Speak of the Devil: The Many Faces of Cinematic Satanism

Devil-worshippers are the all-shapes-and-sizes baddies of the horror movie world.

As Crazy Rednecks
In John A. Russo’s “Midnight” (1982)

In movies in which the devil actually appears, or where people are possessed by demons, the heroes are often priests (“The Exorcist,” for example). But in movies where there are satanists, but no actual Satan, Christianity typically plays a surprisingly small role. The otherwise forgettable “Midnight” corrects that oversight with several scenes that pit devout believers on both sides against each other. In this case, the satanists are a family of hillbillies looking to collect young women they can sacrifice in order to bring their dead mother (whose corpse they keep up in the attic) back to life.

The plot’s an obvious and uninspired mash-up of “Psycho” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” but give director John A. Russo credit for adding a religious undercurrent to the battle between the rednecks and their prey, one of whom is an observant Catholic. Caged and awaiting her execution, she debates theology with one of her captors. “You believe your God is good and merciful, yet he has allowed such bad things to happen to you,” the satanist tells her. “We’re taught not to question His wisdom… maybe He’s asking me to suffer a little too, so I can be saved,” she replies. As you can probably guess, the finale involves a fight to the death between the final girl and the satanists. If she survives, but has to kill the rednecks to do it, which religion wins?

As A Breakaway Sect of the Catholic Church
In Roberta Findlay’s “Prime Evil” (1988)

One thing that’s got to be tough for satanists is recruitment. When you kill every person you can get your hands on, it can’t be easy to find new members. “Prime Evil” gets around that detail by inventing a cult whose devotion to Satan grants them eternal life, provided that they sacrifice their own offspring to him every couple of decades. To keep their organization secret, they masquerade as an offshoot of the Catholic Church. There’s some flaws in that set-up, but then again, there are flaws in most of “Prime Evil,” one of the most amusingly inept horror movies I’ve ever seen.

For one thing, no one questions why the cult’s leader, Thomas Seaton — the aural similarity to the name Satan is, I’m sure, just one of those crazy coincidences — claims to be in his 80s but looks like a man of about 40. Everyone talks about how youthful and handsome he is at such an advanced age, as if it’s perfectly normal for a priest to look half as old as he is. People, there’s vibrant and then there’s deal-with-the-devil vibrant. Shouldn’t be too tough to spot the difference. Then again, fundamental common sense isn’t “Prime Evil”‘s strong suit: this is a movie in which a woman doesn’t hear her mother get brutally murdered in the next room because she’s on the phone.

As Heavy-Metal Loving Teenagers
In Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills” (1996) and “Paradise Lost 2: Revelations” (2000)

Movies like the ones on this list perpetuate this idea that there really are these murderous sects of crazed satanists all around us. And that fear fuels the story of the documentary series “Paradise Lost,” in which three Arkansas teenagers are arrested and tried for the murders of three young boys essentially because they wore black, listened to Metallica and were curious about witchcraft. That information, coupled with a dubiously acquired confession, is all the evidence required to send two of the suspects away for life, and the third to death row. Much of the prosecution’s case rests on the fact that the grisly crime must have been perpetrated by some sort of satanic cult, and that these kids, particularly ringleader Damien Wayne Echols, look like devil-worshippers.

But if these movies are about anything, they are about how appearances can be deceiving. Dressing in black doesn’t make you a murderer, just as getting a doctorate from a mail-order college, like the one that unconvincing prosecution witness Dr. Dale Griffis has, doesn’t make you an expert on the occult. The first “Paradise Lost” follows the so-called “West Memphis Three”‘s trial; the sequel looks in on their lives five years later and builds a case against the stepfather of one of the victims, John Mark Byers, as a potential suspect. When asked about why he was charged instead of Byers, Echols says “I think maybe for the general public it’s not quite as scary to believe that bloodthirsty satanists were out murdering children as it is to believe that parents are actually murdering their own children.” He may be right; scary as satanists are, there are scarier things out there in the real world like, say, being convicted of a crime you didn’t commit.

[Additional photos: "The 7th Victim," RKO Radio Pictures, 1943; "Rosemary's Baby," Paramount Pictures, 1968; "I Drink Your Blood,"Cinemation Industries, 1971; "Prime Evil," Crown International Pictures, 1988; "Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills," HBO, 1996]

Pages: 1 2