#The Satanic Panic of the 1980s

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

𝔖𝔞𝔱𝔞𝔫𝔦𝔠 𝔓𝔞𝔫𝔦𝔠: 𝔚𝔞𝔯 𝔒𝔫 ℌ𝔢𝔞𝔳𝔶 𝔐𝔢𝔱𝔞𝔩 𝔦𝔫 յգՑօ’𝔰

[interstellar-elf]

Of all the things that would come back, Y2K was my least expected pick for 2024

[catgirl-kaiju]

1980s santanic panic propaganda be like

"d & d... is it dungeons and dragons? or is it dicks & drugs?"

[arconinternet]

Skullduggery (Video, 1983)

You can watch this strange horror film made during the Dungeons & Dragons moral panic here.

You can watch Noah Antwiler's review of it here.

[lycrabustier]

None of these men ever worshipped anything more than a bag of Fritos, a sixer of Bud Dry, and the Superbowl.

[ohfugecannada]

Getting into D&D in the 70s/80s after hearing about it through the satanic panic controversy must’ve been so funny.

Like, imagine your some edge-lord, occult-obsessed goth teenager or early twenty-something in the 1980s, and you hear the rumours about this game that can summon demons, drive people to commit murder and/or kill themselves and was trying to get banned by pearl-clutching Christian parents across the nation. Like the Ouijia board on steroids. So of course you want in on that super fucked up hardcore demonic occult shit, you sign up for the nearest D&D group in your area, you show up, and then it’s just. A bunch of dorky fantasy nerds playing a board game where they act out an off-brand Lord of the Rings story with occasional dice rolls and improv comedy.

[pluto-bringer-of-gloom]

You're metal's chosen warrior!

[whimsycore]

Y’all ever notice how these weirdo conservatives will go after any and all childrens media to heavily sanitize but they RARELY say anything about adult media? You’re out here watching 365 days, Riverdale and Game of Thrones but your kids can’t watch hocus pocus, turning red, or gravity falls?

[dijidweeeb]

Documentary: What was the Satanic Panic? (2020)

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

𝔖𝔞𝔱𝔞𝔫𝔦𝔠 𝔓𝔞𝔫𝔦𝔠: 𝔚𝔞𝔯 𝔒𝔫 ℌ𝔢𝔞𝔳𝔶 𝔐𝔢𝔱𝔞𝔩 𝔦𝔫 յգՑօ’𝔰

[luciferjeremywhite]

From Lucifer's Notebook: Part Four -

Lucifer Jeremy White

[maykitz]

you're telling me the current moral panic is stupid and wrong and a smokescreen for evangelical violence just because the last one was? and the one before that? and the one before that? and the one before that? and the one before- well, let's see what a survivor of satanic cult ritual abuse at a 1980s daycare, peonmi yark, has to say to that

[arconinternet]

Hell's Bells: The Dangers of Rock 'N' Roll (Videos, 1989)

The Christian anti-rock-n-roll documentary. You can watch it here.

[undreaming-fanfiction]

My Blessing

Back when Eddie was still human, he used to think it would be incredibly cool to be a vampire. Child of the night, Nosferatu, all that stuff from his beloved books. He would be untouchable and the people who wanted to hurt him just for being different would wither away and die of old age while he'd still be the same. Maybe he'd visit them in their dying hour and sneer at them, taunt them as they were about to see what awaits beyond. All of that used to sound so good.

As he's learned during last 80-ish years, being a vampire sucks (no pun intended).

He sees it all. World wars. AIDS epidemic. Satanic panic. More and more pain, people wasting away before his eyes. The music is cool, but he wonders if he'll grow tired of it all. Eddie is still young, he doesn't want to believe that this is all there is. But each year, each decade makes him more and more hopeless.

And he's so, so lonely. He still has Wayne, his vampire uncle (he categorically denies the term "father" or "maker"), but he sometimes too resigned, too used to all the pain and violence. He doesn't know many other vampires and making any sort of a connection with a human is painful to think about. People are so fragile.

He's always loved turning into a bat and just flying around the city, avoiding the curious eyes of humans and finding lone vantage points, observing the night life on the streets. One of his favorite spots is on top of the Harrington bank, a building from the 1920s with old bronze statues and old, tall windows. He started visiting the ledge in late 1980s, sometimes spending the entire night there. He'd land on the ledge and turn back to his real form, plopping down next to a statue of a young man. It's so human-like, Eddie forgets it's just an object, a piece of art, and talks to it. He tells it about the stuff that has been happening in the world, all that's fucked up but also the good things, how he saw a group of girls chasing away a stalker of a random lady, a homeless guy giving his last few bites to a stray dog. How a kid he used to know in the 80s is now all grown up and has children of his own. He sometimes wonders who made the statue, but there is no signature, no mark, just that pretty face looking down at the street, lost in thought.

It's on a stormy night in 2022 that it happens. Eddie lands in his favorite spot, lights up a cigarette (immortal lungs are a great thing to have) and talks to the statue, as always. Tells it how he actually wrote a novel and got it published, summers are long and the daylight doesn't kill him but it sure hurts, rambles about how he got Wayne his first flannel shirt and it was love at the first sight. The rain is thick, heavy, but Eddie likes it, it makes him feel a bit more alive. He hears thunder, closer and closer, but the lightning is probably somewhere behind him, he doesn't see it.

That is, until it hits the statue, and Eddie panics because sure, it was just an object, but it was like his friend, it was a constant in his life, what is he going to do-

And then the statue straightens its spine and groans.

Eddie's cigarette falls somewhere into the streets and burns a hole in the umbrella of a lady bitching about the undeserved help provided to the poor. Not that he notices. His eyes are glued to the statue that stretches its arms and runs its fingers through the thick hair that suddenly has color, a sun-kissed brown, and then it turns to Eddie and smiles.

"Oh finally, I was waiting for ages to introduce myself. Hi. Thanks for keeping me company all those years. I'm Steve. Steve Harrington."

Eddie shakes the offered hand in daze and mutters "Eddie, Eddie Munson" before promptly turning into a bat and...what? Does he want to run away? Does he want to shriek his little heart out and never come back? Probably not. Not with Steve smiling at him like he's the best thing in the whole world. So he just lands on Steve's outstretched hand and squeaks "Still Eddie Munson, only pocket size."

And Steve, bless his heart - does he have one? Do statues have hearts? - just laughs and tucks Eddie under his old-fashioned jacket to protect him from the rain. "Oh, I know. The first time you landed here and turned back, I thought I'd finally gone crazy."

He opens a window behind them and climbs inside with Eddie, a window that's always been dark, the only dark room in the whole building. And then they talk. Well, Steve does.

That's when Eddie learns the room is Steve's, preserved, stocked and cleaned throughout the decades. That he's the only son of the founder of the bank, Richard Harrington, now fortunately long dead and burning in hell. That even before the Great Depression hit, the bank was facing difficulties and Richard Harrington decided to make a deal with...something. Something ancient and lurking in New York, something feeding off the misery of people living there.

That's when Eddie learns that Richard Harrington offered his only son to preserve his fortune.

He just stares as Steve shrugs, retelling his story as if it was no big deal, finding a change of clothes for both of them in a huge closet full of things both old and new, a strange blend of fashion spanning last century. "It was a deal for one hundred years. One hundred years of prosperity for one hundred years of...that. I guess my father felt a little bit guilty afterwards because he included in his will that I'd always have a place to come back to. This room. And some financial security too, that's what he'd said before he passed away. He used to talk to me through that window sometimes, after my mother drank herself to death."

"Uhhh." Edward Munson, ever the eloquent fantasy book author, has nothing better to say.

He turns back to Eddie, smiling at him and offering a black t-shirt. "I don't think he knew I could hear him, that I heard and saw everything. Still, nice to know he cared...as much as he was humanly able to." The smile doesn't falter as he adds: "I don't want to sound pushy, but maybe you should turn back to change clothes? You're still wet."

And oh, Eddie is still a bat. Yep. With a sound that sounds like a plop, he transforms back and takes the t-shirt. "Thank you. Steve. Uh. That's  fucked up, man," he offers lamely.

"Oh yeah, it sucked. Well, used to," he nudges Eddie, tossing him a towel when he sees his hair dripping on the floor. "But then you started showing up. Talking to me." Now his smile is slightly smaller, sad, and Eddie wants to visit Richard Harrington's grave and punch his remains, build them into a bird feeder, revive the asshole and kill him again. "It was just...so lonely. I had no way of telling you, but when you started visiting and just, kept showing up, almost every day, it felt like a blessing."

Eddie swallows, his throat suddenly dry. "A blessing?"

"Yeah." Steve turns to him and the sincerity in his eyes is so intense Eddie feels like turning into a bat again and flying in circles, shrieking into the night. "You were my blessing, Eddie," he says as he squeezes his hand.

And Eddie just stares, his undead heart breaking for this boy, cursed just as horribly if not worse than he is. "You know I'm not...not human, right?" he whispers but his hand doesn't leave Steve's. "I guess you can probably tell from the bat thing, or that I'm literally the room temperature-"

"-or the fact that you once told me that it's a shame I'm not alive because I look delicious and you're sure my blood would be too," add Steve with a mischievous smirk.

"Uh. Shit, yeah. That too," Eddie stutters, trying to recall all the embarrassing stuff he told Steve during the last thirty or so years. "That...doesn't bother you?"

Steve snorts in laughter and shakes his head. "You literally thought I was a piece of bronze an hour ago, man. Does that bother you? Did you prefer me when I didn't talk?"

Eddie scoffs at that, offended. "Hell no. You were just a pretty face, but now you're a pretty face with a ton of personality. I...you know, you were my blessing too, I think. Even if you couldn't answer, I didn't feel as much alone next to you. Is that weird to say?" 

The squeeze of Steve's fingers gives him the answer he needs, but he still melts inside when he hears "not at all. I just hope you won't get bored of me now that I'm...different," he whispers, staring at their joined fingers. "You'll probably find me boring. I don't know much about what's going on outside. I could watch and you told me a lot, but...uh. The world seems so hectic and fast-paced, it will probably take me a while to catch up."

And Eddie has to laugh because that worry is so strange to hear voiced out loud, as if Steve being alive, breathing and next to him, as if that made him something less. "Oh just you wait, Steve. You spent over thirty years listening to me ramble, now I'm expecting at least thirty years of your monologues so we can be even. You know my dirtiest secrets now and I'm a man with a thirst for knowledge. Really," he adds because the young man next to him is still silent, "you have nothing to worry about. I've kept you company and you have done the same for me...and it works for us. So what's a little confusion about these modern days? Come on pretty boy. I will be your guide."

Steve gives him a smile that is so radiant Eddie thinks it should hurt, it should burn him like a torch, but it's just warm. Kind. "I can work with that."

Steve is the only human Eddie ever turns. He expects to agonize over it for much longer, to feel guilty, but Steve has already lived longer than he has and he still has thirst for life that is infectious, something that drives Eddie to join him, try new things, not mourn what is lost to time but be thankful that he has the chance to see it all. He finally wants to participate, to join the world again, not just observe it.

The first time Steve turns to a bat, he ends up flying in circles in absolute ecstasy, laughing and making the weirdest somersaults and loops. Eddie could watch him forever and the best part is - he can. And he does.

But before all that, Eddie brings Steve to see Wayne, to introduce him to his only family. Wayne shakes his hand and gruffly laughs: "Well, look at that. My boy has finally moved on from that statue."

Without missing a beat, Steve smiles at him and announces "oh not at all, sir. I'm the statue."

Eddie has some explaining to do, but for now, he just laughs.

[bitter69uk]

Recently watched: MaXXXine (2024). Tagline: “She’s gonna be a star no matter what it takes!” MaXXXine, of course, represents the hotly anticipated concluding chapter of the juicy elevated horror trilogy beginning with X (2022) and the prequel Pearl (2022) by director Ti West and leading lady Mia Goth. I’ve been yearning to see this one for what felt like an eternity. Its trailer (soundtracked by the Laura Branigan classic “Self-Control”) was so tantalizing it tormented me! We watched MaXXXine last weekend and it was - OK! I felt like I was willing it to be better. Of the three films, MaXXXine is definitely the slightest and flimsiest entry. Maybe my expectations were unrealistically high and the remarkable Pearl (which I consider a modern masterwork) set an impossibly high bar for this follow-up. Anyway, there is still much to enjoy. Set in 1985 Los Angeles, MaXXXine unfolds against a backdrop of satanic panic paranoia, the rise of Tipper Gore’s censorious Parents Music Resource Centre, Ronald Reagan’s presidency and the Night Stalker’s reign of terror. Goth returns as driven, burning-with-ambition porn starlet Maxine Minx. Now 33, she knows it’s now or never if she’s ever going to transition from skin flicks into legit cinema (well, a low-budget slasher movie entitled Puritan II in this case). “In this industry, women age like bread not wine” she laments. But just as stardom finally seems within Maxine’s grasp, her friends start getting gruesomely picked-off one by one by a serial killer … MaXXXine boasts an authentically scuzzy, grungy discount bin VHS vibe. The soundtrack pumps with 80s tunes (ZZ Top. Frankie Goes to Hollywood. “Obsession” by Animotion. Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes.” John Parr’s theme tune to St Elmo’s Fire. And yes, Laura Branigan). Aficionados of 1980s trash cinema will revel in West’s references to the likes of Savage Streets (1984), Brian De Palma’s Body Double (1984), Vice Academy (1989), Angel (1984) and Avenging Angel (1985). Goth is a riveting, singular presence and one of THE great actresses currently working (The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw aptly called her the Judy Garland of horror). MaXXXine is a pulpy, grisly down-and-dirty summer thriller – just don’t expect another Pearl!

[transmutationisms]

i wasn't baiting u. seriously i've been reading up on shit and to deny fictions effects is to deny reality. jaws caused the shark decline. rosemarys baby caused the satanic panic. this is common knowledge

ok. this is incorrect in regards to the specific cases you cite and incorrect in general in regards to the outsize causal role you attribute to media products in cultural phenomena. it is fundamentally unserious to assert that the film jaws is 'the' cause of shark population declines when killings of sharks by humans occur the vast majority of the time for reasons like the use of industrial fishing nets; global populations of many animals have declined since jaws for reasons similarly economic and wholly unrelated to it; and people feared sharks long before the release of jaws and have instituted legal protections for the great white, in particular, since then. it is similarly unserious to assert that the film rosemary's baby is 'the' reason usamericans in the 1980s fear-mongered about secret satanic cults committing ritual child abuse when this was a myth deeply useful in shoring up the legal and social power of parents; was copacetic with an overall pro-cop law-and-order attitude picking up steam for many reasons including the wake of the civil rights movement; and was never even believed by most people because it appeared outlandish. again the broader stance here (that media can or has singlehandedly caused massive cultural phenomena arising de novo from those works) is simply an indefensible argument. where do you think these narratives arise from in the first place? what makes them coherent, compelling, and possible to parse as meaningful for audiences? i would suggest reading up on some basic tenets of the base/superstructure relationship and start questioning narratives that make tidy and emotionally compelling arguments about film as an omnipotent and unilateral engine of social change without considering other explanations for the phenomena and data in question, or the factors that lead to the production of cultural artefacts like films in the first place.