Content area
Full Text
Fry, Carrol L. Cinema of the Occult: New Age, Satanism, Wicca, and Spiritualism in Film. Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 2008. 301 pp. Cloth. ISBN 978-0-934223-95-9. $59.50.
Incorporating discussion of over 150 film titles, Carrol L. Fry's Cinema of the Occult features the author's wry wit, accomplished scholarship, and critical/analytical expertise as he delves into how scriptwriters and filmmakers have mined the tenets of various non-traditional religions for their stories. The result is a book offering an in-depth glance into the beliefs undergirding these religious traditions whose breadth and clear exposition should be met with favor. Fry's extensive examination of many of the films utilizing these beliefs additionally provides the cinaste with a multistage rubric with which to view, and react to, the works.
An outgrowth of the author's numerous public radio documentaries focusing upon new religious movements and communal societies, this book is organized into six chapters. The opening chapter discusses the place of occultism in the Western world and the significance of such beliefs in establishing a filmgoer's willing suspension of disbelief. Fry warns us, however, that when these alternative beliefs surface in the cinema, "The portrayal of the occult path is often inexact, usually an extrapolation of its potential to establish sensational plots rather than a totally correct representation" (18). He then goes on to develop the foundation utilized throughout his discussion, identifying three elements that repeatedly surface throughout these titles: ( 1 ) a cautionary tale suggesting the occult practice is dangerous, or a straightforward moral caution regarding the occult; (2) a doubter or scoffer who must be convinced of the existence of the occult path within the narrative; and (3) a lecture by one of the characters that establishes the occult frame of reference, or rules of the game, for the story.
With these fundamentals identified, Fry goes on to devote complete chapters to New Age, Satanic, Wiccan, and Spiritualist schools of thought before his comparatively brief (but no less incisive) inclusion of Voodoo, Incubus/Succubi and Entities, and Space Gods and Messiahs in his concluding chapter. Each of these chapters begins with a comprehensive examination of the alternative religion focused...