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TOP | RELIGION | SATANISM

POLANSKI'S DEVIL MOVIES

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

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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_ ...
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Michael Aquino

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