Satanis: The Devil's Mass

Anton LaVey is arguably a misunderstood figure. Circus ringmaster to opening his own Church of Satan is an odd career move. To this day he still remains a fascinating and controversial figure. Extolling the virtues of individualism, sexual freedom and personal liberty are surprisingly modern values which are now pushed by the mainstream media. At the time he was overshadowed by the "satanic panic" media outrage that swept America.

There's no doubt in my mind LaVey is an intelligent man who has the charisma and big showbiz personality to attract disciples to his cause. Sadly the documentary is workmanlike in its approach and thoroughly boring. The satanic rituals nothing more than costume roleplay; that's not to belittle the people involved it's just not interesting to watch. The talking heads interviews with local residents talking about the Church of Satan failed to hold my interest for more than 30 seconds. The nudity and just general weirdness were not really any more explicit than exploitation films available in 1970. I gave this a few extra points due to it capturing some rare footage of LaVey and although not media-shy he wasn't around during the tsunami of social media we have now.

The DVD from Something Weird is rough. The picture quality is never going to look like The Omen, but scratches, grain and washed-out picture quality are substandard. The sound is also quite low making me having to bump it up.

I caught this on TCM. You have to wonder if the message of the filmmakers is that all Belief Systems are just that: BS. The Satanists are bored and boring. The black house is a second rate curio shop. The naked ladies, to be charitable, could use some time in the gym. The red lighted rituals are pointless. The Christians are predictable: gosh, how were they able to find 2 young babbling Mormon in white shirts and ties? Where did they come up with an old priest to take us back 1700 years to the Gospels? The only thing missing is a sweaty guy in a straw hat yelling "Hurry, hurry, hurry! Right this way to the weirdos!"

A good tool for insomniacs to get some needed sleep.

This film swings the doors to the early days of the Church of Satan (CoS) wide open and was, for quite some time, the only interview footage of Anton Szandor LaVey available. (Scenes from this film are still in use today in news specials and documentaries, often times used as propaganda by some groups to turn people FROM Satanism. Most of the humor in this film will not be seen by the audiences that these groups are trying to influence.)

This documentary interviews neighbors, friends and enemies of Anton LaVey and his church and helps shed some light (dark?) on origins of the philosophies that were codified in this unique religious movement. This ilm is not without it's tongue-in-cheek moments. During one of the opening scenes, one of a Satanic ritual, the participant's solemn mood is broken when the Priest of the ceremony (LaVey) says, "Okay, that's enough for that part." Perhaps it was the director's idea to show some incidental humor in the film.

One thing that will probably strike everybody as strange is the sense of humor shown throughout the film by most of the people that are interviewed. Satanists are often seen as dour, humorless folk, but, as Anton LaVey points out in the film, a person without a sense of humor is intolerable at worst, and doesn't make a good Satanist. Humor abounds and stands in stark contrast to the rituals.

Also seen, as noted before, are some of the enemies to LaVey's cause. There are interviews with Mormon missionaries and priests from the area and they are given a chance to voice their outrage towards this philosophy. This film is highly recommended as a documentary of a rather maligned religion. It can be a bit hard to find, but it is available.

It's an early documentary about Anton Lavey and his Church of Satan. Lavey is a man whose clerical hard seems to consist of a black velvet jumpiest, a cape and horns on the hood. He speaks quickly, but in a droning manner that seems to mock his own G*d-free worship. The principal reason to watch it is to look at the naked women.

Director Ray Laurent interviewed several of the Church's neighbors, who seem most worried about his unwillingness to clean his back yard, and the lion. Lavey had been a professional lion tamer, and several of the neighbors talk about the lion he keeps, which is noisiest at night -- although one youngster, interviewed in his bed room, says never notices the lion, even as the 500-pound beast tries to get into his room.

It's most interesting as a document of the home-grown craziness that San Francisco is known for. Lavey doesn't make for a particularly interesting interview and this 86-minute documentary goes on for a lot longer than I found interesting.

In 1966, a one-time circus lion-tamer Anton Szandor LaVey founded The Church of Satan in San Francisco and grandiosely announced the age of Satan had begun, an age that would celebrate the carnal instincts in man, and would be characterized by the mantra of "indulgence instead of abstinence". Although a media non-entity since the early nineties, at the time, the fledging Church shocked and scandalized as much as it bemused and confused…and this was in no small part to LaVey's charisma, showmanship, and effective mixing of blasphemy (compounded in 1968 with the publication of 'The Satanic Bible') and of horror B-movie imagery which left many asking if it was just a racket, a reason to get naked for it's largely well-to-do white middle-class membership, or indeed had darker aspirations.

However, this documentary in choosing to sacrifice the weightier aspects of the Church to the titillating nude alters and B-movie lighting offers such a superficial treatment that for those for whom "Satanis" is their introduction to LaVey and the Church, the reaction of snide dismissal is totally understandable. The documentary is basically composed of three strands: talking heads of neighbours (both sympathetic and antagonistic) and Church members; extended scenes of Satanic rituals; and interviews with LaVey. The ritual scenes begin as interesting but quickly become stale and interminable and (most boringly) designed to titillate…a theme which re-emerges when members of the Church discuss sex and masturbation and, despite supposedly being advocates of the flesh liberated from Judeo-Christian conceptions of shame, giggle like pathetic teenagers (something which visibly irks LaVey as he tries to talk). In the end the only interesting pieces of the documentary (few and far between) are the interviews with LaVey himself as he waxes lyrical on the tenets of his Church with an energy and enthusiasm he would lose in later years, something evident in the still-patchy-but-much-better later documentary "Speak of the Devil" (www.imdb.com/title/tt0183811/reviews-4).

All in all, I would only recommend "Satanis" to people who are already acquainted with the Church of Satan and want to get a feel of what the first few years must have been like as to those coming to the Church for the first time would be forgiven for not seeing the nuances and complexities inherent in the organization. I recommend the documentary "Speak of the Devil" for its more mature approach and focus on LaVey himself but for those really seeking knowledge on the Church I recommend the authoritative and comprehensive book "The Church of Satan" by Michael Aquino available to download for free. Shemhamforash indeed.