Tag Archives: Satanism

WEIRD VIEW CREW: THE DEVIL’S RAIN (1975)

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Pete cosplays as a devil-worshiper for this review of ‘s strange occultist feature “The Devil’s Rain” (1975), with a bizarre cast including ; Mr. “Green Acres,” Eddie Albert; ; ; ; a very young John Travolta; and real-deal Satanists Anton and Diane LaVey.

(This movie was nominated for review by Heather. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

ALFRED EAKER VS. SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS OF THE PAST: THE OMEN (1976)

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So, the winners of the 2021 poll of Summer Blockbusters of the Past were Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), and The Omen (1976). These were originally supposed to be reviewed while theaters were shuttered for Covid, but… life happens.

I’ll start with The Omen (1976), a movie I had already addressed here. This is a slick, predominantly good film that has still always frustrated me to a degree (we will not discuss the execrable shot-for-shot utterly pointless remake). It came on the heels of a series of films in which the Devil was making a comeback. In 1968, Old Scratch asked for a bit of sympathy (via the Rolling Stones) and so that year he got his big screen opus, Rosemary’s Baby (the first and best of the lot). This was followed by The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen. The Omen is, overall, a better film than The Exorcist (yes, I said that), with directing at quicksilver speed.

Still from The Omen (1976)It innovatively plays with all that 70s apocalyptic fear like putty: and who would have thought of portraying the Antichrist as a tyke? Of course, it’s preposterous, and revels in that narrative.

The Omen features excellent character performances, but a dreadful lead in . The producers originally wanted Charlton Heston for the role of Robert Thorn, but he had just signed up for the godawful all-star Midway (1976). That’s a loss, because his over-the-top acting would have suited The Omen far better than Peck’s wooden snooze-fest work. When Peck learns of the death of his wife (Lee Remick, who is almost as miscast) he exclaims that he wants Damien to die too, but says it so devoid of emotion that it barely registers and is not at all convincing.

With the male lead on life support, that leaves it to the rest of the cast, who fortunately deliver in spades. First up is the inimitable  scene-stealing Patrick Troughton as Father Brennan. Troughton, still the best Dr. Who to date (yes, I said that, too), so effortlessly registers wild-eyed crazed desperation that even though we know from the outset he is telling the truth, we don’t blame Ambassador Thorn for his skepticism.

Next up is the recently deceased as the photographer Jennings, in desperation mode, and he equally excels. He just wants to live. Father Brennan wants to escape damnation. Good luck with that, gentlemen.

Harvey Stevens as Damien doesn’t have to do a damn thing to send chills down the spine. He burns a hole just looking at you from the screen, so that when mommy and daddy are trying to get to the church on time, you know that Hell will hath no fury like Harvey unleashed. Chucky has nothing on Damien.

Leo McKern (amazingly uncredited) as Antichrist expert Bugenhagen is perhaps best known for “Rumpole of the Bailey” and #2 in “The Prisoner” (he was so good in it that he played the part in three episodes). He’s no less authoritative here. Unfortunately, when he tells the ambassador to “have no pity,” we know it will fall on deaf ears (because then we wouldn’t get the awful sequel).

Lastly, there’s Billie Whitelaw as Mrs. Baylock, who convinces us of that old adage, “the Devil is a woman.” She is slimy filth incarnate, and leaves an unnerving aftertaste long after the credits. She’s so damned animated, I really was hoping she was going to put Peck out of our misery. Her death leaves a lump in the throat. You almost feel as much heartbreak for her as you did Margaret Hamilton getting melted in Oz. Mia Farrow, wisely, made it a point not to imitate Whitelaw in the remake and delivered a very different, albeit good performance (the only good thing about the remake).

The diverse locations help the film considerably. There are so many, it sometimes feels like it’s going to segue into a James-Bond-goes-to-hell story.

Naturally, The Omen made a gazillion bucks at the box office, which lends credence to the adage that the Devil is indeed the owner of the almighty buck.

Jerry Goldsmith wrote the classic Academy Award winning score, which has ferocious echoes of Bartok and Herrmann, with Gregorian chants thrown in for good measure . He had previously composed the music for Planet Of The Apes (1968) and Patton (1969) and would go on to score Chinatown (1974), Star Trek (1978), Poltergeist (1982), Gremlins (1984), and Total Recall (1990), among many others.

The film is also expertly edited by the still active Stuart Baird, who had previously cut for ‘s The Devils (1971), Tommy (1975), and Lisztomania (1975) and would later edit Valentino (1977),  Superman (1978), Outland (1981), Lethal Weapon (1987), Gorillas In the Mist (1988),Casino Royale (2006), and Skyfall (2012).

VIDEO CAPSULE: LEGACY OF SATAN (1974)

A rare (our first, in fact) video review. If these prove popular we’ll make more! For hilariously campy viewing at your next Halloween party, please ask for Legacy of Satan (1974), a low-budget devil cult movie adapted by Deep Throat‘s from a script originally intended for a hardcore porn production. Review by “Penguin” Pete Trbovich, narrated by Giles Edwards.

CAPSULE: ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK (1972)

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Sergio Martino

FEATURING: , George Hilton, Ivan Rassimov, Nieves Navarro, Dominique Boschero, Carla Mancini

PLOT: Jane, a young lady haunted by her mother’s murder and her own traumatic miscarriage, seeks solace but ends up being sucked into a local Satanic cult; her problems then worsen.

Still from All the Colors of the Dark (1972)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: While All the Colors of the Dark is a tasty ham of a thriller and peer to the top films in that genre, it doesn’t get any weirder than it has to be to tell its story—which is actually a straightforward story, right down to its dream sequences and some comparatively tame Satanic rituals. Other reviews of this movie confuse “psychedelic” with “using a diffraction camera filter for a couple scenes.” If anything, Colors apes Alfred Hitchcock at his most spartan. A great thriller, but we watch weirder Italian movies around here before our first Chianti of the day.

COMMENTS: Hi, I’m Giallo Man! I saw the Giallo Signal in the sky and got here as soon as I could. Gotta tell you, I am so heavy into the giallo, I mainline it off the nightstand. If one of those Twilight Zone episodes came along where a character gets to wish themselves into a movie forever, I’d probably pick a giallo. And what a choice plum we have here! All the Colors of the Dark comes with a keen pedigree, directed by Sergio Martino, whose name you may recognize from The Mountain of the Cannibal God (1978) or perhaps Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972)(#WhatATitle). That latter movie also shares the lead actress Edwige Fenech, whom you might recognize from Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975). That’s before we get to garlic-bread-and-spaghetti western star George Hilton, a supporting cast which reads like a compilation of names from the best of Italian genre films, and filmed-in-England cinematography that could make the cover of an early Black Sabbath album. But best of all is the vintage year of 1972. The Exorcist came out in 1973, so that makes this one occult Euro-horror movie that’s guaranteed not to be a cheap Exorcist knockoff—because it wasn’t even released yet! It doesn’t even kiss much of the dirt that Rosemary’s Baby (1968) trod. I’m almost too excited to watch this.

After a lurid opening nightmare sequence with a blue-eyed stabbing killer in a beige trenchcoat—what, no black gloves?—we meet Jane, who has recently suffered a prematurely terminated pregnancy in a car crash. She lives in a London flat with her boyfriend Richard, who fusses over her while she is plagued by trauma from both this event and nightmares of her mother’s death when she was a child. Jane’s sister Barbara urges her to see a shrink, who is, you guessed it, not much help. The blue-eyed stabber from her nightmares stalks her every waking moment—but is she hallucinating? Jane, towing this head full of psychological baggage, meets her new neighbor, Mary, and the two become fast friends, while Richard and Barbara meet Continue reading CAPSULE: ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK (1972)

CAPSULE: MANSFIELD 66/67 (2017)

DIRECTED BY: P. David Ebersole, Todd Hughes

FEATURING: Ann Magnuson, Richmond Arquette, John Waters, , A. J. Benza

PLOT: The final years of the life of perhaps the “Bomb”-est of the Blonde ((Despite being a natural brunette.)) Bombshells is explored through talking heads, archival footage, animation, and a smattering of interpretive dance.

Key art from Mansfield 66/67

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The day may come that someone makes a biographical documentary that is as much of a hyperactive whirlwind of strangeness as was the life of Jayne Mansfield, but today is not that day. Directors Ebersole and Hughes provide instead a rather informative and rather typical movie, albeit one with some eccentric interludes.

COMMENTS: I found it impossible to walk away from a chance to see a movie about the wild final days of Jayne Mansfield, the mega-starlet who was nearly decapitated in a car accident. Her involvement with a local Satanic cult puts her in a category in which few other distinguished Hollywood personages can be found. Opening with an odd choral scene of four singing Mansfield impersonators (of both genders), P. David Ebersole’s and Todd Hughes’ Mansfield 66/67 makes a promise of weird delivery for this weird story. Aside from the singing and dancing scattered throughout the movie, though, the documentary fails on the “weird” side of things.

In the late ’50s through the early ’60s, Mansfield had a string of successes that highlighted her knowingly kitsch persona. With measurements of 44-23-37, it’s somewhat obvious why producers felt at ease putting her on screen: her presence guaranteed, at least, a particular kind of audience. That she was a good actress was all the better, costarring at one point with Hollywood’s primo charmer, Cary Grant. However, she had a problem with saying “yes” too often. She shuffled through husbands and lovers with considerable speed, needing constant attention. This predilection eventually led her into the orbit of the notorious California eccentric, Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan. However, it wasn’t his theatrical occultism that broke her down, but her affair with her slimy lawyer, Sam Brody, that did the trick. As her film career collapsed, things got worse and worse, until the ill-fated car ride that killed her.

In its attempt to capture the madcap tragedy that ensued from 1966 through 1967, Mansfield 66/67 approaches the documentary genre from left field. Scattered among the talking heads (John Waters being a particular highlight) are performances by a dance troupe enacting, among other events, a damaging romance and her veer toward Satanism. The movie undercuts claims almost as soon as it makes them. Normally, this would be problematic, but it seems that most of Mansfield’s life— both on record and from anecdote—was a bulletin of conflicting information. The rapid pace of her life catches up with her, culminating in the film’s stylistic choice to use cartoons to enact a couple important events. What better way to show how her son got mauled by a lion, or how the mystic Anton LaVey convened with the elements atop a mountain to cast a spell to save the boy?

Shackled to the norms of documentary more than it might care to admit, Mansfield 66/67 isn’t so much weird as endearing. It succeeds famously in its telling of the mad life of Mansfield, but it is anchored far too much in the realism of friend’s reminiscences, academic interpretation, and archival footage. Having to deal with all its factual (if ambiguous) situations, there is little license for flights of fantasy. The oddest thing about Mansfield 66/67 isn’t its intentional delivery, but how it’s so caught up in the whirlwind of its subject’s life that at times it derails itself with narrative detours. Though it does tie in the “66/67” motif of the title, at one point the movie seems to want to be about Anton LaVey. In a way, his story would be a more uplifting one.

Mansfield 66/67 makes its Los Angeles debut this week (on October 25), with scattered screenings to follow. Check their Facebook page for more dates.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… an oddball hybrid that’s part documentary, part stylistic mish-mash, but wholly celebratory of Mansfield’s often derided ‘blonde bombshell’ image.”–Jonathan Romney, Screen Daily (festival screening)