Satanis: The Devil's Mass Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

Satanis: The Devil's Mass Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 13, 2019

Note: This film is available as part of Satanis: The Devil's Mass / Satan's Children.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is due to officially debut soon as this review is being written, and so once again (for better or worse) the horrifying murders perpetrated by Charles Manson and his followers are most likely going to be the subject of discussion (even if the Tarantino film of course skews events from how they actually happened). There has been much talk and newsprint devoted to Manson’s supposed “Satanic cult”, but he had a little competition in that regard, though initially in the San Francisco region rather than Manson’s stomping grounds in Los Angeles and its environs, in the form of one Anton Szandor Lavey. Lavey is a curiously infamous figure in the annals of American occultism, having founded what he called the Church of Satan and fostering his own weirdly fascinating cult. In this instance, there are no records indicating nefarious murderous activity, but there’s still strangeness galore, as evidenced by the two films the American Genre Film Archive has assembled for this new release.

In a previous life when I was suffering from the somewhat hilarious misapprehension that a graduate degree might help me make a living, I was working on a Master’s Thesis about the rather interesting shared experience that two famous folks with mystical proclivities and who were otherwise nemeses, Aleister Crowley and William Butler Yeats, had had with regard to their wives, both of whom engaged in “automatic writing” which “delivered” various tomes to their husbands. A bit of “field research” led me to some Crowley cultists who were living in San Francisco and through them I was introduced to some of the Laveyans who were still hanging around San Francisco during that era. They all struck me as basically harmless folks, people who had supposedly “seen through” the hypocrisies of organized religion, Christianity in particular (though it's notable that Lavey was evidently born Jewish), and who were out to create their own “new world order”, albeit purportedly this time fashioned in the image of a certain horned denizen of the underworld.

That almost sanguine quality of Laveyans comes through in what some may feel is a frankly comical form in Satanis: The Devil’s Mass , a supposed documentary that was filmed in San Francisco in 1969, probably at more or less the same time that Manson was perpetrating his evil a bit further south. The piece tends to ping pong between what look like obviously staged for the camera rituals (including one of the most bored High Priestesses you'll ever see) and interviews with various folks, including Lavey and a number of his acolytes and neighbors.

Satanis: The Devil's Mass Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Satanis: The Devil's Mass is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of the American Genre Film Archive with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. AGFA touts a "2K preservation from a 16mm theatrical print" for this presentation. This is another collaboration with Something Weird, and those who have seen the previous Something Weird DVD of this title will probably be more impressed with the results than "casual passers by". As can be gleaned from the screenshots accompanying this review, there was evidently only so much that could be done with this source element. While detail levels are marginally increased from the DVD, it's arguably not a huge difference, though some close-ups do have relatively strong levels of fine detail. The palette is fairly desaturated at times, and tends to skew toward pink or red at others, and toward blue at still others. Some of the red leaning material is exacerbated by red lighting (typically in the ritual sequences), which can lead to near posterizing on some faces. There are recurrent signs of age related wear and tear throughout the presentation. Grain is pretty gritty looking, as befits the source element, but AGFA's compression handles it organically with no major issues. For a cult item of this obscurity, AGFA has done a commendable job, but anyone expecting stellar video quality would be best advised to take a look at the screenshots here as well as on the parent review.

Satanis: The Devil's Mass Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Satanis: The Devil's Mass features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix which suffices decently enough for what is ultimately a lot of people either talking or intoning exciting things like "Hail Satan!" There is some occasional organ music just to set the mood. Some slight distortion and crackling is evident, but nothing too major, and AGFA has commendably provided subtitles to help with any problems in understanding.

Satanis: The Devil's Mass Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Per typical AGFA tradition, everything is on one disc, and supplements are not really directly tied to the main feature(s):

• Satan in Church (1080p; 8:34) is a completely peculiar animated short about nefarious doin's at a house of worship. This seems to have perhaps been this Bulgarian short, based on the closing credits, which makes it all the more peculiar.


• Boys Beware (1080p; 14:07) is another completely gonzo piece, this one more of a PSA warning young males about interacting with strangers. This was produced by the Pasadena Police Department, which conceivably means your tax dollars paid for it.


• Torrid Trailers (1080p; various) offers an over the top assortment of coming attractions.

Satanis: The Devil's Mass Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Lavey comes across as a rather soft spoken, thoughtful person in his interviews, but the rituals shown here may provoke unbridled laughter in many. Some of the best moments here are the tangential assessments of Lavey's neighbors. Technical merits aren't going to set any hearts on fire (that's what Satan if for!), but they're arguably a step up from the old DVD.