JULY 15, 2014 6:26PM
A Banner Season for Demons: Update July 2014
The "Based on a True Story" edition! with spoilers for Deliver Us From Evil and True Detective.
Read my last update here. 'Based on a True Story' is a horror fiction marketing ploy that loses its effectiveness when you do your research. For example, there is the chilling 2008 film The Strangers which bears the tag 'inspired by true events'.
All that really means is that its creators built a horror movie out of a hodge-podge of facts around the Manson Family murders and another real life slaughter at a secluded cabin. It does not make what you see on the screen a depiction of anything that's actually occurred.
This marketing ploy has now entered its way into our current wave of satanism and demonic possession films (2010 to current, by my estimation). To be fair, I certainly understand the power of that claim when applied to a theological horror film, especially if you're religious or have a vague and unspecified sense of the supernatural.
And no less than The Exorcist itself (still the greatest in this subgenre, in the overall genre, and just in general) is "based on a true story."
But source material can be problematic sometimes. There was last year's The Conjuring, with its Puritan nonsense perpetuated by the notorious Ed and Lorraine Warren.
What The Conjuring shares with the source material of the movie and HBO show under discussion in this post are the 1980's - media fueled hysterias, cops and scholars and talk show hosts battling Satan - and "true events/true crime" source material.
Deliver Us From Evil
Director: Scott Derrickson
Cast: Eric Bana, Édgar Ramírez, Olivia Munn, Joel McHale
Plot: NY police officer Ralph Sarchie investigates a series of crimes. He joins forces with an unconventional priest, schooled in the rituals of exorcism, to combat the possessions that are terrorizing their city. (source: IMDB)
I expected Deliver Us From Evil to be similar to The Conjuring. I've researched a lot of info on so-called "occult crime experts."
Scott Derrickson is both director and one of the writers. I didn't care for his prior film, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, at all. Not just for what it implies about that true story, but also because of it's obnoxious spiritual extortionist view. God wants you to have faith - what better way to inspire faith than allowing you to watch a girl become spiritually raped?
The movie's source material is Beware the Night, a book by NYPD officer Ralph Sarchie. It is his account of his exploits in his 'second job,' which he calls "the Work": demonology and assisting exorcisms. I haven't read the book but I am skeptical.
In any case, Deliver Us From Evil was a pleasant surprise. It's a satisfying horror film refreshingly free of most of the tired, lame and theologically shallow tropes. The thills are plenty and the story holds up coherently. The exorcism will have you digging your nails into the seat.
Above all, it's proof that you can take questionable true crime/occult crime narratives and spin them into their own decent fictional tales.
Here are a few observations:
Like The Exorcist, it begins in Iraq. But the evil doesn't stem from an ancient pre-Christian deity. Sure, there's an evil artifact from antiquity involved, but it's all unspecified mumbo jumbo. Were I tempted to read into things, I would say Deliver Us From Evil is a acually about PTSD and our Middle East wars. But I won't go there.
Unlike The Conjuring, The Rite et al (I think The Exorcist is also free of this but that position is arguable) there was no witch-shaming. No one gets in trouble for using a ouija board or listening to Iron Maiden. Afro-caribbean religions aren't at fault. No finger wagging about alternative religious paths, unless you count being a fan of The Doors as one (their music is ubiquitous in the film, and near and dear to my heart, a cover of their "Soul Kitchen" from X, off of their debut Los Angeles, features early on).
It has the "personal guilt" trope (think Damien Karras feeling guilty over his mom). I think that's a much better way to depict vulnerability to, and access by, evil.
Edgar Ramirez plays a priest with a penchant for cool black leather jackets, Cross-Fit and a mighty Game of Thrones style hipster-fro. His guilt moment is possibly politically charged. I last saw Ramirez in the excellent Carlos, as hellraising terrorist Carlos The Jackal.
Oh. And it has Joel McHale, dressed in 16 year old wigga gear, flashing the most sinister boyish 40-something grins today in Hollywood.
True Detective
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan
Plot: The lives of two detectives, Rust Cohle and Martin Hart, become entangled during a 17-year hunt for a serial killer in Louisiana. (source: IMDB)
I don't have much time to go into everything of note about HBO's True Detective. It's been so critically lauded that I want to hate it, but I can't quite do so. It's been compared to The Wire. I'm sure all the layers, subtleties and storycraft that The Wire has are in this show.
McConaghey's character is some sort of southern-fried acid flashbacking nihilist existentialist. His character has shared all the wisest, Nietzchean secrets of the universe, or some amazingly powerful insights, or something. They're probably all there in the mealy-mouthed, good ole boy, incomprehensible mumblings of both McConaghey and Harrelson, but I lose patience with shows that make me feel like a hard-of-hearing 80 year old.
In other words, I find myself wanting to slap the chewing tobacco - or is it marbles? - out of their mouths. Awright awright awright THIS, fuckers.
The second or third episode - I can't recall - has an amazing police raid sequence that should be studied by filmmakers.
And the deviltry, the true story? In my opinion, it's a tiny bit egregious. I'm not condemning the makers or their right to make any sort of show about satanic ritual abuse. But let's get to the bottom of what the show seems to imply:
The plot of True Detective involves a satanic cult conspiracy in Lousiana that's widespread and involves coverups and powerful people. In other words, conspiracy theorist crack.
But there's more than just devil worship and murder. Woody Harrelson's character has daughters, one of whom plays with dolls in a scene that could be taken straight out of a 1980's McMartin trial child interrogation.
Further to that, as you jump forward in time, the daughter becones a promiscuous goth. That's what satanic ritual abuse does to you, see?
The "true story" basis of the series is the Hosanna Baptist Church child abuse case in Tangipahoa, Louisiana, in 2000. "You know, you can Google “Satanism” “preschool” and “Louisiana” and you’ll be surprised at what you get" stated writer and creator Nic Pizzolato. The case involves child abuse and satanic ritual allegations, as the New York Times has reported. There were confessions by the disturbed perpetrator and his sons, and the police claim to have found pentagrams and other occult symbols among some child pornography. Here in this Daily Beast article, a journalist notes that no physical remains of animals or occult symbols were presented at the trial as evidence. That there was child abuse is clear; that devil-worship was involved is not.
Now, I have no idea of Pizzolato believes in satanic ritual abuse, in the veracity of the Hosanna allegations or anything else. Here, a professor of law at the University of Colorado argues that like Triumph of the Will or Birth of a Nation, something like True Detective can perpetrate ruinous lies and myths. But is he exaggerating the power of a fictional HBO series?
Final thoughts: regarding bullets #2 and #3, I was happy to see that some intelligent life lives on the imdb message board, where several posters indicate that those plot points serve to reveal more about the family dynamics of Harrelson's character than as any indication of the daughter being abused. Still, I don't think drawing a connection is entirely incorrect.
This article is excellent in that reveals what a crazy melange of cultural influences and inspirations went into True Detective.
Finally, as far as images of horror go, the show offers a pretty memorable one:
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Comments
I was "hooked" on "True
Detective". I had to see every episode as soon as it became available,
and I watched some of the episodes three times. I did not get the vibe
that the character played by Woody Harrelson did anything inappropriate
with his daughter.
Ah, nope. I wasnt
implying that Harrelson was doing anything. It felt more like there was
something going on at her school. Thanks for reading!
I'm so relieved to read
your remark about Detectives making you feel like a hard-of-hearing 80
year old! I thought it was me (being in sight of 80 and being a mite
deaf and all).
I watched Detectives with some interest, despite finding it rather boring and annoying.
Not likely, I'm afraid, to find myself watching possession movies, though you make Deliver sound rather interesting...
I watched Detectives with some interest, despite finding it rather boring and annoying.
Not likely, I'm afraid, to find myself watching possession movies, though you make Deliver sound rather interesting...
Hey Myriad - nope, you
needn't worry. Those two were tough to register on audio. I appreciate
you leaving a comment, especially since the topic doesn't interest you.
I mostly wrote about True Detective because of the satanic panicky
background story. I hope you don't bust out those devil horns!
Hi Keiko - I'm afraid I didn't catch the bit about the morbidly obese - perhaps in reference to the congregation at the church? And agreed on The Exorcist. Depending on when and where you first saw it, it can stay in your nervous system for a long while.
Hi Keiko - I'm afraid I didn't catch the bit about the morbidly obese - perhaps in reference to the congregation at the church? And agreed on The Exorcist. Depending on when and where you first saw it, it can stay in your nervous system for a long while.
I found the idea of Ed
and Lorraine's basement a heckuva lot scarier than the rest of the
movie...What kind of demonic apocalypse awaits when Lorraine joins her
husband in the afterlife? Has Hollywood even THOUGHT about THAT????
Still, I agree with you about the exploitation of "truth" as a marketing ploy. Yet if we have that many demons and Satan-sightings in this country alone, we shouldn't need Hollywood. We could just spend the nights in each other's houses...
And how come just one ghost isn't good enough anymore, anyway?
Still, I agree with you about the exploitation of "truth" as a marketing ploy. Yet if we have that many demons and Satan-sightings in this country alone, we shouldn't need Hollywood. We could just spend the nights in each other's houses...
And how come just one ghost isn't good enough anymore, anyway?
You would think, with
all the stuff they've claimed to see, that the last thing the Warrens
want to do is live on top of a whole pile of demonic artifacts, no? Ah,
but then that adds to their mystique and their bottom line (sorry, I
think they were scam artists).
I keep hearing good
things about "True Detective" but have yet to check it out. It's in a
long backlogged queue of stuff. And as for the "based on a true story"
stuff, I always figure that if the original set of events was compelling
enough, then why not just tell it as is (ditto biopics).
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