My Amazon feed made a recommendation recently in the form of a new book, Satan in the Celluloid: 100 Satanic and Occult Horror Movies of the 1970s by P.J. Thorndyke. The subject matter and description resonated with prior posts of mine:
They were a product of their time. The counterculture of the 1960s had soured with the brutal actions of the Manson Family sparking fears of cults and hippie mysticism. Christian fundamentalism was on the rise and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s was just around the corner. But, for the 1970s, the devil stalked the screens as a figure to be feared, invoked, exorcised and worshiped. He possessed young girls, demanded blood sacrifice and caused nuns to cast off their habits and indulge their most blasphemous and erotic desires.
From the heavy hitters like The Exorcist and The Omen to the drive-in favorites like Race with the Devil and The Brotherhood of Satan to foreign entries like Suspiria and The Wicker Man, this book takes a deep dive into the demonic movies that thrilled and terrified audiences of the 1970s.
I was all too happy to purchase the title, with 388 pages for only $15. The book begins with two chapters devoted to the “short history of the occult and occult fiction,” and the “influence of death of the ’60s” counterculture. The bulk of the book is then devoted to film descriptions with some commentary divided by categories of “evil cults,” “possession,” and “black magic.” The volume concludes with some consideration of the Satanic panics in which these films are situated.
When I considered purchasing this volume I noted that the author is a writer addressing the “trashier side of pop culture,” so I knew this wouldn’t have an academic bent. But I do wish the author had gone a little deeper into the subject matter and that the treatment had at least some familiarity with summaries of the relevant scholarly studies. As it is, this volume consists largely of film descriptions, although I am grateful for a compilation of the material. This book is worth including in a library devoted to cinematic treatment of “occultic and Satanic” cinema, but it is a supplemental volume that should be considered in light of other treatments. For some of of those see the tag on this blog at https://www.theofantastique.com/category/satanism/.
