Hail Satan?
Anarchy in the USA…
OUT 23 AUGUST
God and Satan work in mysterious ways,” says Lucien Greaves, one of the founders of The Satanic Temple (TST), based – of course – in Salem, Massachusetts. They certainly do, as Penny Lane’s droll documentary is keen to point out.
Lane’s previous works The Pain Of Others and Nuts! deal with the fine line between scams and self-delusion, but the good folk of TST, by and large, seem pretty decent. They dress like goths, advocate anarchy (they don’t actually believe in Satan), and the seven tenets of their religion (sample: “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s will alone”) make slightly more sense than being told not to covet thy neighbour’s ass.
Taking a loose, lightly mocking tone, it’s lots of fun to begin with, particularly when TST prank a homophobic minister by holding a pink mass on his mother’s grave, and are arrested for “turning the dead gay”. But the greater part of the film CERTIFICATE 15 DIRECTOR Penny Lane STARRING Jex Blackmore, Chalice Blythe, Nicholas Crowe, Sal De Ciccio SCREENPLAY N/A DISTRIBUTOR Dogwoof RUNNING TIME 94 mins
concerns the increasingly litigious fight to erect a controversial statue in Arkansas to protest the dominance of Christian messages.
Are TST, as someone suggests, just trolls indulging in arbitrary rebellion? Or are their “socio-political counter-myths” all the more important right now, when a woman’s right to abortion is being decided/denied by Christian men? Mostly they just seem like amiable loners glad of having a gang to belong to – perhaps the least contentious thing that religions offer. Perhaps the last word should go to the lawyer who, in defending TST’s beliefs, calls a Christian out for worshipping “an invisible man in the sky”: a positively Python-esque moment in a movie more memorable for its laughs than its revelations. Matt Glasby
THE VERDICT
A wry What We Do In The Shadows-style look behind the black curtain.