Hail Satan? (2019) - Movie Review

In my time perusing social media and the many places where the unseen masses congregate to share their views, I have realised a fairly simple equation: The more that a person points the finger at someone for being a Satanist, the less they actually know about what Satanism actually is. Anyone in the mood for a good laugh (and still has the strength of will to use Twitter) should go and check the Church of Satan’s Twitter account, where there are daily iterations of people taking the time to lash out at the Church, while not using a fraction of that time to do some basic Q&A reading so that they know what they’re angry against.

It’s one of those aspects of the modern understanding of religion that always tickles me, and it’s what immediately drew me to checking this documentary out. A chronicle of the Satanic Temple, the more politically-minded side of Satanist doctrine that is more interested in activism than metaphysics, the depiction we are given is one that takes into account the common misconceptions about the movement and, with a devilishly cheeky grin, dispels a lot of the more frequent myths surrounding it.

The bulk of those preconceptions, and indeed a focal point for the movement itself, is based on the Satanic Panic of the 80’s and 90’s. Basically, it was the notion that if a person was into things like Dungeons & Dragons, heavy metal music, horror movies, or basically anything fun, they were also a cultist who sacrificed babies in their spare time. It was and will always be alarmist nonsense, the kind of which always seems to pop back up every so often in the popular consciousness (looking at you, mass media circus surrounding Joker), but it speaks to the mindset behind the people who do the ‘Satanist’ labelling.

What it boils down to is the notion that anything that is not Christian, that is not “good”, that does not conform to the ‘sane majority’, is inherently Satanist. And as shown in this film, that wide net encompasses a lot of progressive politics like medical autonomy, freedom of religion, freedom from religion, freedom of speech, and the state not playing favourites in regards to whose faith is valid enough to be preached. Oh, and erecting monuments, because for some reason, effigies of stone seem to matter more to some people than flesh and blood.

Some may reject the notion of Satanism as just atheism in black robes, or that they’re just trolls looking for kicks. Like most things, both of those statements are technically accurate but also simplistic to the point of being dishonest by omission. It is true that the adopting of Satan as a symbolic figurehead is largely a bold-faced ‘fuck you’ to Christians who see Satan as the embodiment of everything they don’t like, but it goes a bit deeper than that. If advocating for human rights is enough to branded as being in league with the evil to end all evil… then maybe what’s “good” ain’t as good as it claims to be. Why not wear that with pride if you’re actively fighting against that level of moralistic bullshittery?

And at the end of the day, it all comes down to a series of questions. Why is it that, in a country that only retroactively considers itself to be founded on Christian values, the showings of any other religion are seen as evil? Why are the loudest edges of the debate surrounding freedom of religion focused entirely on ensuring the sanctity of one religion: Their own? Why is it okay for Christians to protest against what they view as immoral, and yet Satanists advocating for control and maintenance of their own bodies get threatened by the populace, the media and even the state? (Non-violent protest being met with threats of violence; Extinction Rebellion, anyone?)

It is, at its core, a group that want to maintain the separation of church and state and poke at the self-ascribed righteousness of the religious right. It is absurdist, it is satire, it is quite humourous in a lot of ways, but above all, it is necessary. Beyond purely setting things straight about what others view the movement to be, and how their objections only end up adding to the group’s armour in regards to religious hypocrisy, the case it makes for the necessity of these movements, these groups, these people and their mission to maintain religious pluralism makes sense. If faith and belief are such empowering and requisite ideas, why should Christians be the only ones to appreciate them openly?

Maybe it’s just my own fascination with matters of theology and ‘the other’, or maybe it’s because of my own philosophical background (in lieu of a navel-gazing paragraph about the origin of my pen name, let’s just say I have my own issues with the use of Satan as a scapegoat for the actions of others), but I see a lot of merit in this documentary, both as entertainment and as political manifesto. I seriously doubt that the people who would most benefit from learning more about the movement (read: the aforementioned people who are most likely to shout “Satanist” at the drop of a hat) will go anywhere near this thing, but for those willing to learn or just looking to satisfy their curiosity, it’s a quite fulfilling piece of cinema.