SATAN AND THE PINK HORSE
Noir, Satanic Panic and eating babies...
I’m hip-deep into my screenplay. So here’s what caught my attention this week.
I’ve worked with JENNIFER LYNCH as her 1st AD on a couple of projects, which I mentioned in this POST. There is a good article about the death of her father DAVID LYNCH I found touching.
Read JENNIFER LYNCH ON DAVID LYNCH’S ART AND LIFE: HE LOVED BEING ALIVE.
I’ve finished a few books this past week. Ross MacDonald’s THE UNDERGROUND MAN and Sam Wiebe’s THE LAST EXILE. Dug them both and really lights a fire under my ass when working on my own weird little Canuck Private Eye story.
And if you’re into some Film Noir there is a great but little-celebrated classic that breaks a good few of the genre's conventions, being set in the bright, dusty sunshine of small-town Mexico rather than the dark city streets of L.A.
Frankly, I love protagonists trying to make sense of the world in a small hellhole.
Robert Montgomery, again in his twin role of director and star, plays a thoroughly unlikeable antihero who we nonetheless can't take our eyes off and feel driven to see what he will do next.
The film has an unusual mood that's more fated than fatalistic, in that events really do seem to have an invisible supernatural force behind them propelling them in some way. It's not without its flaws, but it's a rare and brilliant work of art that sees and says more than it needs to, and feels both outside of and before its time. I came across this really good fan-made trailer for it here, which does a good job of imparting the flavour of the film:
I mentioned an invisible supernatural force that seems to propel our hero in RIDE THE PINK HORSE. Which brings me to OCCULT DETECTIVES. Which I’m pretty sure our good friend DAVID LYNCH was playing with. When I get a bit bored of the usual Noir Hero and Plot, I love to dig into this genre. It’s been around for hundreds of years. And there is a reason why I’m digging this lately. It has to do with what I’m writing. Since I consider this ‘newsletter’ a writer’s notebook, here is some research I’m loving.
THE CHRONOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EARLY OCCULT DETECTIVES.
You can also check out NIGHTMARE MEN.
Occult Detetctives has been explored in a lot of other publications and fiction. I’m a big fan of ROBERT CULP. There is something about his delivery and performance I find fascinating, no matter what show he’s in. KOLCHAK made a big impression on me as a kid, but it would have been nice if SPECTRE had been picked-up as a series.
Gene Roddenberry tried real hard to get another genre show on the air. Of all of them, the one that gets talked about the least is SPECTRE.
Robert Culp stars as a criminologist with a minor in sorcery. It touches on some ideas that other characters pick up on later. Not to suggest that anyone stole from anybody, just that he looked at them earlier.
Most the Audience was into Starsky and Hutch and All In The Family instead of a strange Detective.
You can watch the entire pilot…
And hey! Watch KOLCHAK:THE NIGHT STALKER. I watched this with my brother on CKTV after midnight in 1979. I loved it and still do.
It’s not hard to figure out my high school years were spent in the 80s if you’ve read my posts. And one of the things that sticks out is the SATANIC PANIC. This has been explored in some movies and TV shows before, but I remember it being very real as a teen.
As a matter of fact the Satanic Panic never really did go away, it just morphed into Q-ANON. Whether it’s Daycares or Pizza Restaurants, there are Satanic Cults eating babies bones and all to this day. So where did that all start? Well…CANADA! And some of it right in my own province’s backyard.
Check this out…
There was a time when Satan was everywhere — or he seemed to be, at least. During the '80s and '90s, the devil was always making headlines. It was the era of the Satanic Panic, a moment in history when heavy-metal and tabletop gaming weren't just the stuff of nerdcore, but a serious moral threat.
That's the poppier side of the Panic, though — the sort of thing you'll see referenced on Stranger Things. At the time, the hysteria went deeper than parental pearl-clutching over Judas Priest and Dungeons & Dragons. It gave very-real credence to false reports of fantastical horror, rumours that destroyed lives and led to countless wrongful convictions.
Among the more infamous examples, there's the "Martensville Nightmare," the story of a daycare in small-town Saskatchewan that was accused of harbouring a murderous cult. As recounted on the CBC podcast Uncovered, nine people there would ultimately face charges despite a complete lack of evidence. Similar cases cropped up worldwide, as law enforcement was trained to identify the signs of "Satanic Ritual Abuse."
Read THE STRANGE ORIGINS OF THE SATANIC PANIC: HOW ONE CANADIAN BOOK STARTED A WORLDWIDE WITCH HUNT.
I could go on, but it’s time to scribble in my notebook.
More down the road.
Cheers,
TC.