Satan Wants You: How a Bad Book Launched the Satanic Panic
By Liam Lacey
Rating: B-
The documentary Satan Wants You looks back at a pathological streak in ‘80s pop culture, the Satanic Panic, a mania which led to thousands of pointless criminal investigations of ritual abuse, unjust prosecutions, and untold hours of tabloid television time. One weird fact: This is a largely Canadian story, though not a proud one. And in any case, pride is considered by many the greatest of sins.
The film, by Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor (they made the Ugandan gay refugee documentary Someone Like Me) is specifically about the influence of the 1980 bestseller, Michelle Remembers.
Co-authored by Victoria, B.C.-based psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his subject and eventual wife, Michelle Smith, the book recounted therapy sessions in which Michelle “remembered” being subjected to Satanic abuse as a child. These included an 81-day marathon ritual, before she was eventually saved by a French-speaking Virgin Mary.
Michelle’s story was patently absurd but… but…. apparently, irresistible to the media. She became, according to podcaster Sarah Marshall, Patient Zero in the Satanic craze, with law enforcement treating her account as a textbook on Satanic abuse investigations.
The most notorious of these was the McMartin daycare trial, which lasted seven years, involved hundreds of charges of sexual abuse, and led to no convictions.
The doc is in the popular, borderline schlocky television news magazine style, teasing out – longer than necessary - the possibility that Michelle’s story might be plausible. There’s a lot of overly dramatic music, sobbing audio clips gleaned from therapy sessions, and a few shadowy re-enactments.
There are TV clips from ‘80s television, with hosts like Maury Povich showing tabloid glee shock or serious newscasters like Barbara Frum demonstrating furrowed brow concern.
Along with podcaster Marshall, we get perspectives from retired Wiccan policeman Charles Ennis and Church of Satan spokesperson Blanche Barton. Lawrence Pazder’s first wife, Marilyn, and their daughter, Theresa, reverse the supposition that this was simply an example of psychiatric malpractice by portraying the psychiatrist as a victim of stalker Michelle.
On the conventional front, there’s testimony from Ken Lanning, a retired FBI agent who is a regular media go-to person on accounts of the Satanic Panic. Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus is introduced here simply as “Elizabeth Loftus, PhD,” without establishing that she’s a key figure in the study of false memories and important critic of so-called recovered memory therapy.
By focusing on the book Michelle Remembers over its 89 minutes, the film skimps on useful context, and how well the ground for the ‘80s Satanic Panic had been well-prepared. As Richard Beck’s 2017 book, We Believe the Children recounts, child abuse, both physical and sexual, became an important emerging area of concern in the post-war years.
Along with a rise in Christian fundamentalism, there was a pervasive fascination with cults and demonism from the late-60s through the seventies: Anton LaVey’s Christian-baiting organization, the Church of Satan, the Manson killings, the novel and blockbuster film, The Exorcist, and other less successful Satanic childhood memoirs.
A key precursor was the discredited book, Sybil (1973) and subsequent hit television miniseries, which also dealt with ritualistic child abuse. Most significantly, Sybil popularized the suspect notions of recovered memory and “dissociative identity disorder,” or multiple personalities, which remain staple elements of pop psychology.
Though the Satanic Panic was over by the mid-90s for lack of evidence, the majority of Americans continued to believe that the devil is out to get us.
A Gallup poll in 2001 indicated that 68 percent of Americans believed in the devil, and another 12 percent were on the fence. The ‘80s Satanic Panic didn’t die, but lay dormant until it was revived by Q-Anon conspiracists, who await the moment when Donald Trump orders the mass execution of the cabal of blood-drinking celebrity pedophiles that rule our world.
If there’s one useful lesson to be extracted from Satan Wants You, it’s that, like the mythical Satan, crazy never quits.
Satan Wants You. Directed by Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor. Opens in Toronto at the Hot Docs Cinema, August 10-18; The Fox Theatre, Aug. 11,12,15; Victoria: The Vic Theatre, Aug. 11, 13, 15, 16. Vancouver: The Rio Theatre: Aug. 13; VIFF Theatre, Aug. 11, 12, 13, 15,16, 22, Ottawa: ByTown Cinema, Aug 11, 14, 15. Edmonton: Metro Cinema, Aug. 13, 15.