Chemical Wedding

Chemical Wedding (Crowley)

2008

Director- Julian Doyle

Cast- Simon Callow, Kal Weber, Lucy Cudden, Jud Charlton, Paul McDowell, Terence Bayler, John Shrapnel, Esmé Bianco, Helen Millar

            It’s odd that, given his sinister reputation, and his effect on popular culture, there aren’t more movies about Aleister Crowley. Several movie sorcerers have been based on or inspired by the old magician (Mocata in The Devil Rides Out and Dr. Karswell in Night of the Demon come to mind). This film, rather than a biography, is an imaginative “what if”.

            The story begins with the death of Aleister Crowley after he finds out that L. Ron Hubbard and physicist Jack Parsons were trying to summon an elemental (just one of the many strange things you’ll learn from this film). Fast forward 50 years and Crowley is reincarnated in the body of a stuttering Cambridge literature professor. The reincarnation isn’t done in the usual way of séances or pentagrams. Oh no. It’s accomplished through a convoluted mechanism of virtual reality and, I guess, chaos magic.      

   

   The reborn Beast, after a shocking display of profanity and urophelia, sets about putting together the ritual needed to conjure up his own elemental. Along the way are lots of references to sex magic, Crowley mythology, and quantum physics. I’d like to be more descriptive, but even after two viewings, it is still a very dense movie with a lot of information to process. Game of Thrones fans will recognize, and appreciate, a very sexy appearance by Esmé Bianco.  

   Chemical Wedding refers to an alchemy term. The American release was given the more boring but straight forward title, Crowley. I suppose the big marketing point for this film is that it was written by Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden. However, you shouldn’t expect a heavy metal inspired horror fest on par with House of a 1000 Corpses. This movie is anything but that. It feels more like Lair of the White Worm mixed with Lawnmower Man, sprinkled with some soft core porn.

If that description seems impossible to fathom, well that’s about the same feeling you’ll have after you watch this film. Don’t watch it expecting to come away with some intimate knowledge of The Beast. Rather, you will probably have to stop the movie several times to look up occult terms like Scarlet Woman and Moon Child, or Bible verses, physics theories or other esoteric references. You will come away with more questions than answers. Of course, Crowley would have probably been OK with that.