Vornoff-3

In some ways, this is H.G. Lewis's "Citizen Kane." He let himself truly express himself in this one, unrestrained by conventions of logic or continuity. It actually has more special effects than most of his movies – and less of them are gore than in most of the non-adult movies as well. The levitation scene is amazing – low budget filmmakers had been levitating people more effectively than that since Melies – but then he tops everything with the "blanket attack" sequence. Lewis must have been reading Leary, because he allows that LSD could be used for a peaceful purpose, although of course he also gives us a typical 60s "freakout" on top of it (acid can be used for good, but it has to hurt, I guess). This is a movie for a very special audience, which thankfully has found it.

In many ways, this movie defined what I was not at the time – suburban, stoned, a metalhead – and it was an opportunity for me to feel moral superiority over "normal" American teenagers. But, I think that I was drawn in on a similar level to the movies I identified with more closely from the punk world ("Repo Man," "Sid & Nancy," "Suburbia"), which were themselves fairly critical adult statements about youthful apathy. This movie offers a kind of uncertain hope in the form of Keanu Reeves' character (and he's never been better), but in the end we begin to wonder if he did the right thing for the right reasons, or sort of blundered into it the way Crispin Glover blunders into a fanatical dedication to being wrong. It does remain thoughtful, if scary, and effective on other levels as well, including humor, oddly enough.

This movie doesn't contain much that's really exciting, much less surprising, about the early Church of Satan, but it does show LaVey and his cronies at a time when he was still optimistic and not cynical about the future of his organization. There are also great shots of the Black House during its heyday (before the "androids" took over) and some interesting footage of Togare the lion. The filmmakers seem to have decided that Satanism wasn't as shocking as they'd hoped, so they went for humor where possible, and that wears thin after a while. The interviews where LaVey speaks for himself are fairly good, but the interviews with other Church members are annoying and at times you can see the embarrassment on Anton's face when someone else speaks – nobody in this film, aside from LaVey and his family, went on to become any kind of leader in the tiny marginalized world of the Left Hand Path, and that should tell you something about the quality of membership in SF at the time. I still find it an interesting piece, but I think about 40 minutes could be shaved off without losing anything.