Realm of Satan Brings Dark Glamour to a Misunderstood Culture

The Sundance Movie Pageant is keen on programming Devil-themed documentaries, together with 2019’s Hail Devil?, in regards to the Satanic Temple, and 2023’s Satan Wants You, about the Satanic Panic phenomenon of the 1980s. This yr, Realm of Devil continues the custom, although it’s hardly a conventional doc.

Directed by Scott Cummings (an editor by commerce who additionally made 2014 brief Buffalo Juggalos), Realm of Devil was created in collaboration with the Church of Satan—which is a distinct group than the Satanic Temple; it’s the faith that was based by Anton LaVey throughout San Francisco’s Sixties counterculture heyday. Somewhat than an easy exploration of the spiritual group and its philosophies, Realm of Devil takes a extra visible, experimental method, transferring via vignettes that highlight numerous church members as they carry out rituals, take pleasure in one another’s firm, go about their day by day enterprise, and so forth. Watching the movie is sort of like flipping via a movement scrapbook; on one web page, we see a person in full corpse paint hanging his laundry out to dry in his in any other case unremarkable yard, whereas on the subsequent, a distinct man makes intense eye contact with the digicam whereas performing a collection of unimaginable card methods.

A content material warning affixed to the movie—and the truth that it’s about, you realize, Satanists—make it seem to be Realm of Devil will likely be quite a bit racier than it’s; whereas there’s some nudity and some specific sequences, it’s total a somewhat elegant, artistically dynamic movie. Sure members make repeat appearances, however a story by no means actually emerges past the sensation that everybody depicted is a part of a coherent motion celebrating individuality. Reference is made to the best way broader tradition doesn’t at all times perceive what the Church of Devil is about, within the type of a information clip detailing an arson hearth that destroyed one member’s beautiful dwelling, however principally there’s a way that the members are deeply comfy with and dedicated to their life.

It have to be stated, nevertheless, that the still-unsolved crime made even worse by a repeated theme all through the documentary, which is that these folks have actually, actually good aesthetic style. Darkish wooden, purple velvet curtains, and immaculate collections of statues and books background the impeccably dressed members, who by no means communicate to the digicam however regularly—like that magician—make eye contact with the viewer, acknowledging a way of artifice and the performative nature that propels this uncommon documentary. Additional enjoying with style conventions: often, Cummings takes issues to a extra surreal, magical degree, displaying us a girl levitating, a crystal ball talking, or a person striding from behind a kitchen counter to disclose he has goat legs—and an enormous pair of goat balls. You didn’t suppose Satanists obtained this far with out a humorousness, did you?

Realm of Devil simply premiered on the Sundance Movie Pageant; Visit Films is dealing with worldwide gross sales, and a launch has not but been introduced.

Replace, Jan. 24, 7 p.m.: The unique put up was up to date to make clear that Go to Movies is dealing with worldwide gross sales.

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