The Devil in the Movies

           

Satan rears his head in the Haxan.

                                         

            So before I explain this site, I guess I should answer your first question first. No, I’m not a Satanist. Actually the handful of professed Satanists I’ve met would probably cringe or laugh at being associated with the contents of this site.

            Now as to the second question; why make this site? Why devote an entire site to such a specific sub-genre of movies? To answer that, I guess I should talk about the purpose and place of horror in general, and some of its sub-genres in particular.

            Good horror always addresses (or plays on) the anxieties of the audience. Some of those anxieties are culturally specific and some are universal. A very culturally specific example would be Godzilla. Now there is a movie, and a character, that could have only been created by the only country to ever have A-bombs dropped on it.

Godzilla, a very culturally specific monster.

            Broader examples, with more universal appeal, are the werewolf and the vampire. Many cultures from around the world, back through history, have had some version of a human that changes into an animal or vice versa. Werewolf stories date back to at least Ancient Greece. The French loup-garou, Asian were-tigers, Japanese fox spirits, Native American skin walkers, Mesoamerican Nagual, even the Viking berserker are all variations on the same theme. Awareness of our bestial self, either the desire to give into it or the fear of losing control of it, seems to be universal.

            Likewise, the vampire is a cross cultural phenomenon. The Malaysian Penanggalan, the Chinese hopping vampire, the succubus, the Eastern European Wurdulak, all exist by preying on others, either stealing their blood, sexual energy or other essences. As recently as 2017, mobs of people were executing their neighbors in the streets of Malawi during a nationwide vampire scare. When Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, he tapped into, probably unconsciously, a lot of deep preoccupations with sex and death that exist just at the periphery of our awareness.

            In the 1950s, our unconscious anxieties, which had been exploited so well by these classical monsters, took a back seat to the very conscious fear of nuclear annihilation. The spooky, cobwebbed castle of Dracula was replaced with the bright, stark desert wasteland of the nuclear bomb testing range. Giant insects and mutants, all powered by out of control science, assaulted American audiences in theaters for a decade. Another cold war anxiety that achieved its catharsis in the movies was the fear of invasion. While Joseph McCarthy was looking for secret communists under every stone, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (and its numerous imitators) gave us a hidden menace that was just as hard to spot.

           

Jason Vorhees, the quintessential 80s slasher.

The preoccupation with materialism and hedonism of the 1980s was punished by the “slasher film”, the most prolific and successful sub-genre of that era. Teenagers, sneaking off from the watchful eyes of their parents, either to engage in premarital sex or to get drunk at the lake, were punished by a score of mass murderers on the big screen.

            The modern zombie, or the Romero zombie if you prefer, to distinguish it from its voodoo predecessor, is a thoroughly modern monster that couldn’t have existed a century before. First is the creation of the zombie. This is sometimes achieved through an industrial accident (ala Three Mile Island or Chernobyl) where chemicals released into the environment turn people into the walking dead. This was depicted most effectively in the excellent Return of the Living Dead. Most commonly though, is the zombie “outbreak” where it spreads by a virus transmitted through the zombie’s bite. Our modern fear of contamination, HIV, hepatitis C, Ebola, fuels each fictional outbreak. The zombie also plays upon another anxiety; loss of identity. Americans are so obsessed with being special that they invest in covers for their phones just so they’ll be unique. “Personal settings” and “preferences” appear in everything from our social media feeds to our car seats. Apple has targeted this desire for specialness with the designation of “I” on its various products. Once you are a member of the zombie horde, no one will care how many “likes” your status gets.

Bub, from George Romero's excellent Day of the Dead. His zombies are thoroughly modern monsters  playing on our modern anxieties.

The most modern type of horror film doesn’t have a name yet but the genre is immediately recognizable. I call it the “regular people having horrible things done to them for absolutely no reason” genre. Where as the slasher films of the 1980s reinforced a cautionary morality (if you have premarital sex Jason Vorhees will kill you), these modern horror films (Saw, The Purge, Hostel, The Strangers) all feature a world where violence descends upon us simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And why not? In a world of weekly school shootings and ISIS inspired terrorist attacks, horrible things are happening to people for no reason on a daily basis. Confronting that world in cinema is a coping skill.

That brings us to the focus of this site; the Devil. The Devil, as the antagonist of Christianity, is not quite as old as the vampire, but a few thousand years is some remarkable staying power. The Devil is, of course, even older than Christianity. The modern Devil is an amalgamation of Old Testament adversaries; the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, Job’s Satan, and Lucifer all merged into one malignant being. Our perceptions of The Devil are a combination of Pagan imagery, Classical and Christian mythology and medieval literature. What we are left with is the ultimate Enemy; a foe whose attributes have evolved over the centuries to represent all we see as Evil.

Alucarda, one of the best films of the genre.

Like all the other good villains of horror, The Devil plays on our anxiety. Serial killers and mutants may take our lives. Zombies may take our identities. Vampires may subvert our will. But The Devil takes our soul. Loss of our immortal soul, which transcends life, will, or identity is the consequence of a run in with Old Nick. And unlike all of those other monsters, The Devil is as pervasive as night and as elusive as the wind. Other monsters lurk in dark woods, grave yards or haunted houses; all places we can safely avoid. But The Devil lives in our hearts and minds. We take him with us everywhere we go. And thanks to the doctrine of Original Sin, not only is He in all of us, He was always there. Before we emerged from our mothers, Satan was inside of us, like a perverse Russian nesting doll.

Such a lustrous villain has enjoyed many worthy portrayals in the movies and he appeared almost from the beginning of the art form.  Just as the image of the Devil evolved over the last two millennia, so too has the Devil evolved over the past century of film making. During the early years (for our purposes, pre-1960s), depictions of Satan were not unheard of, but likewise not prevalent.  They were objective, not clinical, but in no ways painting the Prince of Darkness in any kind of seductive light. F.W Murnau’s (director of Nosferatu) Faust and 1911’s L'Inferno were adaptations of centuries old, and well known, works. 1943’s The 7^th Victim dips it’s toe into the mysteries of a Satanic cult but was a long way from the exploration we would see in later decades. The best film of this early era was without a doubt Haxan, a silent film that examines “Witchcraft through the ages” and delivers some of the best visuals you will see in any film, even today. The early,”pre-code” era allowed such films to be made, but censorship would later dampen that creativity

F.W. Murnau's Faust

     As stated earlier, the 1930s and 40s belonged to the gothic horror of the Universal Monsters and their various imitators. The 1950s were pre-occupied with the threat of science gone wrong. By the 1960s though, this trend began to change. People became interested in supernatural horror again and, perhaps, the new found open mindedness that allowed the formation of the Counter-culture movement allowed for the desire, or at least the freedom, to explore darker subject matter.

            The films of  the 1960s were generally serious and thought provoking. Absent was the exploitation and lasciviousness of the 1970s. The most famous film from this era is without a doubt Rosemary’s Baby, the tale of a pregnant woman plagued by a Satanic cult. The best film of this era though was The Devil Rides Out which featured Christopher Lee verses a Satanic cult and its sorcerer leader.

     The 1970s proved to be the Golden Age of the Satanic film. The exploitation film industry was booming, anonymous sex and drugs were losing their taboo and there was an attraction to, and interest in, Satanism that has not been seen before or since. The leader of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey was being brought in as a consultant for Hollywood films (The Car, Devil’s Rain). Mainstream stars were appearing in big budget films like Oscar winner Gregory Peck in the Omen and Oscar winner Rod Steiger in The Amityville Horror. Satan had become a cuddly character in some circles, embraced as a pop culture icon by the likes of Sammy Davis Jr. The Devil in Miss Jones, an outright porno, was one of the biggest grossing films of it’s year.

The iconic image from The Exorcist.

    The best, and best known, film of this era though is The Exorcist. While the rest of the decade seemed content to enjoy Satanism as a fun escape, the Exorcist took the more serious approach of the earlier decade. It put the fear of God (or the Devil I guess) into a whole generation, and was (partly) responsible for the pendulum eventually swinging too far into the other direction.

    The small seed of Satanic paranoia planted by Rosemary’s Baby received a heaping pile of fertilizer from The Exorcist which was helped with a lot of sunshine from The Omen and the final bit of love and care from the Amityville Horror. The result was outright Satanic panic in the 1980s. Tales of ritual Satanic abuse were everywhere. Serious prime time news shows like 20/20 were warning parents and tabloid journalists like Geraldo Rivera featured guests with harrowing tales to titillate and terrify. Of course, there was very little evidence to back up the worldwide scare but that didn’t stop it from scaring. Concerned parents saw proof of the Satanic conspiracy in hard rock and heavy metal. They saw hidden messages in the bands names (Kiss was supposed to be Knights in Satan’s Service, Wasp stood for We are Satan’s People) and rumors abounded that if you played the records backwards you’d get a hidden message (too bad everyone had converted to cassette tapes by then).

            As a result, mainstream Hollywood began to shy away from the Satanic (no one wanted to be associated with these supposed abuses). Angel Heart (which initially received an “X” rating) was one of the few big budget films to tackle the subject in a serious way. Martin Sheen’s The Believers dealt with cults directly but avoided Satanism by making the villains a Santaria cult (well technically Brujaria but whatever).

            Fortunately, there was another social force at work to counter act this mainstream abstinence; the video store! The video store (especially the smaller mom and pop video stores that cropped up even in the smallest town) allowed film makers, whose works wouldn’t be picked up by movie theaters, to still reach an audience. This new outlet paved the way for a renaissance of genre films, and not just horror. Science fiction and fantasy films were also enjoying the boost. Now granted, most of these films tended to be low budget, but what was lacking in production values was made up for in creativity. Some of the best horror movies (and definitely the most fun) came from the 1980s. The term Scream Queen entered into the pop culture lexicon. Make-up artists and practical effects artists achieved never before seen popularity and turned out gems like Pumpkinhead and Demons.

    The early and mid 90s proceeded much like the 80s. By the end of the decade the taboo seemed to be wearing off and a few big budget films began to appear. 1997’s The Devil’s Advocate with Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves was probably the best.

       The first decade of the 21^st century saw a bit of stifling of this creative process with the decline of the video store. By the second decade though, a new medium, streaming, would provide a new outlet for artists. Netflix in particular has distributed some well made films and the highly entertaining series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

     What new form will Old Nick take in the next few decades of film making? Will he be a serious subject of exploration like in The Omen, an excuse for hedonism like The Devil in Miss Jones, or a cuddly character like Adam Sandler in Little Nicky? Only time will tell.

The next generation in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina