Customer Reviews

The Satanic Screen: An Illustrated Guide to the Devil in Cinema

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

"The Satanic Screen" is an exhaustively researched, yet non-didactic examination on depictions of the Hoofed One in Cinema. Schreck is a purported Satanist, so he finds a great deal of material on his icon lacking. According to the author, Satan/Lucifer is a bringer of light and knowledge, so therefore he finds much of the Satanic cinema lacking. He applauds the depiction of devil worshipers in "Rosemary's Baby" (who condone rape, mayhem and murder) but decries the reactionary tone of "The Exorcist." The book remains fascinating. I didn't realize that Terrence Fisher's creaky "The Devil Rides Out" (1966) to be so authoritative or that Lugosi and Karloff's "The Black Cat (1934) was based on an incident involving The Great Fraud Aleister Crowley. The book flows very well, beautifully written, and although many can't share the author's worldview it makes for fascinating reading.

This book has been unfairly rated and reviewed for what is it. The author presents a well researched and often pompous reviews of the history of satanic references in film.
I bought this book for that exact reason, to study this history of Satan (as in the satanic form) in film. Who better to write such a book than a satanist? Of course the philosophy of the satanist is quite different than your average author, and this is definatelty made clear in this book. I can see how the average reader who was looking to simply find a nicely reviewed book on the subject would get offended in reading this book, but all I have to say is that his research into the black arts is entirely accurate, which I can't say for most of the films that have satanic origins.
Don't shoot the messenger. This book does exactly what it promises.

This book is a great history compilation of Satanic Films from a variety of Artists. A Must for any Satanic library.

I just wish to state that I love this book. I borrowed it from the National Library in Reykjavik City and it's main department , and I fell immediately in love with it.
This book has transformed my understanding of the nature of early 20th century horror movies from base level and that understanding of that subject is always changing. Satanism has become an unmisseable part of the development of western civilization and in this book it is explained how cinematography evolved in the concept of Satan and the 18th century Parisian's ideas about bringing Satan or the Devil as perceived by the superstitious folklore of the New Testament to what was then the big screen.
The descriptions of only the few 10 pages I have begun reading so far took me back into time and further and further into the 19th and past centuries as cinematography evolved.
The one starer critiques of the Satanic Screen by Nicholas Shreck are in my view seriously retarded and should be reevaluated by those who composed them.
For without this book our understanding of exactly how 20th century 'cinematographic black magick'began , would perhaps be in vain.
I had an incomplete picture about the nature of movie history and have had throughout most of my life until I began to read this book which was this morning. I immediately sensed that there was a truth that was being covered as a subject which my own generation had covered up and which was one of those conspiarcies we can easily orchestrate against each other without any need for political gain or government involvement of any kind at all.
The Satanic Screen presents the emotional lives and struggles of the heroes and antiheroes of early 20th century cinema until the late 1990's and the famous film the Ninth Gate and even Faust from 1994 which I have highlighted upon in one of my amazon.com reviews.
I have asked amazon.com previously to reprint the brilliant book Dark Moon , which was done. Now I ask amazon.com to reprint this book , which I think will absolutely be done. Perhaps the one star reviewers wanted this book to be big and thick , maybe something like 950 plus pages , but the honest fact is that the book is perfectly well suited in terms of size and information and it's author has no need to make it's text better. I felt surprised by the text of Nicholas Shreck and am of course forced to compare it to the highly evolving text of the work of Peter H. Gilmore , even though I do not agree with mr. Gilmore when it comes to our views on the nature and meaning of some things or topics.
The Satanic Screen is a truly fascinating book and a brilliant masterpiece and reading it today makes one immediately want to go back into time to the early 1990's and beyound and to witness the cinetagrophic transformations that have taken place over the past years. I remember what it was like to see the Ninth Gate and the Devil's Advocate on the big screen where the Devil's Advocate took on lawyers and the Ninth Gate took on bankers. And boy , it was fun! I had no need to immerse myself in some kind of reality or somebody's fantasy when I viewed those brilliant movies - I just saw them , lived myself in their worlds , and then dropped out of their fantasies as things moved on. I wish to seriously advise the visitor to the Satanic Screen's amazon.com page , to buy the book or at least , rent it at a local library or get it from someone who has it. If there is anybody out there who owns a copy of this book and who would like to get rid of the copy and provided the copy is well preserved , please let me know! I'd be more than happy to buy it at fair prize of between one to 20 plus USD. It is extremely difficult to write a historical analysis such as this book , and there are many multi - faceted reasons for why. So do not think that the author intended to compose it in a hurry.
This is a serious analysis of not only cinetagrophic history but twentieth - century human history per ce , and even the history of the development of the western mind as the Age of Suffering continued to move on and it's decades expanded into new corners in movie making.
Nicholas Shreck's analysis of Aleister Crowley is in my view far more patience - filled than that of Peter H. Gilmore.
Bravo! Hurray for Nicholas Shreck! Please write a new book on the Devil in the cinetatographic works of the early 2000's to today!
Or perhaps it should be delayed and done instead in 2020!

You can expect this excellent book by the author of the famous,out of print "THE MANSON FILE'',to be as in demand in fifteen years as ''FILE'' is now. Schreck gives a thorough, intelligent look at the subject, going all the way back to the silent, Faustian epic "THE STUDENT OF PRAGUE"(1913)to Polanski's latest,"THE NINTH GATE"(1999). More film writers should take a lesson or two from Schreck. I would place this fine book right up there with Carlos Clarens classic horror film study and Phil Hardys exhaustive tome on the subject.......It's good to have Schreck writing again!

This dreary book is more a study of satanism (rather than a study of the devil as a screen character) and simply fails to engage the serious film enthusiast unless he enjoys Schreck's self professed satanic beliefs. If you want a study of satanism, then give it a try, but if you are looking for a legitimate film study of satanism, look elsewhere.

This book is supposed to cover the devil as covered in motion pictures,but many of the films are not related to the devil or the devil does not appear. The author's real subject is Satanism, and it is misleading that it is marketed as a serious film stidy, which it is not. There are other books that cover the devil in films with far more class, insight, wit and knowledge, such as published by McFarland. Seek them out and skip this turkey.

Listen well, scholars:

Nikolas Schreck, like so many "writers" today with no talent of their own, feeds off of the inspiration, originality and sweat equity of others. Schreck depends on compilations of other people's works, adding nothing new. Were I Charlie M., I'd be a little pissed that he had launched his career on my back and giving nothing in return. He, Aquino, and Flowers owe their identities to Anton LaVey, yet feign blindness to his brilliance, lest they pale by comparison to the truly creative spirit of LaVey. Schreck's writing is about as insightful as his music--NOT! He adds nothing to the body of work already in place on Satanism in the cinema.

Open wide the gates of Hell, and toss the bum out!
Hugo