Join Andrea and Alex live at Salem Horror Fest! In this episode they tackle Ti West’s The House of the Devil and it’s reliance on the 1980s Satanic Panic movement. From modern technology to notions of the real and unreal, how much of the devil is in the details?REQUIRED READING
The House of the Devil. Dir. Ti West, 2009.
EXTRA CREDIT
The history of Satanic Panic in the US — and why it’s not over yet Vox’s piece on the enduring impact of the Satanic Panic in the US.
Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s Spectacular Optical’s deep dive into the cultural influence of Satanic Panic.
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Walter Benjamin’s 1936 article delving into the notions of authenticity and aura in works of art.
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I don’t recall the film claiming to be a true story. It was like Robert Eggers’ The Witch or the 90s computer RPG Darklands (set in medieval Germany), telling a story based on the beliefs/fears of the people in time & place. If somebody made a film based on Greek mythology nobody would assume the filmmaker was arguing that such myths were actually true.
I appreciate your mockery of the use of the term “crisis” for something longstanding rather than acute.
The film is unquestionably a period piece. The only requirement is that a film be set in a period. Licorice Pizza & Once Upon a Time in Hollywood have lots of nostalgia for the LA of their respective directors’ childhoods, and nobody questions whether those are period pieces.
Stranger Things struck me as markedly inferior to the recent Black Phone, and I attribute that in part to the Duffer brothers being born after their series started, whereas Scott Derrickson was able to use elements of his actual 70s childhood (and not just pop culture) onscreen.