The Devil made me do it

Clare Morgan
December 20, 2006

Type "Satanic Hollywood" into Google and up pop more than 830,000 hits, ranging from articles on Jayne Mansfield's membership of the Church of Satan to rants against Scientology and sleazy Hollywood gossip sites.

No real surprises there. Hollywood - as Brett Garten, the curator of the Chauvel cinema's Cinematheque program, observes - has long been regarded as a dark satanic mill, intent on perverting the minds of impressionable youth.

So, just in time for Christmas, Garten is presenting a program on the dark side of movie making, Satanic History of Hollywood.

After a 30-minute multimedia presentation on Hollywood's satanic influences, Garten will screen three little-known films from the genre: Lucifer Rising, Kenneth Anger's 1972 tapestry of images set to Bobby Beausoleil's psychedelic rock score; Anger's short 1969 film Invocation of My Demon Brother, with Moog soundtrack by Mick Jagger; and Seventh Victim, a 1943 film about a society of devil-worshippers in Greenwich Village who try to silence one of their members when she endangers their secrecy.

"I won't be leading a black Mass or anything, just having a few laughs," says Garten, a film buff and collector.

From The Devil's Manor to The Omen and beyond, the Devil has been a regular star of the big screen and has frequently ended up with the best lines.

"Satanism peaked in Hollywood in the '60s," Garten says. "If you want to look at the satanic underbelly of Hollywood, all the roads lead back to one man: Kenneth Anger. He was a very influential character. He only made about 10 films but they've had a great impact on filmmaking. He pioneered the use of pop music in his films, that sort of music montage style you get today.

"He also wrote the book Hollywood Babylon. It's not that far from Hollywood Babylon to NW - he pioneered all that trash mag, celebrity gossip. It's funny, the Greek word for devil, diabolus, means gossip or slanderer. So there's this idea that the devil is a liar and a gossip. That's basically what I'll be doing - the ultimate gossip session on all these famous people who dabbled in the black arts."

But how much of it was dabbling and how much was serious satanic worship?

"Some of the Christian people who've investigated this have said that Anton LaVey, author of The Satanic Bible, made it seem tongue-in-cheek and silly, like a sort of hedonistic religion," Garten says. "But, really, he thought there was something more to it. Certainly, Kenneth Anger was notorious for putting curses on people."

Type "Satanic Hollywood" into Google and up pop more than 830,000 hits, ranging from articles on Jayne Mansfield's membership of the Church of Satan to rants against Scientology and sleazy Hollywood gossip sites.

No real surprises there. Hollywood - as Brett Garten, the curator of the Chauvel cinema's Cinematheque program, observes - has long been regarded as a dark satanic mill, intent on perverting the minds of impressionable youth.

So, just in time for Christmas, Garten is presenting a program on the dark side of movie making, Satanic History of Hollywood.

After a 30-minute multimedia presentation on Hollywood's satanic influences, Garten will screen three little-known films from the genre: Lucifer Rising, Kenneth Anger's 1972 tapestry of images set to Bobby Beausoleil's psychedelic rock score; Anger's short 1969 film Invocation of My Demon Brother, with Moog soundtrack by Mick Jagger; and Seventh Victim, a 1943 film about a society of devil-worshippers in Greenwich Village who try to silence one of their members when she endangers their secrecy.

"I won't be leading a black Mass or anything, just having a few laughs," says Garten, a film buff and collector.

From The Devil's Manor to The Omen and beyond, the Devil has been a regular star of the big screen and has frequently ended up with the best lines.

"Satanism peaked in Hollywood in the '60s," Garten says. "If you want to look at the satanic underbelly of Hollywood, all the roads lead back to one man: Kenneth Anger. He was a very influential character. He only made about 10 films but they've had a great impact on filmmaking. He pioneered the use of pop music in his films, that sort of music montage style you get today.

"He also wrote the book Hollywood Babylon. It's not that far from Hollywood Babylon to NW - he pioneered all that trash mag, celebrity gossip. It's funny, the Greek word for devil, diabolus, means gossip or slanderer. So there's this idea that the devil is a liar and a gossip. That's basically what I'll be doing - the ultimate gossip session on all these famous people who dabbled in the black arts."

But how much of it was dabbling and how much was serious satanic worship?

"Some of the Christian people who've investigated this have said that Anton LaVey, author of The Satanic Bible, made it seem tongue-in-cheek and silly, like a sort of hedonistic religion," Garten says. "But, really, he thought there was something more to it. Certainly, Kenneth Anger was notorious for putting curses on people."

In fact, Anger viewed his films as spells. "Actually, I was going to warn people to stay away from this show," says Garten half-seriously. "When I was up late the other night watching Invocation of My Demon Brother, I found it terrifying. So I'm warning people that these films are dark. It's going to take all the Christmas spirit you can muster to ward off the bad vibes of these films.

"But then, going Christmas shopping in Myer can't be much worse."

Garten says Anger is still around, "travelling the world, showing films at festivals, getting prizes and honorary doctorates, but he's basically a homeless guy - God, I hope he doesn't read this".

Garten says his aim with the Cinematheque program is to follow the lead of Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinematheque Francaise.

"His agenda was basically the preservation of film and film education, so that's where I'm coming from - to screen films that aren't seen anywhere else, from all genres, all eras, all nations and hopefully inject some sort of film culture into the city. I wanted to try to create a little community of film buffs - not just to embalm the classics of cinema but really look at the margins."

He hopes Saturday's show will be an improvement on his last program on the occult. "Jaimie [Leonarder] and I did a satanic show about 10 years ago and it's taken me this long to recover from that experience. It was one of those shows where everything that could go wrong did. It was a terrible show. The only people who showed up were a buck's party of drunken skinheads and we basically ended up getting booted out of there.

"I'm hoping things will go better this time, although I'm worried this article might bring out the religious fundamentalists."

Any protesters might include the Chauvel's occasional neighbours, the Hillsong congregation. "I think the fundamentalist Christians might enjoy the show because most of the material comes from their research. I am sympathetic to their point of view - I think Hollywood is the satanic centre of the universe and I'm sure the gates of hell, if they're anywhere, are somewhere in Hollywood."

Satanic History of Hollywood is on at the Chauvel cinema, Paddington, on Saturday from 1pm.

Five evil pieces

The Exorcist Has a film gone through such quantities of pea soup before or since?

Rosemary's Baby Roman Polanski's creepy film about the spawn of Satan - and no, we don't mean the Olsen twins.

The Omen The name Damien didn't seem so cute after this shockfest.

The Devil's Advocate Al Pacino plays the Devil as a New York attorney - which is not much of a stretch, really.

Angel Heart Robert De Niro kills off the egg industry as the mysterious Louis Cyphre