Satan Wants You
ETR Media
Original Release Date Mar. 11th, 2023
Written by Sean Horlor, Steve J. Adams
Directed by Steve J. Adams, Sean Horlor
Starring Sarah Marshall, Charyl Proby-Austman, Marilyn, Charles Ennis, Kenneth V. Lanning
Language English (subtitles available)
Get your copy HERE from Diabolik, or HERE from Orbit
by "Doc" Hunter Bush, MovieJawn Podcast Director and Staff Writer
Overview:
Satan Wants You comes to Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome partner label ETR Media. An eye-opening doc that examines the events leading to a wave of fear mongering that gripped North America, the film is well-crafted. ETR's release of Satan Wants You looks and sounds respectable but lacks for bonus features.
The Movie Itself: 4 stars
"Satanic Panic" is the term given to the media blitz that swept the nation in the '80s. If daytime TV and even the nightly news were to be believed, Satan hid in every dark corner just waiting to make good, god-fearing people sacrifice animals, torture children, and eat babies. Or listen to Black Sabbath. Or play Dungeons and Dragons.
My familiarity with the Satanic Panic is through the McMartin Preschool case where multiple children alleged that they were, daily, being kidnapped, tortured, and forced to commit untold atrocities. But if you looked at the details, there was NO WAY it was true. Kids claimed they were transported in a hot air balloon, or flushed down special pipes in the toilet, and these claims were never interrogated, lest the entire witch hunt-scented house of cards come tumbling down. I also knew there was a book involved, but for whatever reason, I thought the McMartin case came before it.
Satan Wants You clears up this timeline, and then some. Directors Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor dive deeply into the creation of Michelle Remembers, the book co-written by psychiatrist Larry Pazder and its subject, his patient, Michelle Smith who through multiple sessions guided by Pazder, recalled a 14-month long stint in the hands of a Satanic cult. The sensational story, which included the aforementioned animal sacrifices, child torture, and infant cannibalism, obviously caught everyone's attention, generated headlines, and led to Pazder and Smith becoming all but household names. Michelle even appeared on the game show To Tell the Truth!
But beyond just reciting a series of events, the documentary examines Pazder's time in Nigeria where he witnessed what he believed were Satanic religious rites, his reaction to the 1976 made for television film Sybil--where Sally Field plays the titular woman who suffers from what would now be recognized as dissociative identity disorder--and the details of his relationship to Michelle (both of whom were married when he took her on as a patient in the late '70s, but ended up marrying each other by '87). Satan Wants You also examines the fallout from the fervor around this book, both short-term like the McMartin case, or longer-term, like Pizzagate. The parallels there, once you see them, are very upsetting.
The Packaging: 3 stars
The packaging here is solid, but nothing to write home about. It comes in a nice, sturdy, clear plastic Blu-ray case with a booklet featuring an essay from "cultural archaeologist" Heather Drain, with a reversible cover. One side features an illustration of a book laying on a map of North America. Its cover is an image of Michelle Smith, there is a forked tongue snaking out between some of the pages, and it is on fire. The reverse side leans into 'Satanic' visual clichés with a bleeding title and pentagram on what appears to be aged parchment.
My only complaint here is the font chosen for the essay booklet, a Gothic-style font (I'm not a really a font guy, so forgive me if that's not exactly right) presumably chosen to further lean into those same "Satanic" clichés, is actually kind of a pain to read. I will say that this is nearly counter-balanced by the cleverness of one of the film's taglines "She was chosen... as the Devil's bride.", the double entendre of which becomes clear as you watch.
The Video: 3.5
What you have to understand is that Satan Wants You features quite a bit of, let's say, archival footage of television interviews, that gameshow appearance, news clips, and the like, much of which has some visual degradation. I initially wondered how much of that might have been the result of post-production; the chasing of a general aesthetic. But as things went on I came to believe it's probably legit, and that the quality is the result of these clips being transferred from old VHS tapes.
None of it is wholly egregious, just the kind of tracking distortion or general static that you'd get with an old tape. The rest of the footage, as in everything shot for this documentary, looks great. The majority is talking heads, but there are some reenactments and almost ...interstitials designed to evoke certain emotional responses. It's all very solid, but nothing super remarkable.
The Audio: 3.5
Satan Wants You features actually quite a bit of the audio taken from the tapes Larry Pazder recorded during his sessions with Michelle Smith, as well as some other, related vintage audio, and they vary in audio fidelity. To shore up the clarity issue, subtitles are present on screen, but sonically, they can get pretty loud, and kind of grating at times. It never had me reaching for the volume knob, but that was only for their brevity; if they'd gone on longer, I would have definitely needed to turn things down.
Other than that, and the slight audio issues with the vintage television footage, which are even more slight than the visual issues I mentioned above, everything here sounded great. I have a three-channel sound bar and, like I said, I only almost needed to adjust the volume.
Special attention should be paid to the score, from Mark Dolmont, which is present throughout (as much as I noticed) but never competes with or overwhelms the conversation. This should be a no-brainer for a genre that is generally speaking, mostly dialogue, but I have seen documentaries that don't pull it off.
The Supplements: 1 star
Aside from the trailer, there are no bonus features. The booklet mentioned above is the only thing we get that even approaches context or any outside examination of the film or its subject beyond Satan Wants You itself. The essay in the booklet is very good, but when combined with the difficult to read font, makes this nearly a wash. I do appreciate the effort that went into this release, but there's just so much ground to cover with this topic that it feels like a major misstep not to include any supplemental materials.
- Trailer (1:49)
Final Thoughts: Recommended
Satan Wants You effectively transports you to an era where Satanists lurked around every corner and were capable of regularly doing elaborate and despicable crimes. But, beyond the obvious parade of bummers that this story is, and what it says about human nature and specifically the psyche of North Americans, the doc has a lot of humor. The interviews feel honest, leading to some hilarious comments like when podcaster Sarah Marshall says of Michelle Remembers: "This book contains an extraordinary number of dead babies."
Similarly, the degree to which the media assimilated the story is itself (darkly) humorous. Obviously, Larry and Michelle appearing on lowbrow tabloid TV like Oprah or Geraldo makes sense, but watching clips from To Tell the Truth (a game show where panelists could question three guests who each claimed to be the subject of the life story read aloud by the host) feels incredibly surreal and disorienting. But, in a good way?
I think this is a documentary worth seeing, and only might be worth having an at-hand copy of but for some, this would be a one-and-done viewing experience (that I would still hope leads to further investigation). After all, as many people have paraphrased before me: Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. But the essay font issue and lack of supplemental material is a pretty big sticking point for me, personally.
