Satan Wants You (2023) User Reviews

A Good Primer

[zsimonson-16521 · 8/10 · 10 September 2023]

I came to this documentary through Sarah Marshall, whose podcast inquiries into the Michelle Remembers and the larger Satanic Panic I've found very illuminating and thoughtful.

I enjoyed this, though it would be mostly nothing new to those who've delved into this material before. The major novelty here is Pazder's ex-wife Marylyn getting to tell her version of the story.

My main criticism of the film comes, probably partially as a necessary consequence of that: it's less thoughtful in its allocation of blame (and there is plenty to go around here, hard to avoid casting some) than it could have been. Far too much of it fell on Michelle Smith herself for my comfort. There was a moment near the end where the near-hostile, conservative Catholic participant snaps and suggests Pazder might have been more to blame and I was very thankful for it. Marylyn's attempts as a devout Catholic herself to alert church authorities to what happened, could have been better connected to the circumstances that put Smith in these straits to begin with, and placed her and Pazder in this toxic pas-de-deux. The pieces were there, but the lack of connection made it feel a tad mean-spirited. There's no single scapegoat we can lay this on and banish it.

Beyond a must see

[BandSAboutMovies · 8/10 · 27 April 2023]

EDITOR'S NOTE: This movie was watched as part of Salem Horror Fest. You can still get a weekend pass for weekend two. Single tickets are also available. Here's the program of what's playing.

At the height of sheer Q-Anon craziness -- I think probably when a shaman in red, white and blue facepaint led an army of people into government buildings and people defecated on the walls, maybe -- people were grasping for straws and pearls and wondering, "How could this happen?"

I'm here to tell you that this has always been here.

In the 80s, high school me was the same as old me. Always in black. Always with long hair. And I only cared about music, movies and studying weird things. As such, I was brought into the Core Group, a team of teachers studying which students could be worshipping Satan, led by an occult expert cop. This group was led by my godmother.

The Satanic Panic wasn't started by Michelle Remembers, but it sure as hell felt like it was. The union of Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his psychiatric patient (and eventual wife, but we'll get to that) Michelle Smith. In the mid 70s, while treating Michelle for depression due to a miscarriage, she confessed to him that she knew that something horrible had happened to her and could not recall what it was. Using hypnosis, Michelle was soon screaming for 25 minutes non-stop and speaking in the voice she had as a child. 14 months and 600 hours later and a conspiracy was found: Michelle's mother and other citizens in Victoria were members of a worldwide Church of Satan.

At one point, Michelle was part of a ritual that lasted 81 days that Satan himself showed up for and during that time she was tortured, raped, witnessed others get killed and was covered with the blood of murdered babies until St. Michael the Archangel, Mary and Jesus appeared, healing all of her scars and blocking all of her memories of the years of Satanic desecration of her body and soul.

None of these stories were challenged, even a decade after, when Michelle and Laurel Rose Willson, who wrote Satan's Underground about being a breeder for Satanists and having two of her children killed in snuff films, were on Oprah Winfry and at no moment did Oprah challenge either of them. In 1989. The year I was repeatedly questioned and challenged and told that I was giving my soul to Satan.

I was a white kid from a small town and in no way have I ever dealt with the racism, sexism, transism or any isms in any other way again. This experience, however, showed me a small, very small, glimpse into what it's like to know you're right and everyone is sure you're wrong based on no facts at all.

By the 80s, Pazder was an occult expert, consulting in the McMartin preschool trial and appearing on a 20/20 segment called "The Devil Worshippers" that stoked the flames of the Satanic Panic. That report claimed that movies like The Godsend, The Incubus, Amityville II: The Possession, Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Exorcist, The Omen and Omen 2 allowed people to visualize and be inspired by the devil. This aired in prime time on ABC, a major cable network. They also refer to The Satanic Witch as a book filled with evil rites. And then, of course, heavy metal. Seeing as how Anton LaVey was in his era of not speaking to the media, this also has footage taken from Satanis.

As part of the Cult Crime Impact Network, Pazder got into business working with police groips and consulting on Satanic ritual abuse, while lawyers used his book while doing cases and social workers used Michelle Remembers as their training manual.

According to NPR host Ari Shapiro, "one reason these fictions were so appealing was that they gave people a sense of purpose. They had a mission - to defend the innocent."

This is what's happening today. It's why trans people are grooming children, why Democrats are eating babies, why elections are being seen as conspiracies. Because the truth -- the idea that things happen randomly with no reason -- is less frightening than Satanism or Q-Anon.

Man, did I digress.

In Satan Wants You, filmmakers Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams explore the history of Michelle Remembers and what most don't know, things like how Pazder and Smith left their families to be together and how the book was debunked. It would be one thing if their sessions led to a book and some press. It was another that they kicked off an entire movement.

The directors have stated: ""This is the very first time that Michelle's sister, Larry's ex-wife, and Larry's daughter have gone on the record to tell their side of this story. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to combine all these stories together to reveal the true origins of the Satanic Panic, and show how they connect to the Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracies of today."

This is a movie that I feel must be seen, even if we've entered into a time when feelings now matter more than facts. But did facts ever matter?

This film also found an anonymous source sending the actual tapes of Michelle, which have never been heard until now.

I don't discount that she went through some trauma. Yet how many lives were destroyed along the way?

The sad fact is that no one has learned anything. That same refrain of "protecting the children" exists today. And yes, that's a noble endeavor. But as someone that grew up in a town of 7,500 people that had more than one Catholic priest abusing children in the last fifteen years of my life, Often, the abuser is someone the abuser has known and trusts.

Just like a worldwide Satanic network -- paging Maury Terry and The Family, a book that lost a court case to the Process Church over false claims -- and a public ritual lasting 81 days seems hard to swallow, so do all the claims of the far right today.

Back when I was a kid getting grilled over my slasher movie magazines and love of Danzig, I figured, "Well, someday soon all of these closed minded people will die off and we can get past racism and we can learn how to be more open minded together." But now everyone is closed minded. No one seemingly wants to learn. And this movie is a great teaching tool -- it's a must-see, a strong documentary and worthy of rewatching -- because it happened before and yes, it's is right now going on all over again. The message may have shifted, but it's still the message.

And it's still wrong.

Crazy to Think How Things Can Spiral When Unchecked

[Reviews_of_the_Dead · 8/10 · 9 May 2024]

This was a documentary that I got turned on to when searching Letterboxd/The Internet Movie Database for horror/documentaries to watch at work. This caught my attention for the fact that while I was reading Paperbacks from Hell, the novel Michelle Remembers popped up. It was a book that was passed off as fact originally. The repercussions that came from that was felt for the next decade.

Now as I started to watch this, I texted my mother to see if she had read the book. She had read it and my guess there; she thought it was real when it came out. This documentary does well in setting up who the subject of this documentary is. Michelle Smith is the subject of the book and her therapist that helped uncover these repressed memories was Lawrence Pazder. He uses reel to reel tape recorder and then had a team dictate what they heard. I'll say, listening to the tapes made me uncomfortable. Hearing the pain that Michelle went through or what she thought she did, got under my skin.

The bigger thing here are the repercussions of what they did. I like that we learn about both lead characters from their childhood to where they ended up in the wake. Both were married. Michelle was raised in a troubled home. Her mother was doing what she could to raise her and they had a father who was addicted to alcohol and gambling. He caused them to move regularly and there would be nights when he was on a bender that were terrifying. We hear things from friends and Michelle's sisters.

What I want to share about Lawrence was that he loved technology and was a doctor who did missionary trips to Africa. While there, he was not well liked by the nuns. He did film local rituals, but from what we hear through this doc, he didn't seem to fully understand them. This is brought up as it feels like it factors into what went into the book. Lawrence is important for starting the recovered-memory therapy and things that were pushed, helped usher in the 'Satanic Panic' era.

The subject matter is interesting to me as an atheist. I only bring that up here since I look at all religions as something that is good for people, but I also see how it is used as weapon. It causes people to bring in their own biases, which is problematic. This is a bit too slanted toward looking at religion as the main problem here. I did like that they used archive footage of Anton LaVey, the writer of the Satanic Bible and founder of the Church of Satan. He has passed away now, but I did like that Blanche Barton is standing for this church to share information as well. Having that side represented was good. What I will credit here is that I get the feeling there are Christians interviewed here, but they are also rationale people as well.

Other than that issue, I thought this was well-made. It is interesting and harrowing. If these things did happen to children, it would be sickening. Looking at it from that angle, I agree. Knowing that these people that are interviewed on the daytime talk shows probably have mental illness that is being encouraged and exploited is also terrifying. I thought that this does well in conveying its information and looking professional. If anything, it has me interested in reading Michelle Remembers as a fictional work to see what was put down to paper. This was an interesting documentary for sure.

My Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

A Provocative Documentary about the origin of 1980s Satanic Panic

[JustCuriosity · 9/10 · 16 March 2023]

Satan Wants You was well-received at its world premiere at SXSW Film Festival. Satan Wants You explores the story of how a book by Michelle Smith and her psychiatrist Lawrence Pazdur supposedly based on her recovered memories produced a worldwide panic about supposed Satanists torturing children. Much of this panic turned out to be utter nonsense that made millions for therapists and TV shows. The history of how this happened is absolutely fascinating. It appears as if it may have been initially well-intentioned, but the result destroyed many lives. It also shows how easy it is to manipulate human memory. It suggests the need for great skepticism about any recollection based on so-called recovered memories.

The film reconstructs the time and events through interviews with the participants and video from the period. It is an enjoyable and provocative historical examination. While the originally Satanic Panic finally died out, it has reappeared again in recent years in the more politicized version of the QAnon conspiracy. This film is recommended to those who are intrigued by history and the nature of human memory. It is truly a story of how the road to hell can be paved with good intentions.

Great documentary

[Jack_Brock · 9/10 · 5 November 2023]

I remember visiting a relative a few years ago and coming across a forty year old book called MICHELLE REMEMBERS. It was marked non-fiction, but it had a Stephen King sort of fiction feel to it.

The story was hard to believe. The story was over the top and had no secondary sources to back up many of the claims made in the book. The book made several serious allegations, yet there were no police reports referred to in the book. The Wikipedia article pointed out several inconsistencies with the book.

Satan Wants You picks up from there and gives a play by play account of the book and the subsequent events that followed. The movie gave more evidence that the book was a hoax, such as playing some of the original audio tapes and interviews with others related to the case.

The film seems to place the blame on the two authors who un-intentionally caused a lot of harm to others, some who spent years in jail on false charges. While much of the blame does rest on those two, some also rests on the people who believed it too easily.

While the original Satanic Panic died down, the film points out several repercussions felt today in the form of things like Pizzagate and several alt-right conspiracy theories.

A great film overall.

Fantasmagoria!

[DBlackthorne · 9/10 · 27 December 2023]

A fantastic documentary deconstructing the fictional "Michelle Remembers" fabrication, which formally operated like a veritable contemporary Malleus Maleficarum, with the same basic medieval witch-hunt mentality since The Inquisition & witch accusations placed in modern society, which is even perpetuated by primitive xians to this day with current common parlance.

Much of the SRA hysteria took inspiration from Horror movies of the 60's & 70's, then pretenders created such facsimiles for themselves for the 80's & 90's. Protestant Churches funded such hack psychology to profit from the paranoia, creating a cottage industry of professional victims ill-gaining attention while quacks received ill-gained spoils. Mentally corrupting the impressionable and besmirching reputations of the accused.

A very telling dynamic is the fact that actual victims become retraumatized by repetitive relations, refraining from uncharacteristically volunteering themselves to public media scrutiny, preserving alleged experiences between doctor and patient.

This documentary introduces the scenario dealing with the albeit unprofessional relationship of the authors themselves. Pathological liar & sociopath "Michelle Smith" provided the victim role, allowing Pazder to fill in the blanks. Feeling envious, she pursued a relationship with the married Pazder, essentially becoming his mistress until she could fill that role herself. Whether brainwashed and/or a willing receptor of suggestions, memorized the sordid tales, automatically launching into a veritable script when needed for interviews and such.

Thus becoming a veritable template for christian psycho-the-rapists thereafter to subject their unfortunate patients and alleged perpetrators. At which point they decided to take the lucrative show on the road, on various talkshows with carnival atmospheres and gameshow-like styles, thus infecting society with lies, jumpstarting the fear trend, with likened posers.

The blame game included Heavy Metal, board games, horror movies and books, toys and cartoons! All of which are, unless otherwise specifically noted by the artists themselves, acknowledged entertainment for those intelligent enough to appreciate and differentiate. Of course, zealotry was then exploited in turn to generate notoriety and monetary accumulation! Censorship labels becoming beacons for some of the beast possessions!

The question should be posited, but who treats the doctors? A system of checks & balances has been enforced since the last panic, otherwise it would continue to be the virtual inmates running the asylum!

Featuring interviews with

* Author & Magistra Blanche Barton offers personal observations and experiences with the social hysteria, as well as relating LaVey's observations. The Black Pope successfully sued Pazder to omit references to The Church of Satan from the book, which had nothing at all to do with the lurid fiction therein.

* FBI Agent Ken Lanning, who provided the definitive report on the Satanic Panic hoax. {Recommended}

* Sociologist Jeffrey S. Victor, author of Satanic Panic: The Creation of A Contemporary Legend. {Recommended}

* Pazder's former wife, associates and friends. All of whom relate the marked change in Pazder's personality upon associating with Smith.

As an aside, the highly recommended book by the same name by Arthur Lyons, contains factual information, interviews, photography, philosophy, and rituals actually about and by LaVey and The Church of Satan.

Minor Documentary, Unimpressive

[thalassafischer · 4/10 · 11 January 2024]

If you know anything about the Satanic Panic there are numerous child abuse allegations including a daycare in the United States in the early 1980s. Satan Wants You is the overly specific probe into the life of a woman named Michelle from Canada who has been blamed along with her psychiatrist for creating Satanic Panic. The documentary is ambivalent as to if any of the details in the lurid, violent biography the psychiatrist wrote actually happened to Michelle (her sisters have no recollection of it) but the stories she told are pretty disgusting and jarring. So the damage was done, everyone from the Catholic church to police stations were on the look out for cults of devil worshippers.

The problem is that too much is made of Michelle's subsequent marriage to her doctor, and bitter resentments are repeated ad nauseum by his adult children and elderly first ex-wife. Nothing new was really revealed by this documentary, it's not that enlightening and it's certainly not comprehensive. No background or context is given for the counter culture of the Sixties or numerous Satanic-themed horror films from the Seventies - this isn't a documentary for academics or intellectuals, its basically a bunch of gossip about Michelle.

The brief and absurd shallow defense of Anton LeVey adds nothing to the film, as LeVey was a disturbed and abusive man and none of that is explained, either. The entire point seems to be an attempt to convince people that the Church of Satan is harmless which isn't quite the whole story. Everyone wants things to be black and white, nice and clean, and that's not real life. While the shadowy horror movie ideas about Satanic cults were greatly exaggerated or even fabricated, people involved with LeVeyan Satanism aren't exactly a bunch of innocent scholars. To the contrary, LeVey himself was a low-life and a perfect example of the banality of realistic evil.