Satanis: The Devil's Mass
Inside LaVey’s black-painted home, robed followers perform ceremonies built from theatrical blasphemy, nudity, and ritual spectacle. Interviews with the church’s founder, its congregation, nearby residents, and Christian opponents capture Satanism as both emerging religion and calculated provocation. The unseen and unbelievable exposé on Anton LaVey, America's favorite leader of the Church of Satan. Feeling like a bedtime story as told by Kenneth Anger and Russ Meyer, this is a wild glimpse into the witches, black masses, and sex lives that built San Francisco’s most infamous cult. From LaVey’s daughter ("I think they're nuts!") to a nude woman who performs a satanic rite with a Boa constrictor, you’ll meet numerous proto-goths, midnight maniacs, and daytime Draculas—and even a pet tiger named Togare! In the words of LaVey, “There is a beast in man that should be exercised, not exorcised!” The film is a study of Anton Szandor LaVey, leader of a cult of devil worshipers in San Francisco. He and his Church of Satan are shown performing a black mass, in which a nude woman serves as an altar and a boa constrictor wraps itself around a naked witch. Newsreel footage is included in which LaVey's neighbors are interviewed about the lion which he kept in his house until complaints resulted in the animal's removal to a zoo. The ideology of the Church of Satan is discussed--guilt rejection, sexual freedom, and self-indulgence. A documentary that takes a look inside the Church of Satan, founded in San Francisco, California in the 1960s by Anton Szandor LaVey, a former circus lion tamer.
