Hail Satan!
With thanks to Anthology Film Archives, a theater in New York City, my February viewings heavily leaned into Satanism, the devil, and Satanic Panic. Anthology ran a film program called The Devil Probably, which featured films throughout cinema history. I made it a point to go to every screening that I could, beginning with Haxan at the end of January. The movies I saw in February as part of the program were:
- The Seventh Victim
- The Devil’s Cabaret
- Dante’s Inferno
- The Wormwood Star
- Invocation of My Demon Brother
- Secret Rites
- Night of the Eagle (Burn, Witch, Burn)
- Race With the Devil
Quite a few of these took me by surprise – The Seventh Victim and Burn, Witch, Burn, were my favorites out of them all. I took a couple of friends to see BWB and they loved it, too. Race With the Devil was really fun, especially that ending. Dante’s Inferno was incredible to see on the big screen because it’s from the earliest days of cinema, but it took a bit for me to adjust to watching a totally silent film in a theater. I actually had to fight off dozing off for a bit. It was fascinating to see how they did the special effects in Dante’s Inferno – they managed to do some real creepy stuff.
Additionally, I watched Dream Deceivers: The Story Behind James Vance vs. Judas Priest on Prime because I unfortunately couldn’t make it to the screening at Anthology. Dream Deceivers is streaming for free on Tubi right now, but if you watch it please know the film opens up with police footage where a dead body is visible.
I made a Letterboxd list of all the films included in the program.
Cult Film Challenge
Devoting a chunk of time to the satanic films meant I slacked on my cult film challenge this month. I did watch two films for giallo week: Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, and The Suspicious Death of a Minor. Both were directed by Sergio Martino, and I have to say I preferred Suspicious Death much more so. Although admittedly, Suspicious Death is less of a giallo, and more of a crime thriller (poliziotteschi).
Forgotten Flicks
I watched Phantasm because I hadn’t seen it since I was much younger. It was one of my favorite movies growing up, and shaped my love of horror cinema. It’s such a strange movie that manages to pull off its dream logic, and the villain of the film, The Tall Man, is an icon! I also revisited the found footage film The Last Broadcast. It’s one of those movies that I had completely forgotten about. I first saw it around the time of its release, which was right before The Blair Witch Project. It didn’t have nearly the pop culture impact that The Blair Witch Project did, but it’s an interesting film to watch after the found footage subgenre boom. The Last Broadcast is not a perfect film by any means, but anyone who likes mockumentary type horror should definitely pay its respects!
Nature… and the Supernatural
As for books, it was rather slow. I finished Upstream by Mary Oliver, Dangerous Games To Play in the Dark, and Hellboy Omnibus Volume 1. Upstream was one of those books that I was meant to read at this time, and I’m incredibly grateful to a dear friend who had the wisdom to recommend it to me. Dangerous Games is a really fun book of various “games” to play alone or with others (think Bloody Mary type stuff) if you’re interested in necromancy, the occult, etc. I randomly discovered it on the shelf in a library, so it was neat to come across something like that. Hell Boy was more fun than I thought it would be, and I absolutely loved it. I read the entire volume because I wanted to read The Wolves of St. August, which is included in the omnibus but otherwise seems to be out of print. Wolves lived up to my expectations and was easily my favorite story, but as a whole it was a fun collection.
In all honesty, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to find time and energy to read, but hopefully I get back into it as I have a backlog of books sitting around that I need to get to!
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