31 Days of Halloween 2019: Satanic Panic

[Once again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for the entire month of October. I've done this the last few years on The Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded. Other times I didn't. We'll see if I can pull it off this year.] 

Review by Bob Ignizio

The basic premise of SATANIC PANIC is that the rich are amoral devil worshipers willing to sacrifice anything, even their own children, to hold on to wealth and power. So not a whole lot of suspension of disbelief required. But before we meet the moneyed monsters, we are introduced to our protagonist, the considerably less well-off Sam (Hayley Griffith), a teenage singer/songwriter who just started her first ever job delivering pizzas.

At the end of a tipless shift, Sam agrees to take a delivery out of the pizza shop’s zone in the wealthy Mill Basin section of town. This turns out to be a very bad idea, and not just because the mansion she delivers to doesn’t tip her, either. When Sam gets mad and goes in to demand a tip, she finds herself in the midst of a Satanic ritual. The problem is, the coven’s virgin isn’t one anymore. Sam, however, is, and coven leader Danica (Rebecca Romjin) figures the pizza girl will do in a pinch.

Lucifer Risible: The Satanic Panic in the Eighties

[This article was originally posted on Myspace back in 2007. It’s one of a few things I wrote back then that I still kind of like, and since it’s not there anymore, I figured I’d post it here in time for Halloween. I wish I could say people were less prone to believing in crazy conspiracy theories these days, but as anyone who follows the news can easily discern, that’s obviously not the case.]

A lot of ridiculous things went on in the eighties, but one of the most ridiculous was the “Satanic Panic” hysteria that gripped the nation for much of the decade.  Without any evidence whatsoever, a surprisingly large number of people came to believe that there was an underground conspiracy of Satanists operating all throughout the world.  To all appearances, these devil worshipers were ordinary average citizens.  They had infiltrated all aspects of society.  One of them might even be your next-door neighbor. 

The primary activity of this vast and powerful network of evil was sexually abusing and murdering people, usually children.    When they weren’t raping and murdering, they were making rock music.  Depending on whom you asked, the degree to which the Devil had infiltrated the music industry ranged from just the usual suspects (i.e. Ozzy and Judas Priest) to every rock musician in existence, including Christian rockers like Stryper and Amy Grant.  And if the rock music didn’t hook ‘em, the cultists could always lead kids down the path to darkness with role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons.