Shout at the Devil.
Looking forward to diving into Kier-La Janisse's latest work, Satanic Panic, which she co-edits and contributes to along with a number of other writers, including David Flint and Melbourne's own Alexandra Heller-Nicholas.
Attended the local book launch for Satanic Panic last night at The Backlot Studios. Kier-La gave a great little talk around the book's subject, accompanied by some slides and interesting clips (a few scary, a few hilariously entertaining - some of the them both at once). Satanic Panic looks at the presence and influence of Satan in 1980's pop-culture, everything from Dungeons & Dragons and horror movies to pulp paperback novels and The Smurfs. Not to mention The Parents' Music Resource Center (PMRC) and their campaign against the satanic presence in music, particularly heavy metal. There's also the much more real and darker side, with several gruesome and tragic murder and suicide cases, which at the time were played up as being highly satanic in motivation, rather than looking for any true underliying cause that lay much closer to home.
Following the talk, the audience was treated to a screening of Charles Martin Smith's Trick Or Treat (1986), a horror movie/heavy metal hybrid that was clearly inspired by the backwards masking and hidden messages in music controversy which was then very much in the public eye.
Another cool event by Lee Gambin and the Cinemaniacs gang, and a fitting way to kick-off Halloween weekend.
Ordering details here: http://www.spectacularoptical.ca/.../satanic-panic-pop.../
