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To: alt.satanism From: xeper@aol.com (Dr. Michael A. Aquino) Subject: Re: POLANSKI'S DEVIL MOVIES Date: 02 Aug 2001 17:04:31 GMT -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 selfmademillionaire@volcanomail.com (Cindy) wrote: >That shouldn't be surprising, considering most every >"horror" or "satanic" movie churned out by Hollywood >was written by Christians. And actually, I'm beginning >to doubt many "satanists" could do much better, >considering many self-professed "satanists" are knee-jerk- >response Christians who like to think they're SO BAD. > >And considering how caught up in trivialities and petty >little mind games many other "LHP/Satanic" people >appear to enjoy being caught up in, I guess we can't >expect a genuine, quality LHP-oriented manuscript >to be submitted to Hollywood anytime soon. Pick up a copy of Nikolas Schreck's new book _The Satanic Screen_, which is available on Amazon for around US$14. It's a very incisive analysis & survey of this topic. In a recent email to him, I commented: *** BEGIN COPY *** ... I thought I had a reasonably good feel for the Devil in motion pictures, but I was amazed to learn how much more vast the genre is, and has been over the distinctive cultural periods you define. Obviously "Satan" is something to which people are drawn over and over again, not unlike vampire themes. This catches me a bit by surprise, because the Devil/Satan to me has long been an old, good friend whose company I enjoy whenever our paths happen to cross. I feel no particular urge to rush to the theater to be "seduced" by him over and over again, as it were. Unsurprisingly you and I like lots of the same films here, for the same reasons. The German Expressionist classics. _The Black Cat_. _Curse/Night of the Demon_. _Quatermass and the Pit_ (over here released as _Five Million Years to Earth_). _The Devil Rides Out_. _Rosemary's Baby_. Amusingly _Werewolves on Wheels_! _Brotherhood of Satan_. If there is a common thread to this like-list, I think it's that each of these films has an ostensible face and an occult one [and here I mean "occult" in the strictest sense of the term, as knowledge recognizable only to the initiated mind]. Each has some characters who Know What Is Going On and other characters who Can't Even Imagine What Is Going On. That's what takes something like _Brotherhood of Satan_ out of ordinary-movieism and makes it a vicarious pleasure. We dislike many of the same films for the same reasons: _The Exorcist I/II_. _Omen I_. _7 Footprints_ (which I haven't seen but know from your description I would dislike, because I admire the atmosphere of the novel). _The Dunwich Horror_. _The Devil's Advocate_. You like some movies that I don't: Anger's _Magic Lantern Cycle_ [I know these are supposed to impress the viewer as sort of "Beat cinema", but they always remind me of the kind of footage you'd expect to find left over in someone's home-video camera.] _Haunted Palace_ and _Masque of the Red Death_ [The former was a travesty of HPL's brilliantly intricate novel, turning it into just another boy/girl/monster/villagers with torches meller-drama. The latter was, like the current _Pearl Harbor_ and _Titanic_, a conspicuous and somewhat tedious effort to stretch out a dramatic punchline into a full-length movie by adding an extra 90% sex. To see just how well _CDWard_ could be translated to the screen, check out _The Resurrected_. Yes, it has the obligatory modern sex-subplot stuffed in there too, but ye Gr. Old Ones make fairly brisk work of it.] _To the Devil a Daughter_ [Well, I'll see it again and give it another chance. Watching it at the drive-in by UCSB left me wishing I'd just made some free popcorn back on campus.] Most of the Hammer vampire films [which to me all had the same Lee/Cushing plot in a kind of endless _Bolero_ dance.] _Mephisto Waltz_ [How fast can we rush through something to surf on _Rosemary's Baby_?] I like some movies that you don't: _The Keep_ [I devoured the Atmosphere of this film, the Expressionistic sets, the increasingly-aliening creatures, once again the "ostensible battle vs. the Occult battle", one of the most beautiful & sensuous human/demonic romantic/sexual sequences on film, marvelous soundtrack. Michael Mann of course also did _Miami Vice_, and his "sound & light show" approach to filming was just as much in evidence here.] _Exorcist III_ [Yes, you had to have seen #I and read _Legion_ to know what was going on. And the plot was on its surface just the stretching of an already overstretched rubber-band. But the surprise bits of supernature at seemingly random moments of the film kept jerking it loose from just an everyday stroll through Georgetown.] _Omens II/III_ [admittedly for personal-in-joke reasons]. Random thoughts: _Satanis_ is, well, _Satanis_. I think the review by the _Berkeley Tribe_ in _The Church of Satan_ says it all! I know they aren't strictly about the Devil, but somehow I sort of think you shoulda snuck the two _Phibes_ movies in there. They reek with Devilism just below the conscious level, sort of. _Look What Happened to Rosemary's Baby_ is an appropriate double-feature for _Asylum of Satan_, don't you agree? I want to see the *uncut, uncensored* _Black Cat_, and I'm going to jump up and down and hold my breath and scream (good trick at the same time) until I do! Where did all those *British* censors come from? I thought England was a pretty relaxed artistic place after Oscar Wilde opened Pandora's Box in that regard. Indeed _Falling Angel_ was so much better than _Angel Heart_: read sort of like an occult James Ellroy. Lilith said watching the detective slog through steamyslimy New Orleans in his sweatsoaked suit made her skin crawl. I liked de Niro discoursing on the human soul while picking apart that hard- boiled eggshell with his manicured talons! I'm still not sure if I like the Czech _Faust_, but I don't dislike it either. I'll have to watch that head roll down through the grass a few more times before I make up my mind. I still haven't seen _The Ninth Gate_ because everyone said it was a so-so. Since you like it, I'll take a gander at it. Jack Nicholson, as you say again here, always seems to be parodying Jack Nicholson. Same thing in _Batman_, where he took one of the most horrifically creepy figures in comics, the Joker, and turned him into a joke. They should have had Christopher Walken in that role, made up somewhat like he was in _Sleepy Hollow_ ... *** END COPY *** Michael Aquino -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP Personal Security 7.0.3 iQA/AwUBO2mHfWRWyNykJwrDEQL6PACfUsfOBRN7/21WhoXY2oHZYKKrwPgAnjTk YS9rBwjhkyRO2aF1oQG3vDRX =P75G -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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