Annual Halloween guest post by Stephen Conrad
Satan, Lucifer, Mephistopheles, Baphomet, the Antichrist, Father of Lies, Moloch—however you name or summon him—the Devil rightfully plays a primary role in many fine horror movies. This spooky season of 2024 let’s survey a few of Duke Library’s more Satanic film holdings!
A few outright classics should certainly be experienced when considering the Evil One in cinema. Such offerings include the Georgetown possession tale in the original The Exorcist, the creepy Satan-spawn Damien in The Omen, and the New York City cult Devil- offspring trip, Rosemary’s Baby. Now that the standards are handled and our Satanic baseline is set, let’s delve further into the licking flames of Hell with further fiendish tales.
Leave it to genre master John Carpenter to direct a gripping and wild picture about green goo in the basement of a Los Angeles church that we discover to be the essence of Satan. In Prince of Darkness, Donald Pleasance (character actor in other creepy tales like Halloween) stars as the priest trying to corral the Devil while rocker Alice Cooper steals the show in the role of a street schizo lurking outside the church.
Or do you perhaps prefer a Folk Horror classic? Then travel back to 18th century England and experience the terror of Blood on Satan’s Claw. From director Piers Haggard comes this tale of a village’s children enthralled to Satan, carrying out demonic and vicious acts in his name.
Staying in the UK for a spell, here’s a couple of classics from Hammer Studios featuring the legendary Christopher Lee. To the Devil a Daughter showcases Lee as an excommunicated priest who leads a group of Satanists raising a teenager to be the Devil’s representative on plant earth when she turns eighteen. Richard Widmark also stars as an American writer helping to thwart the evil designs on the sold-soul teen, played by Nastassja Kinski.
And in The Devil Rides Out, Lee stars on the righteous side for a change as the Duc de Richleau, attempting to save victims from an occult group. Directed by Hammer maestro Terence Fisher, this chiller most excitingly features a May Day ceremony helmed by the Goat of Mendes himself!
Is Mexican Nunsploitation more your speed? Well then here’s a true wonder for you called Sátanico Pandemonium (a/k/a La Sexorcista), from 1975. Sister Maria (Cecilia Pezet) is tempted by Lucifer into ever more blasphemous and violent and sexual acts, threatening to destroy her convent and send all the sisters to Hell. The movie’s tagline says it all: “From Bride of Christ to Slave of Satan”!
Back to America in 1981 for a computer hell of 0s and 1s in Evilspeak. Bullied cadet, Clint Howard, at a military school discovers a book of Black Mass, using it and his computer to summon Satan to help exact revenge on his tormentors. Maybe it was the inclusion of demon pigs that helped land this one on the infamous “Video Nasties” list in the UK in the ‘80s.
Satan is everywhere and these titles are but a smattering of the diabolical offerings lurking in the Duke Libraries stacks ready for you to request–if you dare! Choose your own infernal adventures and Happy Halloween to all you Blue Devils out there!
Many of the frights featured here are available streaming… so this Halloween season check out our chilling platforms (accessible with Duke NetID/Password): Swank Digital Campus Horror Movies (scroll down to the Horror category) and Kanopy Fright Fest.
P.S. Don’t be scared of DVDs and Blu-rays. You can check out an external drive and play these blood-curdling movies to your heart’s content…until it stops from horror?!!!
