BOOK REVIEW: The Satanic Screen: An Illustrated Guide to the Devil in Cinema

Author Nikolas Schreck contends that motion pictures have always been the Devil's domain, and a perusal of "The Satanic Screen: An Illustrated Guide to the Devil in Cinema" proves he just might be right. From Europe's earliest 17th century pre-cinematic "magic lantern spectacles" to the occult blockbusters of the 1960s, 70s (such as Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist) and beyond, Schreck's exhaustively researched and remarkably entertaining treatise provides an authoritative account of the changing face of the Devil in film.

Although musicians have been reputed to hold "sympathy for Devil," Lucifer's association with motion pictures runs far deeper and may be traced to the very birth of cinema. Critics of the first motion picture projector dubbed the device "the devil's looking glass," forging (no doubt unintentionally) an everlasting union between the cinematic world and the netherworld. Predictably, this alleged infernal alliance has manifested itself in frequent though often disparate depictions of Beelzebub on celluloid. "Charming rogue with impeccable manners, slavering monster of bestial aspect; seemingly innocent child; seductive woman; unseen metaphysical force: these are only some of the contradictory depictions of the Devil offered by Satanic cinema," writes Schreck. "Tracing the evolution of the Satanic archetype on film, one quickly discovers that no character has inspired such wildly differing interpretations."

Schreck diligently examines these cinematic portrayals individually (via select films) and collectively (via the decades when they were produced) throughout the pages of "The Satanic Screen," and his reflections prove both engaging and insightful. Perhaps most perceptive is the author's assertion that the Mephisto's distinctive filmic faces are an artistic reflection of "the rapidly changing pendulum of the 20th century's societal pendulum back and forth between transgressive impulse and safe conservatism."

As such, Schreck praises the 1920s and 60s as banner decades for Satanic cinema ("The Devil was a potent symbol for subversion in movies, ... representing the rebellious and revolutionary longings of the time," he writes); dismisses the 1950s ("The very few images of the Devil that surfaced on film in that most self-consciously 'modern' of decades tended to be frivolous, reflecting the generally accepted notion that the Black Arts could only be viewed as a quaint archaism from a less enlightened time."); and indicts Reagan's 1980s for lowering the final curtain on the once burgeoning Satanic film industry. "The Prince of Darkness was no longer celebrated as the noble elitist in the Miltonian sense; his image had instead been appropriated as an easy shock value symbol for heavy metal bands and the like, who painted the Devil as a god for losers and ne'er-do-wells, the last refuge for the marginal underachiever," he laments. "It's perhaps understandable that few filmmakers of any intelligence were drawn to the subject."

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