Oh. My. Stars. And. Garters. Who remembers the early 1980’s? Remember the Satanic Ritual Abuse Panic? Remember how there were at least tens of thousands of people who were alleged members? Remember regression therapy? Michelle Remembers? Seriously, if you didn’t have false implanted memories back then, you were no one.
I’ll tell you who remembers all that stuff. New Liberty Videos does, that’s who. Their tagline on their website is “Christian DVDs changing lives now and for eternity”. That’s a pretty broad mission statement. I will say that all three (yep, three, there’s a bonus feature to this double feature) are certainly of a Fundamental Christian bent, and even though this set of videos were made in 1980, there’s not much there that won’t fit into today’s fundamentalist thinking. Science and Satanism go hand-in-hand, according to these guys. Lovely.
So, Revival of Evil: The Occult in America features candid shots inside Anton LaVey s First Church of Satan (which are stolen from another documentary, Satanis: the Devil’s Mass — way to break copyright laws, “Christians” …); witchcraft in famous rock groups (the alleged “musician and sound technician” doesn’t even know that KISS is Knights in Satan’s Service, and not Kings in Satan’s Service, for crissakes. What a poser!); demonic possession through yoga (I would say wtf? but back then yoga was for hippie communist pinko Krishna-Buddhist-Hindu-Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong freaks, and not for decent Christian folks. That has changed, though. I know for a fact that there are several Christian Yoga places in my town, with names like Holy Yoga, Genesis Yoga, Yahweh Yoga).
There’s also lots of testifying by those bewitched by Ouija boards, seances, UFOs, witchcraft, drugs, and the bright lights of San Francisco (eek!). For the most part, these stories are told by those who have been triumphantly delivered through The Light and Love That Is Jesus Christ, Incorporated! Wheeee!
Cult Explosion is actually a little more interesting. According to this flick, 35 million people are in a cult, and 78% of all cult groups are made up of people who have previously attended Christian churches. Back in 1992, when I was attending grad school, my local paper boasted the headline, “47% of Alabamians are Going to Hell!” (meaning that 47% of Alabama was not Fundamentalist Christian. Nice, huh?) Testimonies from ex-cult leaders and members share information about those great wacky cults: The People’s Temple, Worldwide Church of God, Moonies, Hare Krishna, Christian Science, Scientology, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Unity, and the Manson Family.
Of course, a number of these religions are all about the $$$ and how much “tithing” they can get out of your average poor dope who really just wants to know what it is all about. Frankly, for me, it’s about dark chocolate, yarn, and hugs. And since I was raised Roman Catholic, I’m heading to hell anyway.
The bonus feature on this disc was Is There Life After Marriage? but it really should have been called Make Room in Your Bed for Jesus, Because Your Marriage Ain’t Sh!t Without Him.
I’m off now to enjoy some Flavor-Aid, thank you, goodnight.
FLAWED FILM FRIDAY: “Sorcerer” (1977)
When the challenges on BBC’s Top Gear go too far.
To be fair, it’s too easy to dismiss films in the 1970’s. You hear about a film about big trucks, and you think Convoy, or Smokey and the Bandit, or possibly Duel (which is really good). You hear about a film with Roy Scheider, and you think Jaws. You hear the name “William Friedkin”, and you think The Exorcist. And then you hear the title Sorcerer, and you know it’s from 1977, and you’re probably thinking possibly bad sword-and-sandal-and-wizardry, or maybe rock-and-roll Vangelis-style animated opera by Ralph Bashki, or possibly even blaxploitation kung-fu disco mafia flick. And you’d be so totally wrong on all of them.
Sorcerer, is, in fact, actually a rather good thriller, with essentially the same story as 1951’s Wages of Fear: four men are hired to transport an urgent nitroglycerin shipment without the equipment that would make it safe. I haven’t see Wages of Fear, so it would be unfair of me to make a comparison. In Sorcerer, in fact, four guys (criminals), who have made their way through various (nefarious) ways and (very illegal) reasons to the same South American hellpit, have to transport old, leaky nitroglycerin, in two decrepit trucks (cobbled together in a loving montage from the bits and bobs of about 7 other equally decrepit trucks), without any safety equipment, in order to blow up a fire that has started in an oil pumping station. Because blowing up a fire with leaky, old nitro is the best way to kill such a big-ass fire.***
“The hell you say!”
So “Dominguez” (Roy Scheider), “Serrano” (Bruno Cremer), Nilo (Francisco Rabal), and “Martinez” (Amidou), the actors playing the four dudes who have been selected to drive this two trucks of death, set off into the South American jungle in their rickety trucks with the promise of $$$ and new identities should they succeed. Or they will die fiery explosive deaths. A win-win all around.
It’s good. It’s really good. And you will like these guys. Even though they are bad guys. That’s why they’re here in South America, trying to eke out some kind of living in a disreputable little town for an American oil company. But they’re still bad guys, and things catch up to them, and these bad guys have to figure a way out. But you will care, dammit, about how the end of this movie plays out, and you will hold your breath during that big wobbly bridge scene, and you will have to remind yourself that this is 1977, and those are all practical effects.
Why didn’t you ever hear about this movie, you ask? Two Words:
Okay, ten, actually.
This flick has the great distinction of opening one month after a little movie you may have heard of, Star Wars. So there was that problem. Also, there are four “vignettes” in the beginning – the back story of our four main guys – and there’s no English spoken in the first 15-20 minutes. American audiences have issues in general with subtitles. Because having to read is too much trouble, I don’t know. So, thinking that this was some foreign film, there were a lot of walkouts. And then there was the problem, with, oh, the title of the damned thing.
Sorcerer.
Really?
Even worse, Sorcerer, brought to you by the same fella who brought you The Exorcist.
So. You have a wacky title, bad timing, and a beginning sequence that makes the average jumbo-popcorn-eating-Bubba go “Huh?” Which is a shame, really, because it’s actually pretty good.
But why Sorcerer?
I’ll tell you why. Billy Friedkin wasn’t able to come up with a name himself, until they got to the bit where they needed POS trucks to cobble to together, and one of them happened to have the name “Sorcerer” painted on it.
Really. Imagine if Orson Welles had named the movie Rosebud after the sled. Paramount and the movie theaters had to put up cards saying that Sorcerer wasn’t a foreign film and the audience hadn’t wandered into the wrong theater and it didn’t turn out as well as everyone wanted it to, but then Friedkin went on to bring us Cruisin’ and To Live and Die in L.A., so I guess it turned out okay.
*** So, as it turns out, dropping dynamite into a big oil rig fire is in fact a good way to stop the fire. The explosion quickly uses up all the oxygen, thereby smothering the fire. At least that’s what the Hubster says, and he’s an engineer who’s studied this kind of thing, so I’ll go with that explanation.
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