Sorcellerie, magie... et Messes Noires

This movie was awful but SO entertaining! I chose to go and see this for my birthday -- it was free at Library of Congress -- expecting it to be a slightly bizarre documentary, but I was definitely in for a surprise. As someone who grew up watching "In Search Of..." and later was enamored of "Unsolved Mysteries" for its same "info-tainment" and "exploi-tainment" feel, I was thrilled when the movie opened with the Mondo genre's stereotypical score and narration. Sure, if you're expecting this to be a legitimate documentary or you take witchcraft and the occult seriously, you'll be disappointed; or, if you get squeamish about nudity, then this probably won't be for you. If, however, you love the sort of poor-production-quality sensationalism of things like "In Search Of..." and you love to watch 70's era-films just because the "interviewees" and actors are so over-the-top unreal, then you should love this. Keep in mind, though, that an integral part of the Mondo genre is sexploitation, so be prepared.

I mostly want to point out that despite some reviews claiming otherwise, some of the people in this documentary are not actors. The older woman who leads a witchcraft session with naked young ladies and the young woman getting married were both famous "real" witches back in the day. The husband as well. I've forgotten their names but if you watch the movie just go check online, there's lots of info about them. I had to research this since I was basically 50/50 for either believing it or not and a bit sad to see in the other reviews that it was all faked with actors. So good people, this stuff is real, basically the only things not completely provable are the Finnish ceremony and the black mass, but I'm personally quite sure that they were not made up. Why would they be? It was very easy to find stuff like this happening all over the world.

I guess people were more open with their occult ceremonies at the time, but they're still happening, take for instance Marina Abramovitch and all the famous people and politicians who go to her ritual parties. Rappers and musicians are openly worshiping Lucifer etc.

So sure, this looks a bit silly but the witchcraft was real.

This expliotative documentary is certainly dated, and feeds to the believe that witches and satanists are pretty much the same thing, which I know will irritate and offend all the pagans out there. It even has Anton LeVey and has some footage of his rituals and stuff. There is lots of nudity at black masses, but it stops short of showing anything to sexual. Good for a watch, if even only for the Hippie campfire cult footage...

This movie is hilarious, quite simply put. What's even funnier is that some people think it's real. It's a scripted faux "Mondo" style globe-hopping documentary on the worship of Satan, every bit of it dreamed up by a writer and performed by stock or non-actors who were following a screenplay, of sorts. Yes, Anton LeVay makes an appearance, but the Walrus was Paul etc: It's just nonsense, but great for the press to putter about, and LeVay agreed to be in the film (plus another he participated in, SATANIS: THE DEVIL'S MASS) as a publicity stunt for his Church of Satan nightclub.

The narrator of the English language version is a treasure: It's actually frequent genre actor/star Edward Purdom, and the tip-off to what is going on should be his blasé description of an initiation ritual in which a young supplicant's slim, sexy body is ceremonially covered in blood from a severed boar's head -- shown from multiple, up-close tight angles. I am sure such a ritual actually exists, somewhere, but come on ... This could be a long Monty Python sketch about otherwise ordinary British twits (played by Italians) going about their lives as hen-sacrificing, orgy participating followers of Satan, only there's no punchline. It's all straight man material, poker faced in sincerity about pretending to show us the alleged pastimes of various satanists, and describing it all in the same way that a NOVA episode about Amazon rain forest tribespeople might be narrated.

The film *IS* rather dated -- the surviving home video prints look very old, tired, washed out, and about five generations of dubbing old. There's a shorter version called WITCHCRAFT 70 that you can sometimes find online as prior rentals, then a super rare longer version called WHITE ANGELS, BLACK ANGELS that purports to be uncut. It probably is, but the print used was so shabby and over-used when transferred that it's hard to tell: splice damage is rampant, the film has a discontinuous narrative, it's more a collection of oddly staged little scenes cleverly edited together by someone with a very offbeat sense of humor.

A lot of the hilarity seems inadvertent, but then again you never know. The whole idea of this school of film-making is a put-on, and if you aren't in on the joke you might actually think that some inventive film crew actually did get access to forbidden rituals & film events as they were really taking place. I think a better question would be, how accurate is the depiction of dark worship presented? I don't doubt for a minute that some of the participants actually are coven members re-enacting their little orgies or whatever, but the point of the film was to entertain, not educate, indoctrinate or even shed light on Satanic worship. It's almost pure exploitation, and only notorious because of the subject matter & amount of bare naked bodies. I will concede that it goes on for about a half hour longer than it really needed to: My attention started to wane at about the sixty minute mark, though I am sure that if you are into this kind of stuff it will all be riveting ... even the repeated night shots of a city skyline. Which must have looked pretty cool to the cameraman tripping on the hillside, but don't mean much on a small screen.

Still, it's a priceless movie, especially with that hilarious narration. As Homer Simpson might put it, "It's funny because they seem to be so serious about something so stupid." Hilarious.

7/10

This is very funny stuff. It's not actually documentary, most of it is directed, but it has tendency to be seen as "real documentary". It's loaded with funny stuff-quotes like "Dionis, god of ecstatic intoxication", rite in Finland with "severed pig head painted in black (wtf?!?!), satanists in black mass that are afraid to show their vagina (shy satanists?!?!?), but funniest of all is part with voodoo rites, where narrator first mentions St. Hypnosis (?), and then there's some creepy footage of ritual with young girl sitting while some "priest" decapitates chickens and goat on her head. That's not directed (I hope), but the funniest thing is when narrator says that "they put feathers of dead birds on girl's head as the symbol that she may fly above unhappiness and poverty like these birds!" Hahaha, yeah right, they flew really high. There is also LaVey, who is funniest of all. But the creepiest thing is psychedelic flower music that's in background all the time, and no matter how ridiculous movie is, it was scary for me to look at some freaky voodoo cemetery ritual with psychedelic groove in the background. Seariously, it's obvious that this movie was supposed to have educational tone, witch maybe it had in 1970., but today it looks like poor Christian mockumentary on everything "blasphemous". This isn't movie that'll teach you anything about occult and supernatural; this is the movie you should watch with your friends and have really good laugh.

P.S. Last part of the movie is about cryogenics. Guess that was occult in the 1970's.