Book Reviews: Carole - Cusack@ Sydney - Edu.au

International Journal for the Study of New Religions 4.
1 (2013) 283–285
ISSN 2041-9511 (print) ISSN 2041-952X (online)
doi:10.1558/ijsnr.v4i1.283
Book Reviews
Cinema of the Occult: New Age, Satanism, Wicca, and Spiritualism in Film,
by Carrol L. Fry. Bethlehem. Lehigh University Press, 2008. 301pp., hb.,
$62.50/ £39.95. ISBN-13: 9780934223959.
Reviewed by Carole M. Cusack, University of Sydney, carole.cusack@

sydney.edu.au
Keywords
religion, film, Satanism, occult, Spiritualism, Wicca, New Age
Carrol L. Fry’s monograph is entertaining, though reasonably undemanding,
to read and will be appreciated particularly by undergraduate students in
courses on religion and film, religion and television, religion and popular cul-
ture, and—to a lesser extent—students of Western esotericism, Paganism and
occult traditions. The book’s first chapter, “Introduction: ‘A Sound Magician
Is a Mighty God’: The Occult in Western Civilization” opens with the Chris-
tian rejection of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, which is then linked
to contemporary New Atheism. Fry argues that, between the Christian faith
and Atheism, there lies a vast ocean of faiths and religions, a sub-group of
which he terms “occult.” What follows is a rapid sketch of the various forms
of occult (hidden or esoteric) traditions in the history of the West (Hermes
Trismegistus, Kabbalah, Christopher Marlowe’s Dr Faustus, the Fox sisters
and Spiritualism, Madame Blavatsky and Theosophy, Nazi occultists, and
Gerald Gardner and Wicca), and a brief sketch of some films that feature
some Nazi occult motifs, including George Lucas’s Indiana Jones trilogy. The
remainder of the book is organized in four quite lengthy chapters, with a
brief conclusion rounding it out.
Fry’s liking for “arty” titles is evident in Chapter 2, titled “‘It is the dawn-
ing’: The New Age in Film,” which begins with the hippie musical Hair (the
chapter’s title is a line from “Age of Aquarius,” one of the more famous songs
from it), and moves to the fascination that America and the West in general
has exhibited for the East since the nineteenth century, from the Transcen-
dentalists to the Beatles and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The pattern of every
chapter is that Fry reviews some of the scholarly literature on the subject to
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2013, Unit S3, Kelham House, 3 Lancaster Street, Sheffied S3 8AF
284 Book Reviews
hand (in this case, the New Age), then the bulk of the chapter consists of
plot summaries of films, with certain motifs highlighted and linked back to
the scholarship in a general fashion. Films described in this chapter include
George Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy, unorthodox Christian examples like Dogma
(1999) and Stigmata (1999), reincarnation films like On a Clear Day (1970)
and Birth (2004), films featuring clairvoyants and psychics, like Powder
(1995) and The Gift (2000), films with themes of nature veneration like Nell
(1994) and Princess Mononoke (1997), and a raft of films featuring angels,
chiefly Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire (1987). The plots are passed over in
near-breathless haste, which renders the analysis superficial.
Chapter 3, “Sign, Symbol and Primal Fears in the Satanic Film,” proceeds
in a similar fashion. Satanism is set in the context of the Biblical religions,
described as an aristocratic pastime in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies, and the founding of Anton La Vey’s New Church of Satan in the
1960s is described. The Black Mass, conservative Christian denunciations of
Satanism, and the palpable lack of physical evidence for Satanic abuse of any
kind are sketched. The clutch of films that Fry labels “Satanic” are of varying
quality, and grouped under a number of rubrics. These include “The Devil’s
Advocates,” “The Antichrist in Film,” “Possession and Exorcism Themes,”
“The Faust Story in Film,” and “Crises of Belief in the Satanic Film.” The
films discussed are a motley bunch, from the early Satanic “cult” film The
Black Cat (1934), through Roman Polanski’s stylish The Ninth Gate (1999),
to classic treatments such as Rosemary’s Baby (1968), also by Roman Polanski,
the quartet of films that commenced with Robert Donner’s The Omen (1976),
and the equally famous quartet that commenced with William Friedkin’s The
Exorcist (1973). The description of the films is occasionally insightful, and
considers issues such as the portrayal of secret Satanic groups in modern cul-
ture, and the question of whether such films are “true horror films” (144),
an accolade that Fry accords Alan Parker’s Angel Heart (1987). There is some
consideration of the comic devil in films, and more general horror films, such
as the Hallowe’en and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises.
Chapter 3, “Season of the Witch,” considers Wicca in film, presenting a
reasonably accurate profile of the religion, then surveying witches in film
from The Crucible (1996), the film version of Arthur Miller’s celebrated play
about the seventeenth century Salem witch trials to various demonic and
misogynist portrayals of witches, like Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) and
Inferno (1980). Possibly the best and most detailed section of the book is the
extended discussion of Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973) and George A.
Romero’s Season of the Witch (1972), two films that have been well-received
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2013

Book Reviews 285
by Wiccans and Pagans, despite being able to be read as critiques of the occult
(as both directors have stated). The remainder of the chapter is a tour through
a series of witchcraft films, such as The Craft (1996), The Witches of Eastwick
(1987), and Practical Magic (1998). Chapter 4, “‘I See dead people’: Spiritu-
alism in Film” opens with a discussion of the Fox sisters and the emergence of
Spiritualism in the 1850s, and considers a range of films that deal with ghosts
who are active in the world of humans, both benevolent and malevolent.
There is also a consideration of the Japanese Ringu films and their Hollywood
adaptations, Steven Spielberg’s Poltergeist films, and haunted house examples
like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) and comedy spiritualist films such
as Ghostbusters (1984).
The brief conclusion is tellingly titled “‘This rough magic I here abjure,’”
quoting Prospero, the enchanter in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. This chapter
examines zombie motifs in films that deal with voodoo, incubus and succu-
bus motifs in The Entity (1981) and alien messiahs in the seminal early Rob-
ert Wise film The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A
Space Odyssey (1968), and John Sayles’ low-budget The Brother From Another
Planet (1984). The conclusion is perfunctory; Fry attempts to balance the
enduring popularity of the occult in film and popular media with Prospero’s
admission that magic should be abjured, surely a nod to the mainstream
Christian excoriation of such motifs. Cinema of the Occult is a strange and
mostly disappointing book; the content promises much but the execution is
too general and descriptive to satisfy the academic reader.
© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2013

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International Journal for the Study of New Religions 4.

Reviewed by Carole M. Cusack, University of Sydney, carole.cusack@

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2013

© Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2013

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