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To: alt.satanism From: xeper@aol.com (Xeper) Subject: _The Devil's Rain_ Date: 8 Apr 1998 00:37:17 GMT The 1975 film _The Devil's Rain_ has been re-released on video by VCI Home Video (#1183 TV-screen, #8109 widescreen). For ordering information, call VCI at (918) 254-6337 or (800) 331-4077. Made in 1974, this film about Satanism in a western USA ghost town was actually filmed in Durango, Mexico. It is notable for a number of reasons, among them: (1) Set design enhancements by Anton LaVey. See in particular the trapezoidal & animal motifs in the ghost town church at the beginning, as well as its Baphomet altar-window. (2) Ernest Borgnine as Satanic Priest Jonathan Corbis. To _Argosy_ writer Dick Russell (June 1975) Anton claimed that Borgnine was an actual C/S Priest. Borgnine himself later debunked this in Forrest J Ackerman's _Famous Monsters of Filmland_ (October 1975). (3) Anton appears in two places in the film: (a) as the organist in the ghost town church [hands only visible] and (b) as the gold-helmeted high priest assisting Corbis in the canyon ceremony. (4) Diane LaVey appears as Corbis' colonial-era wife in the "flashback" sequence. When the "flashback" begins, Corbis is speaking. Then the camera close-ups first an old man, then a boy, then a woman wearing a Puritan bonnet. That's Diane. (5) John Travolta made his screen debut as a Corbis zombie who fights with Tom Skerritt in a ghost town house, then falls down the stairs. [He had no speaking part, and he's onscreen for a total of 30 seconds.] The colonial "flashback" begins when Skerritt looks into a mask supposed to be Travolta's face after his fall. Travolta's name did not appear in the credits for the original film, but was prominently added after he went on to become a major star. (6) Corbis' canyon invocation was adapted by Anton from my "Ceremony of the Nine Angles" in the _Satanic Rituals_ (#186-7, etc.) after he and I almost croaked at the weenie invocation in Maud Willis' original - and very Wiccan! - _DR_ novel: [Corbis] "Send us your unhold might, Help us reach your hallowed goal, Possession of the world's soul, Transgress time and space this night, Lord, stand before us in our sight. [Corbis as goat demon:] From the farthest reaches of darkness I come to you, my children, to free another lost soul from the coward God, that breaker of promises ..." Throughout all this Willis' Corbis & flock were chanting "Eman Hetan!", which still mystifies me. [Perhaps there's a Wiccan in the audience who knows?] We deep-sixed that too, as well as Willis' description of Corbis' mysterious book as "_The Hammer_" - figuring that no self-respecting Satanic Priest would cherish the _Malleus Maleficarum_! (7) The robed Satanists marching to the canyon ceremony are Mexican extras, to whom Anton patiently taught the "Zodacare [...] Saitan" ending of his _SB_ Enochian Keys, so that they could chant it all the way up the hill to the canyon. This was done with a pointer and a chalkboard outside in Durango, with all the robed "Satanists" sitting in class rows, if you can visualize the scene. :-) (8) Anton got along fine with Director Robert Fuest, save that he also misrepresented Fuest "and many of the performers and crew" as C/S members, which none of them were. An apparent personality-clash with an associate producer resulted in Anton's being asked to leave the set a week before completion, but by that time the "good stuff" was in place. (9) _DR_ appeared a year before _Star Wars_ and the "space opera" revival. These were accordingly lean times for William Shatner, hence his appearance in a supporting role in this film. After _SW_ the _Star Trek_ movie boom got underway, and Shatner (no longer lean) did his best to non-refer to _DR_. (10) I think [but am not sure] that this was Keenan Wynn's last screen appearance [as the local sheriff & later Corbis-zombie]. (11) The movie came out in the late summer of 1975, and promptly bombed. Why it did not fare better is anyone's guess ... certainly not the Corbis incantation! :-) Probably because after a decade of increasingly-blah _Rosemary's Baby_ imitations, the public was tired of 60s-revival Satanism films. [In 1976 it went off on a decade of space-opera.] (12) In 1989, as a speaker at a multi-state conference of law-enforcement officers in Texas, I showed a clip of Corbis' canyon incantation & transformation scene to the auditorium to illustrate the "Hollywood idea of Satanism". When I turned up the lights, the room was dead silent, and all the officers were staring at me in shock [despite their knowing that Captain Kirk obviously didn't show up in the _Star Trek_ movies with black eyeballs]. It was a lesson to me in just how unfamiliar with authentic Satanism most of the non-occult public were in the 1980s [when _Michelle Remembers_ was the governing "Satanism" paradigm ]. (13) While Anton had nothing whatever to do with _Rosemary's Baby_, _The Brotherhood of Satan_, _Mephisto Waltz_, etc. as rumored/claimed, he certainly did make his mark in _DR_. This film is a pretty good illustration of how some of the aforementioned would have been beefed up if he *had* been invited to tinker with them! Michael A. Aquino, Ph.D.
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