Satan is a just metaphor, Anton LaVey was just a man

Badness had nothing to do with it

By PATRICK McCRAY

In the most recent episode of American Horror Story, Church of Satan founder, Anton LaVey, is portrayed as one of the villains, literally worshiping the devil, consorting with the fictitious bad guys, and establishing himself as a force of evil in that supernatural universe.

None of this, of course, is accurate or even tangentially related to reality. LaVey was a lot of things, and there is still alleged controversy over the verisimilitude of his official biography, but the man was a solid atheist, and his books clearly posit Satan as a symbolic figure. One of the cornerstones of Satanism is that individuals are their own sources of salvation and judgment. Ritual is psychodrama meant to purge or focus emotions. Magic is a polite term for the ability to use diplomacy for interpersonal advantage. This is all documented and on the level.

Editor's Note: And then there's this bullshit. 

I have no interest in making you read a love letter to Anton LaVey. But ask more of your horror before letting this pass as acceptable.  Devil worshiping villains are classic go-to‘s in horror entertainment. From The Black Cat to Curse of the Demon, they make entertaining, compelling antagonists. But those are fictional characters, even if inspired by certain real life figures. You don’t have to like Anton LaVey to see that this kind of treatment is beneath the medium. If you have affection for the guy, this is bad enough. If you oppose him, it’s even worse. I like a good attack to be completely rooted in accuracy. If someone wants to depict Harvey Weinstein badly, I want to make sure that the audiences who walk away with negative impressions of him have those impressions based on the many horrible things he really did and said. Because you can and should get away with exposing people who do rotten things. It’s a job of journalism, and if done well, a job of art.

I suspect that some of the justification is a variation of “come on, a guy who puts on horns and a cape and stands in front of inverted pentagrams is not exactly portraying himself as a Boy Scout.”

In other words, because he dresses that way, he’s asking for it? Isn’t that the thinking that would really be behind that sort of attitude? Good luck with that in 2018.

You don’t see Stan Against Evil pulling that one. 

Collinsport News Bulletins

* CHILLER TV is airing an 8-hour marathon of the DARK SHADOWS 1991 "revival" series tomorrow morning, beginning at 9 a.m. EST. The day's episodes begin with the pilot, leading up to episode seven, in which Victoria Winters travels back to the 1790s. Visit CHILLER TV's official schedule for more details.

* Ryan Murphy, the creator of GLEE and AMERICAN HORROR STORY, is a long-time DARK SHADOWS fan. A number of people have sent me a link to a recent interview with him at The Huffington Post, which suggests not everybody is aware of his fan status. "I was obsessed with it as a child," he says of DARK SHADOWS in the interview. "What I really wanted to do was my version of it, where there are creatures, soapy drama, and sex. Believe it or not, I owe my career to my grandmother, who used to make me watch "DARK SHADOWS" as punishment!" Read the entire story HERE.

* An anonymous donation in memory of Jonathan Frid helped underwrite the 1st Annual LET’S BAKE A DIFFERENCE event in Dallas, Texas. The event was described as "an evening of friendship, consideration, education, and caring for others," and brought out almost 400 women from Dallas's Jewish community. Read the entire story HERE.

* Hey, remember the DARK SHADOWS DIARY? When I used to write about DARK SHADOWS on an episode by episode basis? Well, it looks like that's pretty much dead. The weight of juggling the regular website demands AND the podcast pretty much crushed that series. Also, I discovered that watching the show was more fun when I didn't have to file paperwork immediately afterward. The series absolutely had its fans, but I'm not bearing this bad news empty handed. If you want your daily does of DARK SHADOWS episode commentary, let me direct you to DARK SHADOWS EVERYDAY. I think you'll like what you'll find.

Ryan Murphy talks DARK SHADOWS

 

When a familiar cane made an appearance in the last season of AMERICAN HORROR STORY, a lot of people were left wondering if it was an intentional homage or just a happy accident. An interview with the show's creator RYAN MURPHY pretty much puts the mystery to bed, as the writer admits a long-standing love for DARK SHADOWS. Murphy, who also has shows like GLEE and NIP/TUCK on his resume, tells OUT MAGAZINE:

The Church, along with his Dark Shadows-loving grandma, Myrtle, provided Murphy with the heightened reality and grand sense of theater he craved as a pre-pubescent boy.

“Myrtle was the best. Everything I have in my life, in terms of my imagination and my ambition and my drama -- the love of all that -- comes from her 100 precent,” Murphy says. “She put on a lot of makeup and jewelry and loved the color purple, so she wore it every day.” On afternoons, Myrtle would sit her young grandson in front of the TV to watch the paranormal soap opera Dark Shadows “just to toughen me up,” Murphy says. “I went as Barnabas Collins, like, three Halloweens in a row, and my dad was thrilled because it was the first time I wanted to be a boy; I usually wanted to be a witch or something like that.”

You can read the entire interview is online HERE.

American Horror Story casts dark shadows

 AMERICAN HORROR STORY  is one of those shows I've been meaning to catch since it first aired. Naturally, it caught my eye when co-creator Ryan Murphy mentioned DARK SHADOWS a few times while promoting the show, saying: “My grandmother would force me, even when I was sobbing and screaming, to watch Dark Shadows. And then when I was bad, I had to watch The Waltons.”

It seems Murphy and company understand that DARK SHADOWS was more than a show about a vampire. AMERICAN HORROR STORY tells stories set in different times and asks actors (such as the great Jessica Lange) to play multiple roles.

In last night's episode, a reader named Nathan spotted actor James Cromwell carrying a recognizable prop: the famous "wolf's head cane" carried by Barnabas Collins. He also shared these images from last night's episode.  I'm not sure what it all means, but it's a clear nod to DARK SHADOWS.

 "Incidentally, they really showed it a lot," Nathan posted on the Collinsport Historical Society Facebook page. "They really wanted people to notice it was Barnabas's cane, ha."