vehicle PETEY WHEATSTRAW, THE DEVIL'S SON-IN-LAW. Moore, a veteran stand­
up comedian, was renowned for the scabrous obscenity of his live act. As the
signifying sex machine Dolem ite, who he played in a successful series of films,
Moore created a cha racter whose popularity in the flourishing Afro-American
market briefly rivalled that of such stalwart black icons as Shaft and Blacula.
D irector Cliff Roquemore's inane script has Moore basically playing himself as a
comedian battling mobsters. Every imaginable '70s exploitation gimm ick is
employed, including an attempt at tapping into the karate and kung fu craze. The
Devil appears in an especially inept make-up to offer Moore a deal: he' l l apply his
infernal powers against the gangsters if the comedian will marry his plug-ugly
daughter and sire a Satanic heir This mind lessly amusing jaunt may well be the
nadir of the "Devil child " motif that dominated the Satanic cinema of the '70s.
Larger-than-life character actor Victor Buono's enjoyably flamboyant
performance as the Devil adds some spirit to the otherwise routine haunted house
picture THE EVIL (1 978}. A psychologist (Richard Crenna} and his wife (Joanna
Pettet} have the bright idea of opening a drug rehab clinic in a notoriously
spooked abode. When a malevolent force locked in the cellar is accidentally
un leashed, a spectral murder spree ensues. Crenna plays one of those strict
rational ists that dismisses any notion of the supernatural, until he comes face-to­
face with Buono's marvellous Lucifer h imself. Director Gus Trikonis tells his
somewhat trite tale with enough suspense to maintain interest, but this adds little
to the Satanic mythos of the cinema. A word to the wise: although Buono's Devil
unequivocally steals the show, h is scenes were inexplicably cut from some prints.
THE LEGACY (1 978}, a confused curio directed by Richard Marquand, is set
into motion by the hackneyed contrivance of a couple (Katharine Ross and Sam
Elliot) finding themse lves stranded in an isolated mansion after experiencing car
trouble. Could there be any more tired cliche? Well, yes, there is, and this
stubbornly routine film resorts to it. Elderly millionaire Jason Mountolive (John
Standing) is on his death bed, confined to an oxygen tent. A motley assortment
of characters have gathered in his gloomy estate to await the old geezer's demise.
Each of them are mysteriously kil led by an unimpressive array of special effects.
The only twist on these antediluvian cliches is the Satanic angle, dragged in rather
arbitrari ly. Each of the guests have sold their souls to Lucifer, and the old man is
making good on their debts by supernaturally dispatch ing them. Of note is the
appearance of Charles Gray, one of the screen's finest villains - who so brillia ntly
portrayed Mocata in THE DEVIL RIDES OUT ten years previously - as one of the
Satan ists. The telekinetic heroine discovers that she's destined to become the
Devil's earthly intermediate upon Mountol ive's passage. Yet another all too
familiar cliche is revived - she's the reincarnation of Mountolive's mother, who
was a witch burned at the stake. All of these warmed-up leftovers from a score
of earlier films have as little life in them as the movie's wheezing geriatric villain.
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1be Legacy.
Only ten years after the Sata nic horror film genre had really been given
momentum by ROSEMARY'S BABY, the cultural tide had turned against the
dep iction of the dark and disturbing in mainstream pictures. Even the fantastic
cinema - once at the forefront of adventurous film-making - became curiously
bland. It was as if every trace of the shadowy and sinister had been banished from
the screen. The new fantasy film largely projected uninteresting visions of
mind less optimism, reflecting a society that seemed to be experiencing a psychotic
retrogression into childishness. The guilty men behind this noxious trend were
Spielberg and Lucas, whose anodyne films seemed to deliberately avoid any
psychic depth, relentlessly focused on the bright shiny surface of things. The huge
success of STAR WARS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND was really the
death knell of the Satanic film. The Lucas/Sp ielberg film factory churned o u t safe,
u n challenging fantasies of Manichean simpl icity, a dreary twelve-year-old boy's
vision of the universe where machines are neat, girls are icky, and everyth i n g
moves really fast a n d explodes. The brave new world imagined by the
Lucas/Spielberg team was strangely devoid of any eroticism, as squeaky-clean and
wholesome as a 1 950s TV show - the ultimate reaction to the revolutionary
tendencies of the 1 960s and early 1 970s, and the very antithesis of the black
imag inations of such subversives as Polanski or Bunuel.
As such, the Lucas/Spiel berg phenomenon was the barometer of the new
social conservatism that domi nated the decade to come. The Devil could never
thrive in such a sterile environment. Just as the age of Eisenhower and flying
saucers had seen the virtual disappearance of the Satanic cinema, so would the
era of Reagan and R2D2 witness a similar decline.
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THE 1980s
Kenneth Anger, who had not released a film since the brief INVOCATION OF MY
DEMON BROTHER in 1 969, was finally able to complete his decades-spanning
project LUCIFER RISING in 1 980. Initially intended to be a paean to the spirit of the
Age of Aquarius, its vision seemed completely out of step with the tenor of the
decade that was dawning. Furthermore, he had turned against all the Luciferian
muses who had inspired him since he had first started the film.
M ick Jagger, originally intended to play Lucifer in the film, was now being
berated by Anger for not contributing funds for the financing of his epic. The
familiar accusations of theft were bandied about: " M ick got his idea for
'Sympathy For The Devil' from my idea of the film. He stole it from me." In
another interview, Anger fumed that he finished LUCIFER RISING only to defy
Jagger, who refused to contribute funds for the production. " H is little act is over
the hil l," the Magus proclaimed. In the early '70s, Jimmy Page, gu itarist for Led
Zeppelin, and an avid acolyte of Aleister Crowley, had contributed a gratis
soundtrack for LUCIFER RISING, even a l lowing the film-maker to live in his home
while he edited the film. Predictably, this collaboration ended in the customary
manner, with Anger holding a 1 976 press conference to denounce Page and
announce that he was throwing a curse on him.
Shortly thereafter Anger had a brief reconciliation with the incarcerated
Bobby Beausoleil, serving time for the murder of Gary Hinman. Beausoleil
recorded a beautiful, stirring soundtrack to LUCIFER RISING, but it wasn't long
before Anger began accusing the musician of theft again, reviving the old charges
he had been making since the 1 960s. There was another bitter break between the
two. The actual making of the film also added to this cloud of rancour Anger
publicly bragged that he was responsible for the suicide of Michael Cooper, the
talented photographer who filmed several sequences in LUCIFER RISING. According
to Anger, he had "bawled ... out" the sensitive cameraman too often, leading h im
to k i l l h imself. In her autobiog raphy, Marianne Faithful!, who starred as the
demoness Lilith in Anger's magnum opus, wrote that she found the director to be
" inept" as both a film-maker and magician.
Thus LUCIFER RISING - described by Anger as a "love vision" during the
mescaline glow of the 1 960s - became a monument to the endless antagonism
and personal conflict that plagued its creator's life. If, like Anger himself, the film
seems stranded in a '60s time warp, it also has moments of strange beauty that
testify to its d irector's authentic magical gift. No recounting of the dense,
symbolic narrative sheds light on this work's hermetic mysteries. Filmed in such
locales as Egyptian ruins and Germanic pagan shrines, this is "a real invocation of
Lucifer", just as Anger has described it. Essentially, this is a poem of mythic
imag es, filled with the enactment of rituals and Thelemic arcana accessible
primarily to in itiates of Crowley's teachings. After the succession of fallen angels
Anger had cast in the starring role, a violent British hustler named Leslie Huggins
was the final Lucifer. (Huggins disappeared from Anger's life a fu ll decade before
the film was finished.) Seething with pictures of elemental nature about to erupt,
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LU<:ifer Rising.
the film is a l ive with a n u n m istakable sexual energy. Each image seems as limned
with interiorized meaning as a hieroglyph.
I've a lways felt that the work's overa ll power is weakened by the climactic
appearance of some kitsch 1 950s flying saucers hovering over the ruins of Egypt.
Furthermore, the scenes of Isis and Osiris performing a Golden Dawn-style ritual
occasionally approaches campiness rather than mystical vision. While the montage
of occult i l lustrations Anger presents are gripping, much credit for the film's
success must be given to Bobby Beausoleil's haunting soundtrack. Veering
between heroic grandeur to sinister circus textures, the soaring score ach ieves a l l
the shadowed majesty of the film's elusive title character Beausoleil's score is far
superior to J i m my Page's earlier attempt, and LUCIFER RISING benefits
im measurably from the music of Anger's incarcerated angel.
As Anger stated to his biographer B il l Landis, "the film contained real
black mag icians, a real ceremony, real altars, real human blood, and a real magic
circle consecrated with blood and cum" Compared to the hokum of so many
patently fake rituals we've witnessed in other Satanic films, it's ultimately LUCIFER
RISING's sense of authenticity that distinguishes it. Tragically, the nearly fifteen­
year struggle that occupied Anger from the first conception of the film to its
actual release seemed to have drained the director's creative energies. He never
made another film, retreating to the ninth circle of an artistic limbo from which
he has yet to return. Like Lucifer, Kenneth Anger seems to have spent an eternity
consigned to his own cosmic exile.
The spark of Luciferian rebellion and creative energy with which Anger's
film is suffused could not have been more absent from the majority of diabolic
films of the 1 980s. I n a decade in which the reactionary backlash against the '60s
spirit of subversion took on virulent political form, the archetype of the Rebel
Angel was shunted back to the margins of social awareness. American secular and
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Mepbislo.
religious television spewed forth a torrent of misinformation concern ing the Black
Arts, whipping up a genuine witch-hunt against any sign of suspected Satanic
influence in the media. Panic-stricken mass delusions swirling around fears of
Sata n ic serial kil lers, Satanic child abuse, and other imaginary ills entered into a
currency not seen since the M iddle Ages. It was hardly an atmosphere conducive
to the production of adventurous Satanic cinema.
There were some exceptions to this rule, almost all of them created
outside the borders of Ronald Reagan's fundamentalist theocracy of "family
values" The Fa ust legend was p layed as political al legory in Hungarian d irector
Istvan Szabo's M EPH ISTO ( 1 981). Klaus Maria Brandauer turns in a powerful
performance as Hendrik HOfgen, a ruth less German stage actor of the 1 930s
whose greatest role is Meph isto in Goethe's Faust. His metaphoric pact with the
Devil is symbolized by his willingness to work for the new Nazi state, which serves
as his patron. Here, Satan is represented as a secular force of power rather than
a metaphysical being.
Obviously, the main character is based closely on the controversial Gustav
GrOndgens, the most famous interpreter of Mephisto on the German stage, who
enjoyed the patronage of the Third Reich ·in the 1 930s and 1 940s. The screenplay,
written by Szabo and Peter Dobai, emphasizes the Faustian symbolism far more
than the 1 936 Klaus Mann novel which inspired the film. Mann was GrOndgen's
embittered brother-in-law, and the novel was rea lly a very personal poison pen
letter disgu ised as a novel.
There are several interesting ambig uities to the picture. Although it is
Brandauer who's seen in the traditional make-up and costume of the Devil as he
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The Final Conflict- The Omen m
plays his signature role, it is actually the nameless Minister-President (Rolf-Hoppe),
who represents Satanic temptation to the Faustian actor. Szabo occasionally
summons the spectre of Expressionism from the German silent era in depicting his
m u lti-layered tale of opportunism. Considering the director's own position as an
artist working within the Stalin ist structure of the then-Communist Hungarian
state, one gets the impression that Szabo is not only commenting on the Third
Reich, but on the Faustian bargain impl icit in working within all tota litarian states.
Brandauer's magn ificent performance carries the film, and the scenes depicting
him onstage as Meph isto compare favourably to Griindgen's incarnation of that
figure in FAUST (1 960).
Producer Harvey Bernhard had originally intended his OMEN series as an
increasingly elaborate four-part epic tracing the rise and fall of Antichrist. When
audience interest slackened, the saga was cut short with the muted and
perfunctory TH E FINAL CONFLICT- THE OMEN Ill (1981 ), directed by Graham Baker
(although a TV movie, OMEN IV - THE AWAKENING appeared in 1 9 9 1 ). If
Bernhard had followed Damien Thorn's apotheosis to its logical conclusion, this
ultimate episode could have been a visionary spectacle depicting all the fantastic
imagery of the Apocalypse. U nfortunately, this low-key anti-climax boasts no
seven-headed beast rising from stormy seas,· no Whore of Babylon, and no furious
cosmic battle. Scenarist Andrew Sirkin's imagination falls considerably short of St.
John's Revelations in every particular.
Damien Thorn (Sam Neill) is now the president of Thorn Industries, poised
to fulfil his bid for world hegemony. When a strange trinity star appears in the
night sky, Thorn realizes that "the Nazarene", his hated adversary, has returned
to earth. He orders his worldwide agents to track down and kill every baby born
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1Ds Rilos Sexuales Del Diablo.
under this new star of Bethlehem. An order of monks, armed with the same
daggers of Megiddo seen in the fi rst two films, sets out to assassinate the
Antichr ist. Thorn makes short work of this holy hit squad, and much of the film
recou nts their grisly deaths i n a series of gory set-pieces. A lud icrous soap opera
subplot attempts to add some human d i mension to Thorn's villainous character
The Antichrist falls for a mortal woman (Lisa Ha rrow}, and is temporarily
d istracted from h is diabolical quest by some rather mundane relationship
problems.
It's characteristic of the film's conservative morality that the depth of
Thorn's Sata nic nature is rather lamely suggested by his fondness for anal sex,
which is presented as an unnatural sin of the highest magnitude. One would have
imagined that the Devil on earth was made of stronger stuff. Thorn's rampant
capitalism is also condemned as another Mark of his Beastliness, in keeping with
the general Biblical hostility toward worldly success. Like so many other pictures
that attempt to depict abstract "Evil" in terms accessible to a mainstream
aud ience, THE FINAL CONFLICT never dares to truly disturb. In lieu of the dreaded
worldwide Armageddon promised by all three O M EN films, Damien is easily
routed by the last-minute apparition of a giant Jesus. "You have won nothing ! "
are Damien's defiant dying words to the Nazarene. Sam Neill, a n accomplished
actor with considerable presence, does his best with his underwritten Antichrist.
Adding to his repertoire of weird religious figures, Neill later went on to play
Pope John Paul II in a TV movie.
Spanish director Jose Larraz successfully exposed the seething sexual ity
implicit in the legend of the undead in his relentlessly venereal VAMPYRES { 1 975).
He took the same approach to Sata nism in 1 98 1 's LOS RITOS SEXUALES DEL
DIABLO (THE SEXUAL RITES OF THE DEVIL) released in Britain under the more
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poetic title BLACK CANDLES. Larraz's celebration of polymorphous perversity is
very much a creation of its time and place. Under Franco's oppressively Catholic
regime, Spanish film-makers were forced to adopt the state-approved attitude of
pio usness, avoiding explicit sexuality at all costs. Franco's death unleashed a wave
of reaction to this conservative aesthetic, and LOS RITOS SEXUALES DEL DIABLO
deliberately pushes the boundaries of what was al lowed to be seen on Spanish
screens.
Larraz leads h is characters through a succession of taboo-breaking erotic
rituals designed to set poor General Franco spinning in his tomb. In the film's
prologue, Fiona, a Satanic High Priestess, uses a voodoo doll and sex magic to kill
her husband, who is planning on betraying her coven. The slain man's sister,
Carol, and her boyfriend Robert, a defrocked priest, are invited to Fiona's mansion
in the English countrysid!!. When they arrive, there's a power blackout, and their
flirtatious hostess lights black candles. The rest of the film is a series of Satanic
seductions, as the couple are lured into the sex sect by the randy diabolists. Fiona
spies on her guests as they have sex, which inspires her to vigorous masturbation.
The heroine dreams of necrophiliac incest with her dead brother Robert is
ind ucted into the coven during an orgy, which inspires him to force himself anally
on Carol. (Of course, we've already learned that buggery is a sure-fire symptom
of Satanism in TH E FINAL CONFLICT.) While Carol is in mid-orgasm, being
penetrated by the coven's High Priest, she awakens to realize this has all been a
dream, and that she's only just arriving at Fiona's home. Director Larraz, who
began his career as an artist, embellished the sexploitation with some stylish
photographic set-ups, but was u ltimately dissatisfied with the film.
THE OMEN series inspired two minor derivations in the 1 980s, both of
which drew especially on the " I Was A Teenage Antichrist" plot of DAM IEN - TH E
O M EN II. Frank La Loggia's low-budget FEAR NO EVIL (1981) is the kind of God­
fearing, Bib le-affirm ing Satanic film you could show at the local church without
raising a single peep of protest. In the film's prologue, an elderly priest destroys
Lucifer's earthly incarnation with a crucifix-laden staff that zaps a holy laser beam
at the fallen angel. In 1963, the d issident archangel is born again to an ordinary
family in u pstate New York. When the child is baptized, demonic special effects
materialize, spooking the congregation and causing Mom to rush her evil infant
away from God's house. When Lucifer matures into sullen eighteen-year-old
Andrew Williams (Stefan Arngrim), he begins to realize his metaphysical identity.
Andrew's unusual degree of intelligence marks him as an unpopular "brain" with
the high school jocks, who regularly persecute him. He begins to fight back with
his developing powers. J ust as Lucifer is coming into his own, an old woman in
the neighbourhood and a girl in And rew's class learn that they are the
incarnations of the angels Mikhail and Gabrielle, reborn to combat the Fiend on
the dawn of the second coming. The awakening of the two cosmic do-gooders to
their angelic natures is portrayed with a cloying tone of earnest reverence that's
far creepier than any of Andrew's mild Satanic symptoms.
Few mainstream horror films have been so firmly grounded in Christian ity
as FEAR NO EVIL. The plodding screenplay is heavy with prayers and quotes from
scripture, and the priests in the film are presented as inhuman paragons of Good.
If the Vatican ever goes into the horror film business, this is the kind of thing we
might expect them to produce. As for Stefan Arngrim's Andrew, he's got to be
the weakest, wimpiest Devil in the Satanic cinema. He's a petulant spoiled brat,
whining in a querulous voice that's anything but sin ister. It's no wonder that the
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Fear No Evil.
two reincarnated angels easily kick his disobedient butt in the final special effects
confrontation, after forcing h i m to recite the Lord's Prayer. In an effort to candy­
coat a l l this solemn relig iosity for the teen market's consumption, a jarring
assortment of '80s new wave and punk fills the sou ndtrack, which only makes
sense when we hear Johnny Rotten annou nce that " I am an Antichrist ! "
Also aimed a t the anxieties of teenage audiences was Eric Weston's
EVILSPEAK ( 1 9 82), plagiaristically p layed against the exact same mil itary academy
setting as DAMIEN - THE OMEN II. Former child actor Clint Howard plays
Coopersmith, one of those precociously bright but socially unskilled nerd
characters that were such a staple of '80s horror films. Naturally, he's the favourite
target of his classmate's cruelty, and the perpetual bullying awakens a desire to
settle the score. Like many another unloved misfit in this subgenre, he turns to
Satan. Unearthing an ancient black magical grimoire, he feeds the demonic data
into his home computer. This puts him online with the Devil, who assists h i m in
turn ing the tables on his tormentors. In one of the film's sill ier scenes, a brood of
demonic wild swine are un leashed on the academy's jocks. In the end, a
supernaturally savvy reverend intervenes for Jesus. A routine retread of exhausted
themes from other films, EVILSPEAK was at least prescient in predicting the rise
of the Satanist as computer geek, a trend which would actually emerge during the
'90s epidemic of Internet addiction.
Ten years after Justine Jones' cinematic damnation first became a socio­
sexual phenomenon, director Henri Pachard's THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES II (1 982)
continued the tale where it had left off - in Hell. Pachard eschews the darker tone
of Damiano's original, crafting instead a breezy porno comedy. We find Miss Jones
(Georgina Spelvin, reprising her role) in flagrante delicto with Cyrano De
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Evilspeak.
Bergerac's infamous nose. Orgasm is forbidden in Hell, and just as Justine is about
to come, alarms beg in ringing and Satan's phallocephalic storm-troopers haul her
off for punishment to their master, Lucifer (Jack Wrangler). When Justine succeeds
in coaxing a (literally) fiery ejaculation from Luc ifer, he rewards her by sending
her back to the world of the living to satiate her demonic lust.
The Devil perm its Justine's damned soul to inhabit the busy bodies of a
bevy of '80s porn starlets, including Jacqueline Lorians as Roxanne, a top dollar
call girl. One of her more memorable tricks is a john whose unique fetish it is to
disguise himself as the Devil, replete with a Satan-visaged french tickler to
complete the outfit. The real Lucifer, keeping a watc hful eye on Justine/Roxanne,
is not amused by this mortal impertinence. As Justine shifts from o n e body after
another in her quest for the ultimate orgasm, Lucifer becomes helplessly smitten
with his faithless charge.
Tortured with a n all too human jealousy as he observes Justine's array of
amours, the Devil transforms her into the virginal nun S ister Angela (Samantha
Fox), hoping to remove her from temptation. Such historical ladies of sin as Marie
Antionette and Cleopatra make cameo appearances as eternally frustrated
denizens of Hell. Despite its X-rated excesses, there's something almost quaintly
romantic about DEVIL IN MISS JONES II, which provides a heart as well as a hard­
on for its sympathetic Satan. The lucrative DEVIL IN MISS JONES saga continued
in two lesser made-for-video sequels in 1986 and 1987.
THE KEEP (1983), based on an F. Paul Wilson novel, is an ambitious horror
film with p h ilosophical pretensions, an allegorical tale of Good and Evil set in
Romania during World War II. A German army troop seizes an ancient fortress in
a Carpathian mountain pass. When an unknown entity begins k i l l ing his soldiers,
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The Keep.
the u nit's commander (Jurgen Prochnow) realizes that the well-fortified keep his
men are guarding was built to prevent something from breaking out. A fanatical
SS officer (Gabriel Byrne) suspects that the troops are being executed by enemy
partisans in the nearby vi llage, and begins taking reprisals. Prochnow, who is one
of those "good" Germans that Hollywood films occasionally portray, learns from
a local Jewish occult scholar that the keep is a prison for a Satanic being known
as Molosar. The mortal evil of the Nazis, according to the professor, has awakened
the metaphysical evil of Molosar from its slumber. All of this is handled in a tense,
atmospheric manner, with quite a few scenes possessed of a mysterious poetry.
However, when Molosar's spiritual adversary, a mystic warrior of Good (Scott
Glenn) arrives to combat the resurgent creature, the film slides headfirst into a
pompous preachiness it never recovers from. Spouting fortune cookie New Age
metaphysics, the cosmic do-gooder is approximately as profound as David
Canadine's Caine in the old Kung Fu TV series. To make matters worse, after all
the sinister build-up leading to the emergence of the Sata nic being, Molosar turns
out to be just than another man in a monster suit.
THE KEEP ultimately overreaches itself in its failed attempt at making a
profound statement on the nature of human Evil. However, director Mann
provides enough visually arresting scenes of dreamy eeriness to partially
compensate for the sophomoric p h ilosophy lesson that accom panies these
memorable images. When the film does attain the hypnotic force Mann was
obviously striving for, it's very often due to the score by German electron ic ists
Tangerine Dream. Gabriel Byrne, who played the villainous SS officer, graduated
to the part of the Devil h imself in 1999's END OF DAYS.
One of the few truly imaginative renditions of the Devil i n the 1980s can
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be g limpsed briefly in the British film COMPANY OF WOLVES (1 984), di rected with
surreal brilliance by Neil Jordan. Adapted from a pair of Angela Carter's cruel
Gothic short stories, the picture is essentially Little Red Riding Hood presented as
a lycanthropic fairytale of erotic awakening. Of especial interest to us is one
jarring scene in which the rest of the film's quaint ambience is deliberately
interrupted by the arrival of two ghostly lig hts shining through a desolate forest
clearing. The lig hts reveal themselves to be the headlights of a n automobile, a
s i n ister anachron ism in the fairytale forest.
An ado lescent boy has gone to a cross-roads to summon the Devil, who
turns out to be the limousine's passenger (Terence Stamp). Dressed in a twentieth
century business su it, he's seen coolly exam ining a child's skull, before dispensing
a magic draug ht. Satan's driver is a trollopy blonde girl in a deceptive a ll-white
chauffeur's u n iform. Stamp's aloof attitude believably exteriorizes the inhuman
emotions of a n ancient intelligence. By eschewing the predictable appearance of
the horned fiend of tradition, Jordan avoids presenting what would be an almost
comforting image, in favour of something entirely out of place with the rest of
h i s film's atmosphere. Here, the Devil is not a creature from a romantic past, but
a disturbing herald of an entirely unknown future. The icy otherness of Stamp's
performance, and the sheer simpl icity and inventiveness of this brief scene
captures something essentially diabolical that none of the special effects-laden
images of Satan in other modern films ever come close to realizing.
Some things are simply too unspeakably Evil to bear more than passing
reference. One of these disturbing phenomena is OH, GOD! YOU DEVIL! (1984) a
torturously unfunny comedy starring comedian George Burns in a dual role as
Jehovah and Lucifer This merciful final sequel to the series of squeaky-clean OH
GOD! films concerns a sappy songwriter who makes a pact with the Devil (Burns,
doing his usual cigar-chomping schtick). D irector Paul Bogart was responsible for
this painful morality play, filled with an unending stream of one-liners designed
to warm the hearts of the whole family.
Not to be forgotten among the select company of thespians who essayed
the role of Satan in the 1 980s is the notorious Traci Lords. That erstwhile princess
of porn donned the Devil's horns in the Dark Brothers' NEW WAVE HOOKERS
(1985}. A pair of ne'er-do-wells dream of operating the ultimate call girl agency.
In one imagined sequence, a client named Angel makes an unusual request: He
wants to be serviced by the Devil. No fantasy is left unfulfilled by the agency.
Angel finds h i mself prone on a rock in what appears to be Hell, replete with
phallic serpent. Through the bil lowing smoke, the Devil (Traci Lords) appears. She's
decked out in red lace, long black boots and horns, brandishing a flail. As Satanic
d i a logue goes, Traci's Devil is not exactly on a Miltonian level. "You want to see
my burning cunt?" she inquires, before treating Angel to a whipping. Lucifer loses
h e r horns during the frenetic fornication that fol lows, but through the miracle of
editing, she's horned again by the climax of the scene. Lords was only sixteen at
the time of her diabolical debut, making NEW WAVE HOOKERS an officially
forbidden entry in her filmography.
Once upon a time (1985, to be exact), British director R i dley Scott spared
no expense in trying to create an enchanted fairy tale for the ages with his
LEGEND. In a mag ical forest swarming with excruciatingly cute and Tolkienesque
critters, the innocent Princess Lili (Mia Sara) is abducted by a proto-Satanic being
with horned hooves and ram's horns known only as Darkness (Tim Curry).
Surrounded by so much saccharine whimsy, Curry's flamboyant performance
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Legend.
provides the only sign of life in this too-sweet-for-its-own-good confection. His
impressive make-up creates one of the most aesthetically pleasing images of the
traditional Satanic archetype in the cinema. It's too bad that nothing else in the
picture reaches the same standard.
The mass media's interest in contemporary Satanism had changed
appreciably since the height of the early '70s black magic fad. Now, sensation­
seeking journalists focused on allegations that heavy metal music was being
deliberately used to convey hidden Satanic messages to impressionable youth.
According to this particular strain of conspiracy theory, heavy metal music was a
Pied Piper leading a n entire generation into a vortex of animal sacrifice, murder,
a nd drugs - a l l in the name of Satan. Consequently, the popular perception of
Satanism began to change radically. Black magicians had previously been
perceived as a threat to society largely because of their presumed religio­
philosophical transgression of cultural norms. In the '80s, a far cruder
understanding asserted itself, and Satanism began to be thought of as a branch
of juvenile delinquent criminal activity rather than a magical worldview. Parental
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Trick Or Treal.
action groups and Baptist television ministries across America began a vociferous
attack on the phantom menace of rampant teenage Satanism.
As the film industry found itself pandering to an increasingly younger
audience in the '80s, the currently hot topic of supposedly diabolic heavy metal
was bound to inspire a small subgenre of the Satanic cinema. TRICK OR TREAT
(1986), a teen horror film directed by Charles Martin Smith. was inspired by the
then prevalent urban legend of " backward masking"- a recording technique said
to allow demonic messages to be hidden in a music track. A nerdy high school
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student conjures up the spirit of a recently deceased rock star by playing his last
recorded song backwards. With the infernal aid of the Satanic musician, the
student wreaks revenge on his jock tormentors. Essentially a teenage wish­
fulfilment fantasy, the film approaches the Satanic music controversy from a satiric
perspective. For instance, heavy metal pioneer Ozzy Osbourne - frequently
accused of exerting an evil influence on his fans- plays a born-again televangelist
on a crusade against occult rock. Mildly amusing in its modest way, TRICK OR
TREAT is easily the best of this negligible '80s niche, which also included such
thoroughly expendable junk as ROCK'N'ROLL NIGHTMARE and BLACK ROSES.
Along with FEAR NO EVIL and EVILSPEAK, the film provides another
example of how Satanism in '80s cinema was frequently seen as the revenge
mechanism of unpopular teenagers - as evinced in the true-life case of "Satan
Teen" Ricky Kasso, whose murderous activities inspired Tommy Turner's unfinished
WHERE EVIL DWELLS (1985), Tim Hunter's RIVER'S EDGE (1987) and Jim
VanBebber's MY SWEET SATAN (1994). This development was quite a departure
from the Satanic image in films of previous decades, which tended towards rich,
sophisticated black magicians whose diabolism was part and parcel of their
established position of power in the world. As this trend developed, screen
Satanists would become an increasingly vulgar and proletariat bunch.
A small oasis of imagination during a fairly dismal period for the Satanic
cinema was PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987). A novel premise and John Carpenter's
directorial intelligence distinguishes this low-budget horror/sci-fi crossbreed with
a genuine aura of metaphysical dread. By placing the timeless Satanic mythology
in a far-fetched but intriguing interstellar context, Carpenter succeeds in creating
his own vivid cinematic universe. A Catholic priest (Donald Pleasence, giving one
of his best later performances) discovers a seemingly ancient canister bubbling
with phosphorescent green ooze concealed in the basement of a Los Angeles
church. (The church is named St. Godard's, a homage to the French director Jean­
Luc Godard.) Near the mysterious vessel is an unknown version of the Bible,
dating from an era far older than any known scriptures. Disturbed by the sinister
ambience surrounding his find, the priest invites a professor of physics and his
team of researchers to perform a detailed scientific analysis. Deciphering the text's
arcane dead language, they discover that the hidden canister is the temporary
resting place of Satan's son, who has been slumbering for thousands of years,
waiting for the right moment to free his father from exile. This proto-Bible reveals
that the Catholic Church have concealed knowledge of the canister's existence,
suppressing the interesting fact that the Devil and Christ are actually
extraterrestrials. At a pre-ordained time, the essence of Evil locked in the church
basement is destined to reach into a parallel dimension and pull its alien
progenitor back into this world. The radian.ce of a many millions year old
supernova has now reached earth, and this celestial energy is already unlocking
the Pandora's box. Carpenter has acknowledged that the central idea of the Devil
as alien being was inspired by 1967's QUATERMASS AND THE PIT As a tribute to
that earlier Satanic science fiction film, Carpenter credited his screenplay to the
pseudonymous Martin Quatermass.
.
As signs of the imminent Satanic awakening, a shuffling legion of zombie
street people are drawn to St. Godard's, and members of the research team are
beginning to become possessed by the ominous entity they've been studying. As
the revival of the Prince of Darkness draws nearer, those in the church begin to
experience blurred visions of the future. These fuzzy glimpses of a dimly perceived
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Prince OfDarlmess .
demonic being are all the more effective for their deli berate vagueness.
Carpenter's choice to tantalizingly suggest rather than show the appearance of
his Satan is a refresh ing change from the unimpressively literal Devils so common
in horror films.
Kelly (Susan B l anchard), one of the young scientists monitoring the
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church, is inhabited by the diabolical force dripping from the container Having
taken physical form, she proceeds to reach into an ordinary mirror. In the
alternative dimension beyond the looking glass, we see the Devil's hand reaching
out, waiting to be pulled out into earthly reality from the region referred to in
the film as "the dark side" Another scientist sacrifices herself by pushing Satan's
son, and herself, into the mirror. The pr iest smashes the g lass, effectively blocking
the Devil's means of ingress into the material world. Carpenter's poetic image of
the surreal mirror world is clearly inspired by similar scenes i n Jean Cocteau's
ORPHEUS.
This is only one of many deliberate echoes from art cinema h istory
enliveni n g PRINCE OF DARKNESS, one of the few mainstream horror films to be
informed by something other than the usual low-brow aesthetic common to the
genre. Although the film's intellectual themes certainly make this one of the
cinema's more thoughtful Satanic ta les, it must be said that Carpenter's few
compromises with '80s horror film conventions prevent the picture from
completely achieving its ambitions. Things bog down considerably when the plot
focuses on an inevitable series of systematic slasher-like killings, and the
shambling zombie subplot leads to several dull patches. Despite such flaws, this
evocation of the dark side beyond the Devil's looking glass bears looking into.
Certa inly, the most talked-about mainstream Satanic film of the 1980s was
Alan Parker's gore-smeared ANGEL HEART (1987). Although the story- based on
William Hjortsberg's far superior novel Falling Angel- is supposedly a descent into
a Satanic underworld, the occult rites seen in the film are actually grossly
caricaturized Voodoo ceremonies. The film's depiction of the Black Arts is
reflective of the '80s' "Satanic panic", a mood of paranoid conspiracy theory
engendered by right-wing Chr istian groups during that decade of America's Moral
Majority movement. The New Age fad - with its mish-mash of m ulti-cultural pop
mysticis m - was also on the rise, and Chr istian fundamentalists even accused those
angel-obsessed crystal-gazers and spirit channelers of trafficking with the Devil.
This jumble of occult ideas floating around in the zeitgeist contributes to ANGEL
HEART's confused presentation of Satanism.
Set in 1955, ANGEL HEART is an allegorical noir detective story shadowing
private investigator Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke), hired by an elegant, goateed
gentleman named Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) to locate Johnny Favourite, a
1940s big band singer who broke a contract with h i m some years ago. The
crooner was last seen in an insane asylum where he was being treated for
amnesia, but disappeared over a decade earlier. The detective travels to New
Orleans, where h e interviews a rogue's gallery of Favourite's old flames and other
past associates, all of whom seem to be involved with black magic and voodoo.
They also have a peculiar habit of ending up brutally murdered - in a seemingly
ritualistic manner - shortly after speaking to Angel, and he begins to be haunted
by bloody nightmares. Told entirely from Angel's perspective, the complex
storyline eventually reveals that the detective h imself is the missing singer, a
Satanist who reneged on a pact with Louis Cyphre - whose name is more correctly
pronounced Lucifer. Still suffering from amnesia after escaping from the
sanitarium, Favourite altered his face with plastic surgery, and in the guise of
Angel, slaughtered h is former friends and lovers. The name Harry Angel was
app ropriated from a young sailor whose "Angel" heart he devoured as a sacrifice
to conjure Lucifer. Favourite/Angel realizes that a voodoo priestess who he had
sex with is actua lly his own daughter, and he discovers that he's kil led her too
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Angel Heart.
during one of his homicidal blackouts. With the search for his missing self
terminated, he prepares to descend into Hell.
Robert De Niro's subtly delineated Devil has been justly praised as one of
his finest performances, and his scenes are the most memorable i n the film. Parker
il lustrates his convoluted tale with a slick, flashy style but the visual razzle dazzle
doesn't make u p for a n underlying emptiness. The non-stop piling u p of viscera
quickly becomes tiresome, and this ambitious but fallen ANGEL ultimately
plummets, weighed down by an excess of self-conscious symbolism.
1987 found Jack Nicholson trading on his public image as a lecherous roue
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The Witches Of&stwick
in the Luciferian comedy THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK. It's the most superficial kind
of "feel-good" flick, pandering to a certai n New-Agey brand of Wiccan feminism.
Based o n John Upd ike's slight novel of the same name, the film focuses on the
antics of three (supposedly) lovable divorcees (Cher, Susan Sarandon, M i chelle
Pfeiffer) in a small New England town. The Devil, in the guise of rich mystery man
Daryl Van Horne (Jack Nicholson) swoops into town, moving into a gaudily
decorated mansion built on a site where witches burned in Puritan times. The
women fall under the spell of the charming lothario, who seduces them and
awakens their innate magical powers. They gleefully cast curses o n their enem ies,
revelling in their newly acquired Satanic sorcery. When one of their curses leads
to the murder of the local paper's editor, the novice enchantresses are suddenly
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He/Jraiser.
conscience-stricken, and they break off all relations with Van Horne.
When the Devil can't lure the women back to his bed, he spitefully works
black magic on them. Beset by a host of afflictions, they conspire to use the
witchy powers Van Horne gifted them with against their Satanic mentor Seducing
the arch-seducer, they persuade him that they've returned to their previous
arrangement, moving back into his pleasure palace. Nearly destroyed by the
women's triple hex, the furious Van Horne reveals his true demonic appearance
and inflates himself into a giant Satanic beast in a climactic special effects
sequence. Of course, male chauvinist Evil is defeated by feminist Good in the film's
smug finale. The fact that white magic - rather than an increasingly irrelevant
Christianity - is portrayed here as the ultimate antidote to Satan, reveals how
thoroughly New Age folk mysticism was beginning to replace traditional religion
in mass media depictions of Good vs. Evil. THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK's feminist
fairytale demonizes rampant male sexuality as a malignant energy that only
female witchcraft and white magic can conquer.
Although the film is produced in the competent but unprovocative
Hollywood blockbuster manner, action film director George Miller proves to have
a maladroit comedic touch. Worse still is Jack Nicholson's irritatingly affected
histrionics,
which
descend
into self-parody. With
arched
eyebrows
fixed
permanently in place, he seems to be doing a bad Jack Nicholson impression,
mechanically repeating a repertoire of overly familiar mannerisms.
Many of the best Satanic films of previous decades were products of the
British horror film. By the late '80s, this durable genre seemed to have died out
altogether. Considering that fact, and the climate of the times, H ELLRAISER (1987)
is a surprisingly subversive offering, rising quite unexpectedly from the morass of
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Thatcherite Britain. Clive Barker adapted his short story The Hellhound Heart into
a screenplay, obtaining a measly budget from the American company Canon to
di rect the picture h i mself.
Telling the tale of a contemporary London magician Frank Cotton (Sean
Chapman) who contacts a quartet of demons known as the Cenob ites, Barker
created one of the first significant fictional occult worlds since H.P. Lovecraft's
Cthulhu Mythos. Like the Old Ones who haunt Lovecraft's stories, the Cenobites
are not merely reworkings of established Satanic lore. Instead, they are elemental
reflections of Barker's own psychosexual concerns, drawing on the increasingly
open practice of S&M that surfaced in the 1980s. For although the Cenobites were
quickly adopted by mainstream audiences as franchise horror figures ofthe Freddy
Krueger variety, their appearance is blatantly der ived from the fetish subculture
just starting to appear on the radar. The image of Cenobite leader Pinhead (Doug
Brad ley) is one of the few demons in recent movies that actually manages to
disturb, touching unexplored psychic territory that the traditional Satanic imagery
of horned, goat-hoofed beasties no longer reaches.
Another innovation was the pleasingly designed puzzle box that opened
the gate to the Cenob ites' dimension. After decades of movie black magicians
reciting invocations from Necronomicon-like grimo ires, Barker's eerie contraption
offered a means of summoning beings from the dark side that was genuinely
cinematic. H ELLRAISER's characters react to their interactions with the demonic in
a refreshingly un predictable manner rarely seen in the Satanic cinema. For
example, when the title hellraiser's girlfriend Julia (Claire Higgins) learns that her
lover has come back to life as a flesh less skeleton, she doesn't run screaming, but
amorally helps him acquire a new skin by killing strangers that she seduces and
brings back to their apa rtment. Considering that this was his first film, Barker
made the transition from page to screen with considerable style, suggesting new
d irections in the presentation of black magic on the screen.
Pedestrian and uninspired in every way is SPELLBINDER (1988), Janet
Greek's m isfired attempt at exploiting the then-current fear of Satanic cult
indoctrination. Drawing on anxieties of the on e-night-stand from Hell, the picture
opens with a young, upwardly mobile attorney's attempt to save an attractive
young woman from a seemingly random street attacker. He becomes romantically
involved with the grateful stranger, learning too late that she is a Satanist trying
to escape from the c lutches of a murderous coven. Almost a l l of the devilish urban
legends currently circulating were incorporated into the script.
"Devil worshippers" (to use the term most favoured by the media at that
time), are revealed to be waging a vast conspiracy from their carefully concealed
positions of power in law enforcement, and other social
institutions. The
predictable trick ending, in which the heroic rescuer is revealed to have been
lured into an occult subterfuge, is stolen stra ight from the vastly superior T H E
WICKER M A N (1972). Although the film died a quick and well-deserved death at
the box-office, it's a pertinent example of how major Hollywood studios - M G M ,
i n this case - eagerly tapped into the Satanic Panic hysteria generated b y '80s
tabloid television programs.
Equally without merit is Camilo Vila's T H E U NHOLY (1988), which would
have been more equitably titled THE UNWATCHABLE. The film's hero is Father
Michael, a sensitive young Catholic priest (Ben Cross), who's assigned by his
superiors to clean up the bad vibes i n a demon-infested New Orleans church. Two
other p riests were hideously slain at the altar several Easters ago. Although the
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The Unholy.
priest manages to win back a congregation for the failing parish, he d iscovers
depraved happenings at a nearby Satanic nightclub for disaffected youths. His
Good Samaritan instincts are moved by a pretty teenage runaway caught up
against her will in the stagin gs of black magic rites at the club. His attempts to
save her virginal soul arouse a succession of nasty supernatural episodes, which
culminate when an unclad crimson-haired succubus (Nicole Fortier) shows up to
sed uce a n d slay him, just as she destroyed his predecessors. When his tormented,
celibate soul resists the sins of the flesh by reciting some choice passages from
scripture, the spurned Satan summons a duet of preposterous demons, and
transforms into an equally ridiculous monster. That spiritually mixed-up ru naway
enters the church, and apparently her virginal G oodness is sufficiently powerful
to allow Father Michael to vanquish the fiend. The film's producers were so
d ispleased by THE UNHOLY's original ending that they hired another director to
shoot a hastily executed replacement. They needn't have bothered; the Saviour
himself couldn't have redeemed this mortal sin against the cinema.
In Spain, Paul Naschy - whose previous flirtations with the Devil had
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Howl Of The Devil.
included INQUIS ITION (1976) and the Faustian EL CAMINANTE (1979)- appeared
as Satan (as well as many other iconic horror figures), in the feeble, self-directed
EL AULLIDO DEL DIABLO (HOWL OF THE D EVIL, 1988). Rather like a pantomime,
both film and star were by now hopelessly outdated.
HELLB OUND : HELLRAISER II (1988) tries valiantly, but falls short of the
subversive power of the original. Series creator Clive Barker only provided the
treatment for this film, leavi n g the screenplay to Peter Atkins, a long-time
collaborator. Barker was also replaced in the d irector's chair by Tony Randel, who
never q uite brings the intriguing elements of this sequel into a cohesive vision.
Although it boasts a splendid villain in Dr. Channing (Kenneth Cranham), the
Sata n ic d i rector of an insane asylum, this return to the ecstatic pains and
agonizing pleasures of the Cenobites quickly loses steam. Channing is using his
mental asylum as a field h ospital for his researches into demonology. Seeking the
hidden gate to Hell, he has amassed a colle<rtion of those sinister puzzle boxes we
first saw in HELLRAISER. When the psychiatrist allows one of his psychopathic
patients to kill h i mself, the suicide's blood revives the seductress Julia (Claire
Higgins, reprising the role she created in the first instalment of the series) from
the netherworld. She rewards Channing for restoring her to life by leading him
into the infernal kingdom of the Cenobites.
Unfortunately, the cheap special effects and flimsy set design in the
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He/lraiser D.
seemingly interminable Hell sequence are just not up to realizing the necessary
dark grandeur of the concept. A particular let-down is the film's botched
depiction of the Devil, referred to in the film as Leviathan, after the apocalyptic
dragon of Revelations. As seen here, this mighty creature of darkness is a sil ly­
looking optical effect that utterly fails to convince.
Kenneth Cranham, who also excelled as the Satanic Wicked Squire in
JOSEPH ANDREWS, brings a wicked sense of black humour to his Dr. Channing.
The perverse glee he exudes as he's given the grand tour of Hell's weird wonders
provides some much needed vitality to the picture. Eventually, Channing achieves
the transformation he seeks, mutating into a particularly hideous Cenobite.
Pinhead (D oug Bradley), the Cenobite leader from the first film, returns in the
sequel. However, his dialogue is not qu ite as pointed as it was in HELLRAISER, just
as the entire film misses the fresh approach of Barker's directoria l debut. The
1990s would see two further H ELLRAIS ER sequels, but they were of such inferior
q u a lity that B arker's sinister original vision was entirely compromised.
Steve Miner's WARLOCK ( 1 988) is a d isposable attempt at creating a
sequel-friendly horror icon in the tiresome mold of such '80s crowd-pleasers as
Freddy Krueger and his ilk. The title character (Julian Sands) is a smarmy 1 7th
centu ry devotee of the Devil sentenced to burn at the stake. He uses black magic
to escape through time, and has the rotten luck to end u p in 1 988 Los Angeles.
In between gratuitous scenes of m u rder, the plot is hung cavalierly on the search
for the missing sections of a powerful occult spellbook. Sands' dia logue consists
of a non-stop patter of smart-ass one-liners that consistently fail to amuse. The
script trades i n many of the current Satanic urban legends, including one scene in
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which the Satanist assaults an unbaptised child at a playground so that he can use
his victim's boiled fat in a magical recipe. Also marking this as a typical '80s movie
is a scene in which the Devil is contacted via the agency of a New Age chanrieler
This g l i b mediocrity is really just a mindless slasher film with a Satanic twist, but
it was successful enough to inspire the celluloid-wasting WARLOCK: THE
ARMAGEDDON (1993), which makes the original seem like a work of genius in
comparison.
The Satanic cinema of the 1980s clearly reflects the general dumbing­
down of world culture that, in retrospect, seems to be the hallmark of that
decade. Although a few worthwhile oddities emerged from unexpected quarters,
it was a time in which a crude aesthetic of ugliness distorted the cinematic m irror
of the Satanic archetype. (Even Walt Disney had dabbled, producing the lamely
comedic THE DEVIL AND MAX DEVLIN [1981], with Bill Cosby wearing the horns.)
One searches the '80s in vain for the evocative sense of mystery and
transformative vision so integral to the best diabolical films of previous eras.
Indeed, it is the first decade since the advent of the cinema not to have produced
a single Satanic masterwork of truly enduring power.
EVEN HELL HAS
ITS HEROES: THE 1990s
As we move into the final decade of the twentieth century's diabolic cinema, one
is struck by the transformation that public perceptions of the Satanic archetype
have undergone since our chronicle commenced in the Paris of the 1 890s. At the
turning of that fin-de-siecle, the Black Arts were very commonly associated with
the refined artists and aesthetes of the Symbolist movement, who cast Lucifer as
an icon of the creative imagination. He was seen as a creature whose prideful
beauty and Promethean rebellion had much in common with the artist's
aristocratic disdain for the masses.
One hundred years later, the Prince of Darkness was no longer celebrated
as a noble elitist in the M i ltonian sense; his image had instead been appropriated
as an easy shock symbol for heavy metal bands and the like, who painted the
Devil as a god for losers and ne'er-do-wells, the last refuge of the marginal
underachiever. Mysterious Mephistopheles, once understood as a cultured being
who offered his adherents infinite knowledge, had degenerated into a one­
dimensional cartoon representing adolescent nihilism. With popular Satanism
projecting such an infantile and aggressively dumb persona, it's perhaps
understandable that few film-makers of intelligence were drawn to the subject
in the '90s. Of course, a small number of authentic practitioners of the Black Arts
continued to explore the mysteries of the left hand path, but, as always, this
obscure reality had less impact on the mass media's portrayal of the Luciferian
principle than the wild fantasies and speculations of the public. Although a well­
known FBI investigation called the Lanning Report authoritatively stated that
there was not a single shred of evidence to support the hysterical allegations of
children abducted and sacrificed by hidden Satanic cults, the urban legends
persisted among the u neducated.
This had a strange impact on the Satanic cinema. Satanism on screen
became the exclusive province of the police thriller genre. Hollywood had
previously sold the stereotype of the Devil's disciples as rich, powerful elitists
practising occult rites in their elegant manors. Suddenly, the cinema Satanist of
the '90s was far more likely to be a stupid, degenerate thug living in squalor on
the fringes of the law. With monotonous regularity, Satan was seen in mainstream
American films as a symbol for brute criminality. The Satanic films of the past had
once presented the Devil as a metaphysical entity that could only be conquered
by recondite magical knowledge, or - at the very least - the intervention of a
priest. Now, Lucifer was reduced to a mundane crime problem, a social
u n pleasantness that called for police action.
In considering the paltry amount of relevant films produced in the '90s,
I have deliberately excluded the scattered Satanic appearances in several
eminently forgettable d irect-to-video releases. If a picture didn't actually play in
the cinema, it goes unmentioned here; I gladly leave the documenting of these
dregs to a more masochistic researcher than myself.
B y 1990, one would have hoped that the seemingly endless rehashing of
left-over split pea soup from THE EXORCIST would have come to a merciful end.
Alas, the demon Pazuzu had two last gasps left. REPOSSESSED (1 990) proves Karl
Marx's truism that what first plays as tragedy is repeated as farce. After the
epidemic of EXORCIST im itations that had satu rated screens since 1 973, there was
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Exorcist !D.
little left to do with the exhausted material but play the familiar story as comedy.
Linda Blair, unable to build a credible career from under the indel ible
shadow of her role as Regan, is reduced to repeating her famous performance for
laughs. Here, her cha racter's name has been changed, although we are never in
any doubt that she is our little Regan all grown up. When the film begins, it's
been years since she was exorcised by Father Jedediah Mayii (Leslie Nie lsen). The
banishing failed to stick; those old, untidy symptoms of possession have returned.
Father Mayii, played by Nielsen in the bumbling mode of his AIRPLANE and
NAKED GUN rol es, comes back for a repeat showdown with his eternal Adversary.
Yes, a l l of the wearisome plot points - bed-ridden vomiting, sacrilegious
masturbating, a young priest's crisis of faith - are trotted out again, desperately
stra i n i n g for an elusive chuckle. None is forthcoming from this witless and
predictable reshuffling of stereotypes. When the film was test-marketed, the a l l ­
i mportant teenage aud ience didn't get the references to THE EXORCIST, released
some seventeen years before their time, and substantial editing ensued.
By the time William Peter Blatty, the insufferably pretentious author of
The Exorcist novel, got around to revisiting his most successful property, there was
l ittle juice left in the lemon. Undaunted by h i s marginal g ifts as a film-maker, he
bravely took the directorial reins h imself, producing the utterly unnecessary T H E
EXORCIST Ill.
Based on his own 1983 novel Legion, and set i n the same Georgetown
neighbourhood as the original book, Blatty's film has a l l of the terribly self-
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The First Power.
important hand-wringing about the Nature of Evil that is his trademark. Like too
many writer's films, the picture is clogged with an overabundance of dialogue and
a decided lack of visual substance. George C. Scott, usually a fine actor, walks
through the part of a police detective, working himself into the trademark Scott
blusteri n g rage, but to no effect. It's been fifteen years since Pazuzu was banished
with the self-sacrifice of Father Damien Karras. Now, the dead priest's friend,
homicide investigator Kinderman, is on the trail of a vicious serial killer. The
murderer's victims include two priests, one slain in his confessional. The crimes
recall the modus operandi of the Gemini Killer, who was executed years a g o for
a similar s l aughter spree. Kinderman locates Patient X, a nameless a mnesiac in a
mental hospital who has the disconcerting habit of shifti ng his appearance from
that of the late Father Karras (Jason Miller, returning from the dead to recreate
his role from THE EXORCIST) to the dead Gemini Killer (Brad Dourif). Satan has
possessed the incarcerated patient's body, and is stalking his victims astrally.
B latty's characterization of the Devil as a psyc hopathic serial killer is yet
another example of how the '80s stereotype of Satanic crime had infected the
imaginations of film-makers. Brad Dourif, who's made a career of expertly
portraying psychos since ON E FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, is riveting as the
Gemini Kil ler, but his energetic performance doesn't rescue the film from tedium.
When the producers realized that Blatty had failed to include an actual exorcism
in the film. an obligatory scene with an elderly priest performing the rite was
inserted. THE EXORCIST Ill's Satanic serial killer is more than reminiscent of the
amnesiac murderer seen in ANGEL HEART, which tells us something about the low
level of inventiveness dominating this period.
The same shrill tone of anti-Satanic hysteria shades every frame of director
Robert Resnikoff's absurd THE FIRST POWER (1990), which like THE EXORCIST I l l
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Mr. Frost.
concerns a Devil-possessed murderer who kills from beyond the grave. Following
the bloody trail of the "Pentagram Killer" is the young police detective Logan
(Lou Diamond Phillips). When the murderer is apprehended and executed, the
killings continue, and it becomes apparent that the Devil is afoot. According to
the film's firmly Reaganite morality, drug addicts and alcoholics are particularly
vulnerable to Satanic influence, so the demonic killer inhabits the bodies of
junkies and bag ladies. With the help of a spunky clairvoyant love interest yakking
New Age psycho-babble, and a grim nun armed with a blessed cruciform knife,
the plodding hero defeats the Pentagram Killer. The last scene, in which the
police rush in just when the detective is about to plunge the holy knife into the
Satanist. is stolen right from THE OMEN, as is the very concept of the consecrated
weapon needed to vanquish evil.
As in THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK, New Age white magic is as efficacious
here against the Fiend as is the paraphernalia of Christianity. In one scene, the
psychic heroine brandishes a right-side up "good" pentagram in the Satanist's
face, just as more traditional do-gooders of old scared vampires away with their
crucifixes. At the same time that Hollywood was waging a smear campaign against
Satan ism. portraying black magic as a form of criminality, it increasingly painted
white magic as a socially acceptable practice.
The All-American Satan-as-serial-killer syndrome also found its way into
at least one European film, Phillip Setbon's Anglo-French production MR. FROST
(1990). Jeff Goldblum is the puzzling title character, a convicted serial killer of
great intellect who's racked up an impressive body count. Alan Bates, the third
anti-Satanic homicide detective to be spotted in 1990, is convinced that the
courteous but silent murderer is Lucifer himself. Naturally, his supernatural
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suspicions are not believed. Frost, who has refused to speak a word to the battery
of psychologists and crime experts who are trying to delve into the notorious
murderer's mind, breaks his silence and confides all to a young shrink (Kathy
Baker). The Devil has especially chosen to reveal his identity to the cool, rational
psychologist so that she can convince a sceptical modern world that Satan still
exists. Refreshingly free of the corny demonic special effects that were then de
rigueur, the conundrum of the Devil's existence is handled in a surprisingly
cerebral manner.
Unlike its American cousins in this Satanic killer subgenre, MR. FROST is
not an action-packed thriller filled with car chases and non-stop mayhem. The
script, co-written by director Setbon and Brad Lynch, actually has somewhat
philosophical aspirations, and Frost's mystical musings are occasionally thought­
provoking. Although the film is to be commended for attempting to stimulate the
mind rather than trotting out the usual tiresome shoot-em-up sequences, its
narrative seems to entirely unravel at the half-way point. Long scenes of
increasingly awkward and pretentious dialogue exchange never evolve into the
gripping spiritual drama that seems to have been intended. Goldblum plays his
en i gm a tic Devil with an unpredictable affability, creating a complex and
ambiguous Satan that doesn't rely on the usual crudities to suggest Otherness. If
only because it has a bit more on its mind than arbitrary shock and gore, MR.
FROST is one of the 1990s' very rare attempts at approaching the Devil with some
degree of originality and intelligence.
Like a dimly remembered nightmare, 1990's LA SETIA (THE SECT) aka THE
DEVIL'S DAUGHTER leaves a lingering impression of agitation long after its
admittedly incoherent images fade from the screen. Italian director Michele Soavi
does not so much tell a linear narrative as he aims to establish an arresting mood
through a series of atmospheric vignettes. The story- what little there is of it­
was devised by director Dario Argento, whose dream-like imagery was clearly an
influence on LA SETTA. In· a brightly coloured apocalyptic desert that we are
supposed to believe is somewhere in California, the leader of a Satanic biker cult
confers with his Master, an unidentified gentleman of means seated in a
limousine. Apparently, some cosmic malfeasance is being planned, although the
details are sketchy.
Even the most careful viewer will be hard-pressed to figure out exactly
what Satan's plan is as Soavi elliptically illustrates Argento's bare-bones plot. Cut
to Frankfurt, Germany where everyone seems to be as inexplicably Italian as they
were in the California prologue. Ordinary schoolteacher Miriam (Kelly Curtis) is
drawn into the Devil's plot by the Satanic sect that gives the film its title.
Presiding over the skullduggery is cult leader Gran Vecchio, played with panache
by underrated screen villain Herbert Lorn. Miriam, like so many other hapless
heroines in the genre before her, is targeted for demonic insemination by the
sect. A leering Lorn engineers this less than immaculate birth by sticking a rather
Egyptoid scarab up Miriam's nose, one of many scenes that occupies a twilight
zone between the ludicrous and the surreal. It's all linked together by a few
obligatory giallo slashings and the sketchily defined presence of a Lovecraftian
entity stalking subterranean depths beneath the city.
It must be said that for all of Soavi's stylistic power, LA SETIA finally runs
out of steam with a traditional happy ending that spoils some of the imaginative
creepiness that has preceded it. For those that don't insist upon a movie always
making sense, LA SETIA is an undeservedly ignored highlight of genuine oddity,
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La SelJa.
unusua l in the homogenized '90s.
After only a few agonizing minutes of watching HIGHWAY TO HELL
( 1 99 1 ), the viewer realizes that the tortures of the damned would be far
preferable to sitti ng through this abysmal attempt at infernal horror-comedy. A
vapid young couple take the wrong road on their way to Las Vegas, where they
plan to be married. Ignoring the warnings of the cryptic old-timer at a desolate
last stop gas station, they inadvertently drive onto the otherworldly thoroughfare
of the title. There, a scarred, demonoid cop - wearing an inverted pentagram for
a badge - pulls them over and brutally abducts the bride-to-be. Seeking advice
from the grizzled gas station attendant, the confused hero learns that his
girlfriend has been kidnapped by "Hel l-Cop", and that he has only 24 hours to
rescue her from Hell City. This latter-day Orpheus crosses the border into a surreal
desert hellscape, determined to rescue his insipid (and virginal) heart-throb from
the Devil's depredations.
Theoretically, this may seem like a mildly promising premise. However, in
the hands of director Ate de Jong, this is a work of such breathtaking
incompetence that it almost defies description. Amateurish acting; a tinny,
irritating score; witless and
hopelessly unfunny dialogue; sluggish
pacing;
atrocious special effects; it a l l coalesces into. a painful ordeal not to be entered
into lightly. This has the flimsy feel of an extended heavy metal music video, and
the picture's trite depiction of the Satanic realm is firmly grounded in that
juvenile aesthetic. An adolescent mistrust of female sexuality adds another
unpleasant layer to the film. Veering between gag-inducing sentimentality (a far
from endearing "cute kid" character exiled in Hell) and sophomoric black humour
(Hitler ranting and raving to the damned in a seedy diner) the script never finds
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Highway To Hell
a consistent tone. The Devil - who we know must be evil because he has a Br itish
accent - is g iven some particularly pompous verbiage to recite, which seems totally
unconnected to the stale one-liners falling from the mouths of the rest of the
cast. Dante said it best: Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
Fraser C. Heston's NEEDFUL THINGS (1993), a mediocre adaptation of a
Stephen King novel, suffers from the generic style that typifies modern
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LDst Highway.
commercial cinema. However, it does feature a skilful performance of Satan, in
the person of Swedish actor Max Von Sydow. Twenty years after his starring role
in THE EXORCIST, Sydow played Leland Gaunt, a worldly fellow of mysterious
background, who opens a shop in a small town in Maine. Called Needful Things,
the store offers consumers a unique service: the one object they most desire can
be found on it shelves. Refusing to accept anything so vulgar as money for his
one-of-a-kind wares, Gaunt only asks that his customers play a (seemingly)
harmless practical joke on one of their neighbours. The town - crammed with the
usual just plain folks that people most Stephen King novels - soon becomes a
hotbed of rancour and suspicion, as the pranks Gaunt asks for in exchange for his
"needful things" become nastier and more malevolent.
Small tensions and conflicts that had simmered for years turn into outright
hatred, and petty feuds lead to murder. The local sheriff (Ed Harris) begins to
suspect that suave stranger Gaunt is responsible for the escalating chaos. Mob
violence and rioting break out in the town, which seems to be on the brink of a
m i n i-Armageddon. When the church is destroyed in an explosion, the sheriff
exposes Gaunt as the Devil, which inspires one of his victims to blow up Needful
Things in an action of suicidal self-sacrifice. The Devil, utterly unruffled, exits the
smoking ruins and takes off in a limousine, promising to return. King's heavily
moralistic E.C. comic book of a story, in which the pettiest of human greeds is
attributed to the Devil's influence, is reminiscent of some of the preachier
episodes of The Twilight Zone. Despite this essential superficiality, Von Sydow's
witty and engaging performance adds a much needed edge to the sometimes
mawkishly sentimental fable. The ultimate message here is as old as the Flood:
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Faust 0994).
small-town values are best, and watch out for them fast-talkin' city slickers in
them fancy clothes.
David Lynch's LOST HIG HWAY (1 994) may not immediately come to mind
as an example of Sata nic cinema. Nevertheless, there are clues in Lynch's typically
opaque script hinting that one of that film's most intriguing characters may
actually be the Devil. This nameless personage is referred to in the credits only as
the Mystery Man. A black-clad grotesque of leering clown-white face and
enigmatic dialogue, it is the Mystery Man who sets the puzzling plot in motion.
As played with grinning mal ice by imaginatively cast character actor Robert Blake,
this agent provocateur seems to be the only one of Lynch's dramatis personae
who actually u nderstands the maddeningly incoherent events that comprise the
film's narrative.
LOST HIGHWAY is a tale of split identity and doubling that never resolves
the paradoxical situations it presents, relying on a sometimes inconsistent mood
of perverse crime, infidelity and metaphysical disruption to hold together its
fractured imagery. When the film's anti-h ero d iscovers the Mystery Man in his
home, the stranger knowingly declares, "You invited me. It isn't my custom to go
where I'm not wanted ." Although Lynch does not press this point, it's a commonly
known aspect of Satanic lore that the PriAce of Darkness only appears where he
has been invited. Even if LOST HIG HWAY lacks the vision of Lynch's best work, the
film's Mystery Man serves as a potent i l lustration of how the timeless mystique of
the Devil can be reinterp reted for an era free of traditional Judeo-Christian
symbolism.
The g ifted Czech animator Jan Svankmajer's FAUST (1 994) told the
death less folk tale in his own inim itable, quirky style. In a g rimy, modern-day
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Prague of crumbling buildings and desolate moods, an ordinary man on the street
(Petr Cepek) is given a strange map which leads him to what appears to be a
shuttered theatre. Discovering a hidden key, he enters a shabby backstage area
where he dons a theatrical costume of Faust and begins reading aloud from a
script of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus: "I resolve my soul to free through
blackest magic and dark alchemy." The border between d ifferent levels of real ity
begins to blur and he finds himself on stage in a production of Marlowe's play,
an audience waiting for his performance. Cutting through a painted backdrop
into a steaming alchem ist's lab, he seems to have really become Faust presiding
over the birth of a homunculus. The creature comes alive in an impressive
sequence featuring Svan kmajer's distinctive, jerky stop-motion clay animation. The
legend is conveyed in a series of elliptical episodes switching back and forth
between antique puppets, recreations of scenes from Marlowe's play, Gounoud's
opera of Faust and long stretches of surreal, non-linear imagery completely
without dialogue.
The Devil, seen first as a slightly ridiculous marionette, is finally revealed
to be Faust himself, a dual performance which Petr Cepek handles with subtlety.
Consistently disturbing and inventive, Svankmajer's FAUST is at once a tribute to
the established classical versions of the tale and a bold experiment in the
language of una l loyed cinema. Filled with sin ister humour and magical dream
images, this is a fiercely personal meditation on Satan and self, a rare example of
pure film-making that will irritate some and enchant others.
Alex De La Iglesias' EL DIA DE LA B ESTIA aka THE DAY OF THE B EAST
( 1 995) is a remarkably original Spanish film that hand les the Antichr ist legend
with bracing humour of the blackest pitch. Cynically skewering the pretensions of
the Catholic church, pop Satanism, and the New Age movement with impartial
irreverence, the film's aggressive subversion presents a chaotic n ightmare world
worthy of Bunuel.
The film opens with a parody of the kind of ominous scene we've
witnessed innumerable times in other Sata nic films, particu larly in THE OMEN
series. I n the gloom of a venerable church, a provincial priest (Alex Angula)
confides to a fellow padre that he has uncovered a diabolical plot. The older
reverend fearfully cautions that "our enemy is powerful", and is promptly crushed
under a large wooden crucifix that topples from the altar. Undeterred, the little
priest arrives by bus in nocturnal Madrid, where he has ascertained - by
deciphering a numerical code in Revelations - that the Antichrist is about to be
born on Christmas Eve. Un less he can locate the Beast and destroy it in the next
24 hours, the world will end and the Devil's reign will commence. As the p riest
wanders into the threatening metropolis, the end times seem to have already
started; random violence is everywhere, police sirens are screaming, and he
watches as the victim of a fiery car accident succumbs to his burns.
The film's dark humour is largely based on the priest's b l i n d credulity as
he zealously explores every lead that will reveal the location of the Beast's birth
to him. At first, he turns to Jose Maria (Santiago Segura) a slovenly black metal
fan who owns a shop specializing in Satanic rock music. Assuming that the dim­
witted headbanger must be an accomplished adept of the Black Arts, the priest
implores him to invoke the Devil for him. Jose Maria adm its that he's not qu ite
that advanced, but suggests that the famous lV psychic Professor Cavan (Armando
De Razza), host of a sensational occult talk show called "The Dark Side" would
probably know how to arrange the desired infernal contact. They break into
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Day Of Tbe Beast.
Cavan's home and hold h i m hostage, terrorizing him into instructing them on the
correct procedure of conjuring Satan. Cavan, whose vaunted occult wisdom is just
a cynical act, h u mours his seem ingly demented abductors by providing a recipe of
v i rgin's blood, unholy wafers and other hocus-pocus. The p riest returns to his
pension where he drugs a young woman who he suspects of being a virgin, and
blithely draws some blood from her with a syringe. In the process, he is d iscovered
by the landlady - Jose Maria's mother - who chases him with a shotgun, assuming
that he's a murderer. She falls to her death in a stairway accident while pursuing
h im, a scene of mayhem he ignores in his single-minded obsession with finding
the Antichrist.
At Cavan's apartment, a pentagram is drawn on the floor, and the p riest
forces Cavan and Jose Maria to ingest the blood-soaked wafers while he recites
h is pact with the Devil, signing it with his own blood. Cavan laughs at them as
they wait for Satan to appear. At first, only a humble cockroach shows up, but
this is followed by the more impressive manifestation of a sin ister black goat who
strides into Cavan's living room and defiantly bears itself up on its hind legs. Until
now, we've been led to believe that the priest's search for the Beast is a
dangerous psychopath's delusion. Now the film takes an even darker, more savage
turn, as the hour of the Antichrist's birth draws nearer.
Terrified by the entity they've called up, the psychic, the priest and his
black metal sidekick escape from Cavan's apartment by climbing out of a window
over a huge neon advertisement. Stoned and hysterical, Jose Maria loses grip of
Cavan, who tumbles to the street below, only narrowly avoiding death. The priest
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Charlie's Family.
continues his grim search for his adversary, seeking the Antichrist at a meeting of
Nostradamus adm irers and at a black metal nightclub called lnfierno, where he's
beaten brutally by the crowd.
The similarly battered Professor Cavan, now a believer after his encounter
with the goat. has survived his fall to crawl into the TV studio to go on the air live
with a special Christmas Eve broadcast of "The Dark Side" Seeing a police
drawing of h i mself on the show, the priest calls in from a pay-phone. Cavan tells
him that he now knows where the Antichrist will be spawned, having discovered
the true mark of the Beast by examining some ancient documents that supposedly
bear the Devil's signature. The three bumbling Devil-hunters rush to "Satan's
temple", which turns out to be a futuristic twin office tower constructed in the
shape of the mark of the Beast. There, they hear the mewling of a new-born
infant but are interrupted by the arrival of sinister thugs guarding the building.
Jose Maria is viciously beaten by the toughs, and the horrified priest sees that one
of the attackers is the Devil himself, a goat-headed being who drops the
idiotically laughing Jose Maria to his death from the top of the skyscraper. (De La
Iglesias wisely only allows us a shadowy, fleeting g l impse of the elegantly
designed Satan figure, rather than indulg ing in the elaborate and usually
unconvincing special effects typical of the period.)
In the end, although Cavan is nearly k i lled when he's set on fire by the
Devil's agents, the priest's mission is successfu l, and Doomsday is averted. We last
see the pr iest and Cavan as filthy bums, their heroic effort to save the world
forgotten and unappreciated. De La Iglesias' bleak, absurdist comedy of terror
demonstrates a masterful d irectorial control, pulling off the difficult m ixture of
humour and horror with vibrant style. EL DIA DE LA BESTIA, despite its facetious
tone, possesses a far more disturbing atmosphere of num inous, metaphysical fear
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than the solemn Satanic films it parodies so incisively. The three lead players,
Angula, De Razza, and Segura, each create credible characters that ground the
fantastic events in reality. We're never told what we should think about these
unsympathetic heroes, who operate in a post-Christian, morally ambiguous
u n iverse rarely evoked in Satanic films. Battista Lena's sweeping score perfectly
supports the ever-darkening mood.
Underground filmmaker Jim VanBebber dedicated a decade to creating
his CHARLIE'S FAMILY (1997), an ambitious retelling of the Mansonoid murder
mythology. During the film's well executed - if innaccurate - depiction of the Tate
mu rders, convicted Manson Family killer Tex Watson, played by Mark Pitman, is
seen to metamorphose into a rapacious horned Satan. This brief psychedelicized
hallucination makes for one of the Devil's more memorable cameos in the sparse
underground film world of the '90s. Although it's a potent illustration of the
Manson legend as popularly understood, VanBebber's epic is strangely orthodox
in its acceptance of the Vincent Bugliosi/Ed Sanders version of events. It's
unfortunate that VanBebber's undeniable cinematic vision was wedded to the
fam il i a r folk myth of the '60s clim actic crime, rather than seeking to u ncover more
disturbing hidden realities.
VanBebber had already revealed a fascination with the pu rported l i n k i n g
o f pseudo-Satanic symbolism and violence in h i s earlier short film MY SWEET
SATAN (1994). In this effective evocation of teenage suburban mayhem, based o n
the crimes comm itted by addled adolescent and diabolic dabbler Ricky Kasso,
VanBebber essayed the lead character himself.
THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE (1997) tried to capitalize on the u n iversal loathing
of the public for lawyers by wedding a John Grisham-style legal thriller to a
Sata n ic moral ity play. Young attorney Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves) ignores his
conscience and successful ly defends an elementary school teacher he knows is
gui lty of child molestation. When his slimy client is freed, he's contacted by a
h i gh-powered Manh attan law firm, led by the personable John M i lton (AI Pacino),
who becomes Lomax's mentor. Mi lton has been keeping an eye on the younger
attorney's career, noting that he has never lost a case, no matter how dubious the
defendant. Reaffirming '90s mass media n otions of Satanic crime, the Devil's
advocate not only defends a child molester, but a practitioner of animal sacrifice,
and a known murderer
Lomax doesn't suspect that M i lton is, in fact, the Devil, until long after
even the most dull-witted audience member has come to that conclusion. Lomax's
wife a n d mother instantly loathe Milton; much is made of his eccentric habit of
on ly trave lling through the "underworld" of the subway. His very name,
borrowed from the author of Paradise Lost, should ring a bell, but clueless Keanu
doesn't seem like the type to pick up o_n literary allusions. Even when M ilton's
seen engaging in a menage a trois - presented in Hollywood's typically Puritan
manner as a certain sign of Satanic perversion- Lomax doesn't get it. Eventually,
after corrupting Lomax sufficiently, Milton reveals his identity in a bravura
monologue. Pacino, at least, seems to be enjoying himself, as he delivers his over­
ripe dialogue with u n i n h ibited theatrical hamminess. It turns out that Lomax is
the Devil's son, and that he's being groomed to give birth to the Antichrist.
Milton orders his progeny to impregnate his own ha lf-sister, Christabella (Connie
N ielson). Rather than go through with this infernal incest, Lomax finds his missing
conscience and kills himself and the Antichrist's prospective mother, saving the
world from Satan's scheme. His self-sacrifice is rewarded when he is sent back in
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The Devii's A�.
time to the child mo lester's trial that began the film. Having learned his lesson,
Lomax quits the case, but the eternal temptations of the Devil appear again, this
time as a journal ist promising to make the attorney famous for his good deed.
Director Taylor Hackford never seems quite sure if he's playing a l l this
moralizing for black humour or for darkest drama. Adding to the uncertain air is
Pacino's overwhelmingly flamboyant performance. It's on such a grand scale i n
comparison to the rest of the cast that it may as well have been edited i n from
some entirely different film. Like so many high-concept Hol lywood films of the
period, there's no s ubstance behind the surfeit of bombast.
THE DEVIL'S
ADVOCATE's concentration on a strictly criminal portrayal of the powers of
darkness merely recycles the urban legends of the '80s, offering no fresh insight
into the deeper currents of the Sata nic myth. Considering the inherent legal istic
complications of the traditional Faustian pact with the Devil, the infernal attorney
theme could have been handled with far more imagination than is ever exercised
here.
As if THE EXORCIST Ill and THE FIRST POWER hadn't thoroughly done the
idea to death, Gregory Hoblit's FALLEN (1 998) presented yet another Satanic serial
killer who keeps slaying after his execution. This time, Denzel Washington is the
homicide detective on the Fallen Angel's · trail, identified here as the demon
Azazel.
Although
its
a
more
technically
accomplished
film
than
its two
predecessors, this derivative re-run is entirely superfluous.
In the solemn, religiously inspired atmosphere of gloom in which the
Satanic myth was wrapped during the '80s and '90s, the Devil was rarely viewed
through a comedic perspective i n North American films. One notable exceptio n
was the irreverent animated musical SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT
EVEN HELL HAS ITS HEROES: THE 1990s
•
231
(1 999), directed by Trey Parker with an eye toward stepping on as many sacred
cows as possible. One of the film's subplots found Iraq's President Saddam Hussein
damned to Hell, where he carries on a passionate homosexual love affair with
Satan . It's ironic that Hussein, a devout Muslim who often denounced the U n ited
States as "the Great Satan" was the world leader most often associated with the
Devil during the '90s in the popular imagination. Like Napoleon and Hitler before
him, Hussein was considered so "evil" that he was commonly considered to be the
Antichrist by disciples of the Biblical prophecy movement.
1999, a year stamped with apocalyptic hysteria and expectations of world
cataclysm, produced the final Satanic films of the cinema's first century, END OF
DAYS and THE NINTH GATE. Each of these pictures provide us with perfect
examples of two diametrically opposed visions of the Devil that have clashed with
each other since the genesis of the movies.
By far the least interesting of the two was Peter Hyams' E N D OF DAYS
(1999) a bloated and empty-headed action extravaganza designed as a vehicle for
the dubious talents of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The plot is easily summarized:
Arnold Good. Satan Bad. Everything go BOOM! Defeated even before it gets
started by the unworkable premise of fighting the metaphysical powers of
darkness with the Austrian he-man's sheer brawn and firepower, this is Hollywood
corporate product at its most lifeless and generic. Aimed squarely at the lowest
common denominator, END OF DAYS was released just in time to capitalize on
mass fears of the coming millennium. Schwarzenegger, while publicizing the film,
stated: " Everyone's very aware about the millennium and this is the only movie
coming out now that explores all the themes: Will the world come to an end? Will
Satan return? It's a story of Bibl ical proportions."
In a prologue set in 1979, the Pope learns that a girl-child has been born
in New York City with birthmarks designating her as the future bride of Satan.
According to scriptural prophecy, the Devil will return to earth when the ch ild
matures to mate with her and usher in the " End of Days" Cut to December 28,
1 999. Schwarzenegger - saddled with the Bibl ically unsound moniker of Jericho
Cane - plays a spiritually bu rnt-out security specialist who ends up protecting a
young woman named Christine Bethlehem (Robin Tunney). She's threatened by
both Vatican assassins and a powerful individual known only as the Man (Gabriel
Byrne), who is, of course, Satan. In between explosions, Cane experiences a
red iscovery of Christian faith that gives him the strength to destroy the Devil's
m i n ions and thwart the Man's eschatological plans. The overwhelming message
of the film, which revolves around Cane's attempts at preventing the Devil from
consummating his union with Christine, is anti-sexual in a way that recalls the first
American Sata nic films of the silent era. This deeply ingrained hatred of the flesh
is underscored by the mindless monotony of endless gunplay that makes up the
majority of the thin plot. All of this is combined with a n arch-reactionary attitude
of respect for the Catholic Church which would have seemed archaic in 1 899.
Indeed, the film taps into such deeply conservative waters, it could have been
produced by the doomsday-obsessed fundamentalist movement so visible on
American cable television.
Gabriel Byrne, a n actor of intelligence and presence, is given a trite and
un derwr itten role in the Man, one of the cinema's blandest modern Satans.
Andrew W. Marlowe's unimaginative script predictably draws on a theme a lready
utterly exhausted by earlier Satan i c blockbusters - the fear of Satanic pregnancy
i l lustrated in ROSEMARY'S BABY and THE OMEN films - and does absolutely
232
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
nothing new with it. Despite E N D OF DAYS' one-dimensional attempt to cash in
on the m illennium madness of late 1 999, the film was not the enormous success
it needed to be to recoup its massive budget. If this pious monument to
Puritanism has any importance to the history of the Satanic cinema, it can only b e
that the obscene amount of money required to produce i t makes END O F DAYS
the most expensive diabolic picture produced in the 20th century.
Operating with a fraction of that budget but a thousand times more
artistry and imagination, Roman Polanski returned to the subject that brought
him his greatest commercial and critical success with ROSEMARY'S BABY over
thirty years earlier That Polanski would turn his talents to conjuring the Devil
again is rather surprising, considering that he'd spent three decades trying to
extricate himself from the unwanted diabolical aura that the overwhelming
success of ROSEMARY'S BABY projected around him. Polanski's Span ish-French co­
production T H E NINTH GATE (1 999) is not only the final major Satanic film of the
20th century, it's one of the most significant works of the entire field. While
developing many of the themes raised in the black magical films that preceded
it with u nprecedented complexity, the picture deftly plays with the audience's
expectations of hoary Satanic film cliches, subverting and transcending them in a
wholly unanticipated fashion.
Polanski has stated that he made the film as a reaction to the noisy,
frantic movies of the '90s that so offended his aesthetic sensibilities. It's a work
filled with silence and shadow, unfolding its complicated narrative in a stately
pace completely alien to the quick cut attention spans of the MTV/computer game
generation. There are the inevita ble action sequences one would expect in what
is essentially a thriller, but Polanski emphasizes atmosphere and character.
Centring on the labyrinthine quest of several obsessed bibliophiles for a
volume reputed to have been co-authored by Lucifer, the film is almost shockingly
cerebral, a true anomaly i n a post-literate age mesmerized by electronic media
and visual overload. While the Satanic theme is sensational enough to in itially
attract the average thrill-seeking audience's attention, Polanski's fi lm is peopled
almost entirely by intellectuals passionately discussing rare books. Considering that
most '90s films were aimed at a young aud ience for whom books were an
i r relevant archaism, making a movie focusing on the metaphysical musings of
book collectors and the arcane details of the library arts was practically a radical
act on Polanski's part. An audience primed to expect the crude roller-coaster ride
provided by mainstream Devil movies of EXORCIST and OMEN ilk would be utterly
perplexed by the p h i losophical Satanists of THE NINTH GATE.
This most literary of films was in fact adapted from a literary source.
Spanish author Arturo Perez-Reverte's 1 993 novel Le Club Dumas served as
inspiration. Major changes were made i n reworking the material for cinematic
treatment. However, the core of the narrative, following an unscrupulous book
detective's quest for the rarest of rare black magical texts, the 1666 edition of De
Umbra rum Regni Novem Portis (The Nine Gates Of The Kingdom Of Shadows), was
retained. There's no denying that the centra l conceit, that of a powerful grimoire
of grimoires, is influenced by Lovecraft's Necronomicon. Nevertheless, Le Club
Dumas is something much more than just another tiresome Lovecraft pastiche. It
is a profoundly original meditation on the Satanic mythos, an erudite Luciferian
puzzle worthy of Umberto Eco.
A clever note of metafictional realism is added to Le Club Dumas by the
n i n e perfectly executed faux woodcut i l lustrations included, purporting to be
EVEN HELL HAS ITS HEROES: THE 1990s
•
233
Frank U!ngella, The NinJb Gate.
reproductions of the original prints in The Nine Gates Of The Kingdom Of
Shadows. Polanski has stated that he was inspired to purchase the rights to the
book because he was so impressed with the cinematic possibil ities of these
engravings.
Polanski's streak of black humour runs through the film, despite the
ominous events portrayed. This gallows humour is also present in L e Club Dumas,
but the sarcastic undertone informing the film is purely personal to the d irector
This biting irony, which is subtly handled, was hardly noticed by critics, who
received TH E N I NTH GATE in deadly earnest, often wildly misinterpreting it as a
standard horror film.
Dean Corso, the film's antagon ist, is initially contemptuous of the various
black magicians he encou nters, scoffing at their conviction that the ancient text
they seek is a key to the existence of the Devil. By the final scene, h e has been
transformed into Satan's chosen apprentice. Several earlier films, notably TH E
N IGHT OF TH E DEMON, depicted the transformation of rationalism into
acceptance of a magical worldview. However, in these films, this acceptance of the
reality of black magic usually only allows the transformed hero to more efficiently
defeat the Satanic villain. Here, Corso's metamorphosis leads h i m to voluntarily
come into being as Lucifer's own. Furthermore, any traditional notion of hero and
villain is completely reversed.
Polanski's entire cast, from the leading players to the briefest supporting
roles are a l l u niformly excellent. Frank Langella is g iven a particularly juicy role in
the darkly sardonic Boris Balkan, and he makes the most of every scene he's in.
Emmanuelle Seigner as the film's unlikely Devil in jeans and sneakers capably
projects both a knowing sense of secret wisdom and a seething eroticism. The rich
score by Wojciech Kilar perfectly captures the carefu lly shaded moods, veering
234
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
Johnny Depp, The Ninth Gate
between deep foreboding and jaunty irony.
The film's bleak prologue shows us a desperate man hanging h i mself.
Polanski's camera then g lides to a nearby bookshelf, lined with antique volumes.
Telling ly, there is a clear gap between two of the volumes. We are drawn into the
darkness where the missing book was placed, and the credits are revealed i n a
sequence which shows nine ancient gates opening into deeper shadows. When the
camera moves beyond the ninth gate, the screen fills with a burst of golden light
suggesting mystical illumination.
The picture follows the journey of Dean Corso (Johnny Depp), paid well
by wealthy New York publisher Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) to compare his
recently acq u ired copy of The Nine Gates with the two other known copies. It
becomes obvious that Balkan is not only interested in affirming the book's
authenticity as a collector of rare books; he needs a complete copy to contact the
Devil. Balkan allows Corso to take the incredibly rare volume with h im. H e soon
crosses the border into a shadow realm that his thoroughly materialistic
worldview has not prepared him for.
In New York, he's seduced and post-coitally attacked by the chic widow
Liana Tefler (Lena Olin), who needs Th e Nine Gates for the rites of her Satanic
sect, the Order of the Silver Serpent. In Spain, he encounters two sinister twin
bookbinders who reveal that some of the nine engravings in the legendary book
are said to be signed by Lucifer h imself. In Portugal, he compares Balkan's copy
of the book to one owned by the impoverished aristocrat Fargas, learning that
the engravings in the two copies are subtly different from each other "Some
books are dangerous, not to be opened with impunity," Fargas tells the book
h u nter In Paris, he meets the a rch Satanic author Baroness Kessler, who admits
to falling in love with the Devil at first sight when she was only fifteen. Wherever
EVEN HELL HAS ITS HEROES: THE 1990s
•
235
Emmanuelle Siegner, 1be Ninlb Gate.
Corso goes in the world, he's threatened by the presence of an ominous black
man in shades and watched out for by an enigmatic young woman (Emmanuelle
Seigner), who seems to be his guardian angel.
The n i n e symbolic engravings from the much sought after diabolic book
take on a gruesome life of their own. Someone is following Corso, kil ling anyone
who comes into contact with The Nine Gates in the manner portrayed in the
engravings. Eventually, he starts to realize that the cryptic drawings form some
kind of puzzle, and that an unknown party is playing a menacing game with him.
At the scenes of the grisly murders of Fargas and Kessler, he finds their invaluable
copies of The Nine Gates burning, intact except for the engravings, which have
been torn out. With the mysterious girl's aid, Corso breaks in to a secret ritual of
the Order of the Silver Serpent, held at Liana Tefler's chateau. Boris Balkan
intrudes on the ceremony, killing Tefler, and ridiculing the pretensions of her cult,
declaring that only he is advanced enough to attain the Devil's knowledge. Balkan
strangles Tefler to death with her pentagram medallion before her horrified
followers. Corso now realizes that it was the publ isher who had been using the
n i n e engravings as a model for murder. In the process of his journey, Corso has
come to accept that the nine engravings are keys to Satanic power, and now he
seeks their power for himself.
The book detective traces his homicklal patron to a French castle known
as the Tower of the Devil. There, Balkan has spread out the nine engravings
before him and is preparing for h is expected e ntrance into the ninth gate of the
kingdom of shadows. Balkan gloats to Corso that he is "taking the road that leads
to equal ity with God ... entering uncharted territory", one of the more precise
descriptions of left hand path practice in the cinema. Certain that he has now
attained imm ortality through his pact with Lucifer, Balkan douses himself with
236
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
N. NC
SC.O
TE N.BR. LVX
gasoline, deliberately l i g hting himself on fire to prove his invincibil ity. But
something has gone wrong with the ritual, and he dies realizing that he's failed.
Corso shoots the agonized Balkan who dies writhing in the agony of his self­
immolation. Seizing the nine engravings, Corso exits the burning castle as it's
consumed by flame.
As he watches the inferno, he's joined by the nameless woman. She
EVEN HELL HAS ITS HEROES: THE 1990s
•
237
bestows a passionate kiss upon his l ips, and she furiously rides him as the castle
burns in the background. Her eyes glow with unearthly light, her face contorted
with demonic lust. D u ring this frenzied copulation, we realize the true identity of
Corso's mysterious protector. Guardian angel she may be, but if so, she is the
Fallen Angel. This sexual in itiation rite confirms that Corso is the Devil's chosen
adept.
The next day, they are seen driving. "Is that it, is the game over?" Corso
asks. She reveals that Balkan's ritual failed because one of the engravings, the
n i nth, was a forgery. When they stop at a gas station, Corso's companion vanishes,
as she has frequently throughout the film. She has left a brief note on the
windshield directing him back to the Cenazza brothers, the twin bookbinders in
Spain. Now as obsessed with finding the engraving as Tefler, Balkan or Kessler
had been, he returns to the dingy Spanish shop. He finds that the brothers have
moved, and a crew of workmen are clearing out the last piece of furniture, a tall
shelf. As they pull the shelf away from the wall, a dust-coated piece of paper falls
from the top.
It's the ninth engraving, in which a naked woman, looking very much like
Emmanuelle Seigner, holds a book while she rides a seven headed beast. The
image clearly represents the Whore of Babylon, the Scarlet Woman, astride the
dragon Leviathan (known in Babylon as Tiamat, and in Egypt as Apep). Behind
her, a castle is in flames. As soon as Corso sees this image, Polanski cuts to a
stylized dream-like shot of a transfixed Corso opening the door to the castle we
have seen so often in the engravings. The screen, and Corso, are enveloped by the
same resplendent glow that we saw at the start of the film. The in itiate enters the
n inth gate.
THE NINTH GATE is a dense work, concea ling more than it reveals,
building up a genuine sense of mystery as Corso's multi-layered search unravels.
It's tempting to compare the film to Polanski's earlier ROSEMARY'S BABY, but
other than the obvious parallel of the Satanic theme, there are surprisingly few
similarities. Upon first viewing, one is struck by how unl ike any other Satanic film
this is. First of all, there is the ambiguous portrayal of the Devil. As played by
Polanski's wife Seigneur, this is an entirely sympathetic Satan, a wise being
g u iding the hero to spiritual awakening. She is not the traditional Judaeo­
Christian symbol of evil we've encountered in hundreds of other films, but an
essentially benevolent entity of i l lu m ination. Although Polanski has repeatedly
stated that he has no metaphysical or occult bel iefs, Seigneur's Devil is closer to
the nature of the left hand path than any previous depiction.
Another departure is the unusual characterization of the film's Satan ists.
Usually, screen Satanists are pictured as united in a common diabolical conspiracy.
Here, the literate a n d wealthy Boris Balkan, Liana Tefler and Baroness Frieda
Kessler are in competition with each other, each of them taking an " u nholier than
thou" attitude in regard to their rivals. Polanski's most effective and amusing
reversal of Satanic film cliche is demonstrated in the elaborate ritual sequence set
i n Liana Tefler's chateau. In what must be the most lavishly appointed Satanic
ritual chamber ever constructed for a film - replete with an attached bed for
orgiastic use - Liana, High Priestess of the cult presides. She sternly recites from
the pentagram-bedecked Latin text of The Nine Gates, exhorting her enraptured
fol lowers. Although the scene is beautifully lit and photographed by Darius
Khondji, and the set is a triumph of art design, it reca lls a score of similar scenes
in earlier Sata nic films.
238
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
This resemblance ends when Boris Balkan makes a surprise entrance,
strid ing through the robed cultists in his business suit. "Mumbo Jumbo! Mumbo
J u m bo ! " he shouts, his voice cutting throug h Liana's earnest Lucifer ian litany.
Balkan mounts the podium, upstaging the bewildered Liana. He derides the pious
asse mblage of would-be magicians, mocking them as "a bunch of buffoons in
fancy dress" Laughing, he assures them that the Prince of Darkness would "never
deign to appear" before the likes of them. In this brilliantly conceived scene,
Polanski pointedly harpoons the hackneyed conventions of the Satanic genre.
Balkan's ridicule of the visually impressive but ultimately em pty ceremony
indulged in by the Satan ists as a pathetic excuse in make-believe typifies the film's
subversive black humour. Balkan suggests that if real magical power can be said
to exist, it can't possibly be generated by such formulaic theatrics. The n u minous
nature of the Other, personified here by the myth of Lucifer, resists a l l attempts
at standardization. Conceivably, this satiric scene would also offend most
contemporary black magical grou ps, addicted as they are to the same kind of
" m umbo-jumbo" and d ress-up games depicted - and deflated - in THE NINTH
GATE.
It may be that Polanski's avoidance of familiar cliches worked against the
commercial success of the film. Receiving spotty distribution a n d l u ke-warm
revi ews, TH E NINTH GATE - like many of Pola nski's post-sca ndal pictures - didn't
receive the attention it deserved. Reportedly, the director had a difficult time
garnering financing for this untimely and distinctly untr.endy picture. While its
disappointing showing at the box-office assures that it wil l never have the same
kind of impact on the Satanic cinema that ROSEMARY'S BABY achieved, it is i n
fact the deeper and more thoughtful film. Breaking free of negative Judaeo­
Christian definitions of the Devil, it proves that this ancient archetype can be
given new life in the hands of an original artist. As the second century of Satanic
film commenced, it remained to be seen whether this new approach was a sign
o f things to come or merely .a n anomaly (initial signs were not good - 2000 held
little in promise save a pointless remake of B EDAZZLED and the Adam Sandier
vehicle LITTLE NICKY, featuring Harvey Keitel as the Devil).
In 1 896, Melies' black and white Mephistopheles, the first to be recorded
on celluloid, vanished in a puff of smoke, a villain vanquished by the sign of the
cross. In 1 999, the Other, presented in its purest left hand path form as a sexual
initiatrix of the Feminine Daemonic, is unambiguously embraced. Lucifer is
established as the heroine, redeemed fallen angel, and Princess of Darkness who
provides the key that a l lows the in itiate to attain the knowledge of the kingdom
of shadows.
In THE N I NTH GATE's last reversal of the expected Satanic imagery, the
hero's entrance into the other realm is not pictured as a frighten ing descent into
a n abhorrent Hell. On the contrary, when Corso fulfils h is hidden fate, he is
welcomed by a triumphant blaze of illumination. As he had read earlier on the
title page of the coveted book which led him to this apotheosis: Sic Luceat Lux ­
Thus shines the Light. The final image of the Devil's first century on film is radiant
with the bringer of light's mysterious brilliance, threatening to some, alluring to
others. That l i ght, as penetrating as a movie projector's beam, and possessed of
the same magical ability to conjure vividly imagined worlds, will continue to
inspire and alarm mankind as it is reflected in future media as yet unimaginable.
INDEX OF FILMS
Page numbers in bold indicate an illustra tion.
A
ABBY
ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES, THE
AIRPLANE
ALIAS NICK BEAL
ALRAUNE
ANGEL ABOVE, DEVIL BELOW
ANGEL H EART
ANGEL ON MY SHOULDER
ANTICHRIST, THE
ASYLUM OF SATAN, T H E
ATTACK OF THE FI FTY-FOOT WOMAN
172, 172-173
177
218
76-77
43
178-179
207-208, 208, 219
75, 75-76
173, 174, 189
163, 172
84
B
BACK FROM THE DEAD
86
130
BARON MUNCHHAUSEN
57
BECKET
106
BEDAZZLED (1 967)
1 24, 1 25
BEDAZZLED (1999)
238
BEYOND THE DOOR
175
BIRTH OF A NATION
46
BLACK CAT, THE
33, 42, 49-56, 50, 51, 55, 86, 89, 104, 1 07, 141
BLACK CROOK, THE
29
BLACK EXORCISM
174
BLACK MASS
111
BLACK ROSES
205
173
BLACULA
BLOOD FROM THE M U M M Y'S TOMB
183
BLOOD OF JESUS, THE
64, 64-65, 74, 172
BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW
148, 148
7, 161, 161-162
BLOOD ORGY OF THE SHE-DEVILS
56, 57, 79
BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE
157, 157-159
BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN, THE
BARBARELLA
c
CABIN IN THE SKY
CABINET OF MEPH ISTOPHELES, THE
CABINET OF DR CALIGARI, THE
73-74, 74
19
26, 26-27, 3 1 , 40, 44, 49, 50
240
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
19
CAKE-WALK INFERNAL
1 89
CAR, THE
76
70, 99
CASABLANCA
CAT PEOPLE
CHARLIE'S FAMILY
228, 229
CITY OF THE DEAD
95-96, 96, 1 2 1
CLOSE E N COUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
1 92
COMPANY OF WOLVES
202
29
CONSCIENCE
147-148
CRY OF THE BANSHEE
D
189, 190, 1 98, 1 99
DAMIEN: THE OMEN II
DAMN YANKEES
DAMNATION OF DOCTOR FAUST, THE
DAMNATION OF FAUST, THE
DANCE O F T H E VAMPIRES
DANTE'S INFERNO
DAUGHTERS OF SATAN, THE
5, 91, 9 1 -92
19
19
1 09-1 10, 123, 1 23-1 24, 1 3 3
57, 5 8
19
DAY OF THE BEAST
226-229, 227
DEATHMASTER, THE
1 51 , 1 5 1-1 52
DEMON WITCH CHILD
DEMONIC I N ART, THE
D E R STUDENT VON PRAG ( 1 9 1 3)
1 73
95
5, 23, 24-27, 25, 36, 40, 46, 76, 1 86
DER STUDENT VON PRAG (1 926)
43-46, 44
DER STUDENT VON PRAG ( 1935)
49, 59, 59-60
DER TEUFEL I N MISS JONAS
DEVIL, THE
DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER, THE
DEVIL AND MAX DEVLIN, THE
DEVIL I N A CONVENT, THE
DEVIL I N LOVE, THE
DEVIL I N MISS JONES, THE
1 57
28
42, 6 1 -64, 63, 80
215
19
1 1 6-1 1 7
5, 1 66, 1 66-167, 176
DEVIL I N MISS JONES II, THE
1 99-200
DEVIL INSIDE HER, THE
179, 1 79
DEVIL RIDES OUT, THE
9, 86, 89, 1 20, 1 26-130, 127, 129, 147, 149,
DEVIL WITH HITLER, THE
1 53, 1 84, 1 9 1
30, 65, 65-66, 86
DEVIL WORSHIPPER, THE
3 1 , 55
DEVIL'S ADVOCATE, THE
229-230, 230
DEVIL'S BONDSWOMAN, THE
DEVIL'S DUE
29
1 76
DEVIL'S ECSTASY
1 7 5-176
DEVIL'S EYE, THE
97, 97-98
DEVIL'S MANOR, THE
DEVIL'S MESSENGER, THE
DEVIL'S M ISTRESS, THE
DEVIL'S N IGHTMARE, THE
DEVIL'S PARTNER, THE
5, 17-1 8
100-102, 1 0 1 , 105
5, 1 17-1 1 9, 1 1 8
1 58, 1 59
89, 90
INDEX OF FILMS
DEVIL'S PEOPLE, THE
DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND, THE
DEVIL'S RAIN, THE
DEVIL'S TOY, THE
•
241
185, 1 85-186
1 89
177, 1 7 8
29
DEVILS, THE
1 53, 1 53-1 54
DEVILS O F DARKNESS
1 1 4, 1 1 4-1 1 5
D IE ELIXIERE DES TEUFELS
DISCIPLE OF DEATH, THE
DOCTOR FAUSTUS
1 86
1 60-161
6, 1 2 1
DRACULA ( 1 9 3 1 }
3 1 , 49
DRACULA A.D. 72
1 6 1 , 1 68
146-147, 1 47
DUNWICH HORROR, THE
E
EASY RIDER
175
E L ATAQUE D E LOS MUERTOS SIN OJOS
1 55
1 55
213
EL BULQUE MALDITO
E L CAMI NANTE
E N D O F DAYS
2 0 1 , 216, 2 3 1 -232
EVEN AS YOU AND I
29
EVIL, THE
191
EVILSPEAK
199, 1 00, 205
1 73
7, 13, 76, 168-172, 1 69, 1 7 1 , 173, 1 74, 1 7 5, 1 78, 1 79, 1 80,
1 83, 1 89, 2 1 7, 2 1 8, 2 1 9, 224, 232
1 87-1 88, 188
EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC
EXORCISMO
EXORCIST, THE
EXORCIST Ill
2 1 8, 2 1 8-219, 230
F
FAHRMANN MARIA
FALLEN
FANTASIA
57
230
5, 61, 62
FAUST (1 926}
6, 3 1 , 41-42, 42, 57, 80, 99
FAUST (1 960}
42, 98, 98-99, 1 96
FAUST (1 994}
57, 225, 225-226
19
FAUST AND MARGUERITE
FEAR NO EVIL
1 98-199, 1 99, 205
FINAL CONFLICT - THE OMEN Ill
196, 1 96-197, 1 98
FINGER LICKIN' GOOD
FIRST POWER
FOUR HUNDRED PRANKS OF THE DEVIL
FREAKS
1 89
2 1 9, 2 1 9-220, 230
18, 1 9, 20
48
G
GLEN OR GLENDA?
79, 80
242
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
GOING TO G LORY, COME TO JESUS
GOLDFINGER
GOLEM, THE (1914)
GOLEM, THE (1920)
GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, THE
GURU DAS SIETE CIDADES
76
1 84
27, 44
31-33, 32, 34, 40, 52, 54
111
1 52
H
HAND OF THE DEVIL, THE
HANS WESTMAR
HAUNTED PALACE, THE
HAxAN
H EAVEN CAN WAIT
H ELLAVISION
HELLFIRE CLUB, THE
H E LLRAISER
H E LLRAISER II
H IGHWAY TO HELL
HIMLASPELET
HOLOCAUST 2000
HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB
HOUSE OF EXORCISM
HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
HOWL OF THE DEVIL
I DRINK YOUR BLOOD
I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE
INAUGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME
INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES
INCUBUS
INQUISITION
INTOLERANCE
INVISIBLE MAN, THE
INVOCATION OF M Y DEMON BROTHER
68-70, 69, 83
58
84, 1 04-106, 105, 1 7 7
6, 7 , 33-35, 34, 47, 1 1 1
73
57
99
2 1 0, 2 1 0-2 1 1 , 2 1 3, 2 1 4
2 1 3-214, 2 1 4
222-223, 223
68
1 89-191
1 63, 1 64
174
133
2 1 3, 2 1 3
1 49
70
79-83, 82, 1 03
146
1 1 5, 1 1 6, 1 77
213
30
76
5, 103, 1 4 1-142, 1 42, 193
J
JOSEPH ANDREWS
1 87, 2 1 4
K
THE KEEP
KISS OF T H E VAMPIRE
200-201, 201
1 08-109, 109, 1 1 1 , 124
INDEX OF FILMS
KURFURSTENDAMM
•
243
3 1 , 40
L
LA BEAUT� DU DIABLE
LA NOCHE DE LAS GAVIOTAS
LEAVES FROM SATAN'S BOOK
LEGACY, THE
LEGACY OF SATAN, THE
LEGEND
LES D�MONIAQUES
LES VISITEURS DU SOIR
20, 77-78, 78
1 5 5-156
30, 33
1 9 1 , 1 92
1 57
202-203, 203
1 64-166, 1 65
20, 66-68, 67, 1 1 7
LISA AND THE DEVIL
174
LITTLE NICKY
238
LOST HIGHWAY
224
LUCIFER RISING
1 0 3 , 130-132, 1 4 1 , 1 9 3-1 94, 1 94
LUST FOR A VAMPIRE
1 59, 1 60, 1 6 1
M
MAGDALENA - POSSESSED BY THE DEVIL
MAGIC SKIN, THE
MAGICIAN, THE
MARGUERITE DE LA NUIT
MASCOT, THE
MASK OF THE DEMON
MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, THE
MASTER AND MARGHE RITA, THE
M E ET MR. LUCIFER
M E PHISTO
MEPHISTO WALTZ, THE
M ETROPOLIS
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, A
1 74-1 7 5
28
7, 8, 37, 39-4 1 , 41, 73, 89
20, 83
56-57
9, 93-95, 94
84, 1 06, 106-108, 1 08, 1 26
1 32
80
99, 1 9 5, 1 9 5-196
156, 1 56-157
9, 3 1 , 42-43, 43, 57, 94
80
M I LKY WAY, THE
1 14
MONDO FREUDO
1 1 6, 1 1 7, 1 4 5
MONK, THE
1 64
MR. FROST
220, 220-2 2 1
MY SWEET SATAN
MY TALE IS HOT
MYSTERIES OF BLACK MAGIC
205, 229
111
90
N
NAKED GUN
218
N E CROMANCY
1 62, 1 62
NEEDFUL THINGS
223-224
NEW WAVE HOOKERS
202
NIGHT OF THE DEMON
8, 72, 86-89, 87, 88, 1 03, 1 1 5, 233
244
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
NIGHT OF THE EAGLE
NIGHT TIDE
NINTH GATE, THE
NOSFERATU
102, 102-103
99-100, 100
23 1 , 232-238, 233, 234, 235
7, 31, 35-37, 36, 44
0
OH, GOD! YOU DEVIL!
202
149-1 50
OMEN, T H E
13, 180-183, 182, 1 85, 1 9 1 , 220, 226, 231 , 232
O M E N IV - THE AWAKE NING
196
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST
219
ORPHEUS
207
OMEGA MAN, THE
p
PERFORMANCE
PETEY WHEATSTRAW, THE DEVIL'S SON-IN-LAW
PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, THE
POISONS AFFAIR, THE
PRINCE OF DARKNESS
130, 1 3 1
191
175
83
205-207, 206
Q
QUATERMASS AND THE PIT
1 2 1-122, 1 22, 1 88, 205
R
RACE WITH THE DEVIL
1 7 5, 176
146
REPOSSESSED
2 1 7-2 1 8
REPULSION
133
RESTITUTION
30
205
RIVER'S EDGE
ROCK'N'ROLL NIGHTMARE
205
ROSEM ARY'S BABY
70, 77, 123, 130, 133-1 40, 1 34, 1 3 5, 1 36, 1 43, 1 44,
1 45, 146, 149, 1 56, 1 57, 163, 1 68, 1 70, 1 7 5, 1 8 1 , 1 83, 1 85, 1 86, 1 89, 192, 231,
232, 237, 238
RAT PFINK A BOO-BOO
s
SANTA CLAUS
SATAN'S CHE ERLEADERS
SATAN'S SLAVE
SATANAS
SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA
92, 92
1 88-- 1 89
1 80
30-3 1 , 32, 40
167, 167-1 68
INDEX OF FILMS
•
245
SATANIS: THE DEVIL'S MASS
143, 144, 1 4 5
SCORPIO RISING
1 03-1 04, 104
SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN
SECT, THE
SENTINEL, THE
SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN
SEVENTH VICTIM, THE
SEX RITUALS OF THE OCCULT
SEXORCIST, THE
SEXUAL RITES OF THE DEVIL
SIMON OF THE DESERT
SINTH IA, THE DEVIL'S DOLL
SISTERS OF SATAN
SKULL, THE
.
SORROWS OF SATAN, TH E
SOUL OF A MONSTER
SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT
SPELLBINDER
SPIRITISM
SPIRITS OF THE DEAD
STAR WARS
STORY OF MANKIND, T H E
SUBU RBAN SATANIST
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL
1 83
2 2 1 -222, 222
1 86, 187
48, 48
7, 70-73, 7 1 , 86
146
174
1 76, 197, 197-198
1 1 3, 1 1 3-1 1 4
1 46
1 77- 1 78
1 1 1-1 1 3, 1 1 2
46, 46-47
74-75
230-231
211
99
1 32
1 92
30, 66, 85, 85-86
1 76-177
132
T
TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA
THAT NAZSTY NUISANCE
THING THAT COULDN'T DIE, THE
1 52, 1 53, 1 6 1
66
9 1 , 1 63
TING LER, THE
133
TO HEX WITH SEX
141
TO H E LL WITH THE KAISER
TO THE DEVIL. .. A DAUGHTER
TOM JONES
TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD
TORTURE GARDEN
TRICK OR TREAT
TWINS OF EVIL
29-30
1 83-185, 184
1 87
1 55, 1 5 5
120, 1 2 1
204, 204-205
161
u
UND EAD, THE
83-84, 84
UNH OLY, THE
2 1 1 -2 1 2, 2 1 2
v
VAMPYR
30
246
•
THE SATANIC SCREEN
VAMPYRES
VIRGIN WITCH
1 97
1 54, 1 54
w
WARLOCK
WARLOCK: THE ARMAGEDDON
WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ROSEMARY'S BABY?
WHERE EVIL DWELLS
WICKER MAN, THE
WITCHCRAFT
WITCHCRAFT '70
WITCH FINDER GENERAL
WITCHES, THE
WITCHES O F EASTWICK, THE
WORLD BY NIGHT
WORMWOOD STAR, THE
2 1 4-2 1 5
215
1 50, 1 50-1 5 1
77
205
211
1 10, 1 1 0-1 1 1 , 1 1 9
145-146
147
1 1 9, 1 1 9- 1 2 1
209, 209-21 0 , 220
1 1 6, 1 4 5
82, 9 9
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