“True to its mirroring nature, the satanic cinema has often portrayed the Devil as whatever force was perceived by consensus consciousness as embodying cosmic maleficence at the time.”
Nikolas Schreck (formerly engaged in magic and spiritual practice) has written a highly intelligent, engaging and perceptive study of the Devil’s rupturing presence on film. Even when, according to the author, Satan’s authority has often been misrepresented and commercially diluted, the Devil’s been fore-fronted at the very beginning of cinema and will probably be around to play diabolic mischief at cinema’s end.
The first film to depict the devil was Georges Melies’s The Devil’s Manor* (1896). I recently watched it safely contained: trapped on my phone in the palm of my hand. A device that if transported back to the Middle Ages would have been seen as a heretical tool to conjure up satanic forces. My phone and further devices of the future may offer the Devil new immersive entrances and exits but Schreck is pessimistic about the Devil having yet found a serious home in our 21st century technological world.
For Schreck the forms and genres of the previous century have been degraded (digital triumphing over film) over-politicised and swallowed up Satan as a mere bogeyman, in a homogenised entertainment industry (In his final chapter 'The New Dark Ages' the only really important depiction of the Devil has been Robert Eggers 2015 film The Witch.)
Yet what of the cinema, television and pre-cinema history that accommodated the Devil before his cultural decline as a potent icon? Schreck’s journey from the days of magic lantern shows, camera obscura, silent cinema, movies of the 30s right through to the 90s is, in spite of much devil dross filmmaking, a century that occasionally hits the satanic marker. As Schreck remarks “I’ve restricted this exploration’s scope to those productions presenting the Devil as an actual supernatural intelligence.”
Inferno (1911) is the first full length feature to deal with the Devil. The films visuals having been influenced by Gustav Dore’s illustrations for Dante’s Inferno. Then through the 1920’s The Student of Prague, The Golem, Murnau’s Nosferatu, D.W.Griffith’s The Sorrows of Satan and Rex Ingram’s The Magician (modelled on Aleister Crowley) powerfully introduce devilish practices. And with Christensen’s Haxan (1921) we have the most compelling demonic imagery of the decade: a film with a powerful, visually graphic and documentary-like edge that to this day impresses.
'War is Hell' is the title of chapter four covering the 1940’s. And 1940 opened excitingly with Disney’s Fantasia containing some brilliant animation of the Devil accompanied by Mussorgsky’s music ‘Night on the Bald Mountain’ But the four most memorable Satanic offerings of the forties have to be The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), Alias Nick Beale (1949), Le Beaute Du Diable (1949) and The Seventh Victim (1943).
The folksy charm of the Devil as New Englander Mr. Scratch (Walter Huston on superb form) and the city’s fallen angel Nick Beal (Ray Milland, tremendously suave) make for impressive Devils. The noir visuals of Alias Nick Beale and gothic look of Daniel adorn these Devils like a satanic crown. I was pleased to find Schreck applauding the performances of Gerard Philipe and Michel Simon (as Faust and Mephisto) in the now neglected Le Beaute du Diable. Yet the darkest film of this foursome has to be Val Lewton’s The Seventh Victim. A great deal of the morbid power of The Seventh Victim is down to the screenwriter Dewitt Bodeen who was asked by producer Val Lewton to “see if it’s possible for you to go to a devil worshipping society meeting.” His research added greatly to the power of the film, making for a bleak realism - such satanic authenticity isn’t really on show again until Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby in 1968.
In the 1950’s the cinematic Devil’s competition was the popular spate of SF films concerning alien invasions and the threat of the bomb. However the period still produced two outstanding Devil movies, Night of the Demon (1957) and Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954)
“Kenneth Anger consciously utilised film as a magical weapon”
Schreck’s absolutely correct about that, for the great pleasure of Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome is the sense that we are watching a magic ritual: that this no staged performance but the real thing. Not exactly documentary nor fiction but a spellbinding in-between state. A satanic happening. With its experimental colour palette, haunting use of dissolves and the music of Janacek, Inauguration had a deep influence on David Lynch, Roger Corman and Martin Scorsese. It was based on the practices of Aleister Crowley and in Night of the Demon the character of Dr Julian Karswell (played by Niall MacGinnis) is also modelled on Crowley. Night of the Demon is in my, and many other critic’s lists, of the ten best horror films ever made. Arguments still continue to this day about showing a fiery monster to represent the demon but this hasn’t seriously compromised the impact of this gripping film.
The dark side of 60’s counter culture revealingly resulted in many interesting satanic films. Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969), Black Sunday (1960), Faust (1965), The Devil’s Eye (1960),The City of the Dead (1960), Night of the Eagle (1961), The Skull (1965), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), The Haunted Palace (1963), Simon of the Desert (1965) The Devil Rides Out (1967), Quatermass and the Pit (1967), Dance of The Vampires (1967) Bedazzled (1967), The Gospel According to Mathew (1964) Teorema (1968) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968).
That impressive body of work includes such major directors as Pasolini, Bergman, Bunuel and Polanski. Yet I will only single out two films, that for me, and Schreck, meet the author’s criteria for the Devil as a “an actual supernatural intelligence.” Quatermass and the Pit and Rosemary’s Baby. In the realm of ideas Nigel Kneale, screenwriter of Quatermass and the Pit, convincingly proposes a disturbing existential question. Is not the Devil, whether of occult or extraterrestrial origin, really humankind itself?
Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby has become as iconic in the satanic movie canon as The Exorcist. The reason why it still retains its enormous power is not just because of Polanski’s subtle direction, brilliant performances, fine photography and the unsettling music of Krzysztof Komeda but because all the collaborators help to create an ambiguous atmosphere. Is this an authentic supernatural occurrence or a series of delusions experienced by Rosemary whilst giving birth - to a child of Satan?
Like Schreck I have never been able to take The Exorcist (1973) that seriously. It’s a perfectly good and effective roller coaster experience. Yet all those stories about terrified audience reactions have tended to wrongly mythologize it as the definitive screen statement of Devil possession. I don’t buy into its possessed child storyline, only believing in the authority that Max Von Sydow brought to his role as the priest. But the influential The Exorcist dominated the Satanic / Horror film landscape of the seventies to blight it with numerous poor sequels and imitations.
From here on the Devil, according to Schreck (and myself included), is culturally in decline. In the 80’s, only Mephisto and Hellraiser shine. Polanski’s The Ninth Gate (1999) is probably the most intelligent end of the century offering (A film I felt mixed about but Schreck’s writing has enthused me enough to watch it again). But generally the 90’s and early 2000’s result in not so much tarnished fallen angels than infantilised creatures playing in the darkness. Schreck is abrupt and sharply critical.
“Mysterious Mephistopheles, once understood as a cultural being who offered his adherents infinite knowledge, had degenerated into a one-dimensional cartoon representing adolescent nihilism.”
Schreck’s conclusion in his chapter, entitled 'The New Dark Ages', after “sifting through this century’s dross” is “If Satanic cinema can be understood as a modern folklore, it seems that the Ur-texts were all written in the ‘60s and ‘70s.”
Even though the majority of Devil films produced got worse and worse, it hasn’t deterred Schreck from examining them in a witty and entertaining manner. He’s able to write about good, indifferent and downright bad Satanic cinema and illuminatingly reveal its cultural significance. Schreck cares about his subject. And to steal Kenneth Anger’s film title Lucifer Rising, Schreck and I hope that Lucifer revitalised will rise up again in a new film folklore that has Miltonian grandeur on its side. Whilst for the moment let the excellent The Satanic Screen be your guide and present history.
- Alan Price
* The Devil's Manor - link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPflaKpZqCM
