Electric Wizard is a band that either gets people into movies or finds people who loves those films, finds out that the band referenced them and starts to enjoy their music. It’s perfect for people who love occult-based music and film, as well as no small amount of, well, substances. I don’t think leader Oborn would disagree with me, as he told Kerrang! about a period in th eband’s history: “At the time, we were pretty bad people. I got arrested for arson of a car, outside a police station. Tim went to nick a crucifix off a church roof so we could use it onstage, then slipped, fell off through the window and sliced his arm open. He got community service for that. Then Mark got nicked for robbing an offie. He smashed the window, nicked a bottle of whiskey, then sat there drinking it outside! We weren’t very nice people, to be honest. We were feeding off that shit at the time. It made us feel like we were more of a heavy metal band.”
Started by singer, guitarist and lyricist Oborn in 1993, along with bassist Tim Bagshaw and drummer Mark Greening, Electric Wizard takes its name — and sound — from Black Sabbath. Two of Black Sabbath’s songs, “Electric Funeral” and “The Wizard” were combined for their name.
Their albums Come My Fanatics… and Dopethrone pretty much are everything that speaks to me in doom metal, followed by the just as exciting We Live, Witchcult Today and Black Masses after drummer Justin Greaves, guitarist Liz Buckingham and bassist Rob Al-Issa joined. While they haven’t released an album since 2017’s Wizard Bloody Wizard, I listen to them every day.
How important are movies to Electric Wizard? Oborn told VICE, ““We love exploitation and sleaze movies in general. We dig Women-In-Prison films, Giallos, Rape/Revenge dramas, Erotic thrillers, Philippine exploitation etc… I’m also a big collector of 60s and 70s porn. Honestly—it was better, with professional performers. I’m actually working on a book dedicated to 60s/70s porn in Europe at the moment, but it’s been a very hard book to write. Many people involved in the industry are dead or on the run. Others who survived AIDS and the “witch hunts” are unwilling to talk about it any more. I have a few contacts but mostly performers, and they tend to be a little bit more crazed and unreliable. Unlike the U.S. porn stars of the 70s and 80s, the European and British industry is almost completely unknown. My favorite directors tend to be horror directors though: Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, Mario Bava, Jose Larraz, Robert Hartford-Davies, Andy Milligan, Paul Naschy. I guess I can always relate to the macabre, to the unusual. We actually have a script for a movie with Electric Wizard in it! It’s kinda like the Beatles movies… except ours is fuckin’ macabre and morbid. I can’t say much… you gotta keep these things ambiguous, but it’s more of a violent rape revenge sleaze exploitation film than a horror film.”
Here are just a few of the movies sampled and referenced in their music.
“Venus In Furs” on Black Masses: Obviously, this is a song all about not just the book, but the Jess Franco movie. “Queen of the night swathed in Saturn black, your ivory flesh upon my torture rack… to your leather boots I offer prayer, you rise like a Cobra, evil, dressed in furs.”
“Dunwich” on Witchcraft Today: “Your mother’s witches, burnt at the stake for sorcery. You were conceived upon the altar, rites obscene.” I can only imagine how many times the band has watched The Dunwitch Horror.
There’s also a sample from this movie in the song “We Hate You:”
“You see man as a rather dismal creature.”
“Yes. Why not? Look around, you’ll see what’s there. Fear and frightened people who kill what they can’t understand.”
“House of Whipcord” from Let Us Prey
I only wish the band was around when Pete Walker was making movies so that stuff like House of Whipcord could have their droning heavy riffs haunting every frame.
“The Living Dead at The Manchester Morgue” from We Live
“Living dead arise from the morgue at night. Silently we strike. Cower from the night, yeah.” Any band could write about a zombie movie. Electric Wizard go for the best, a movie with as many titles as it has incredible scenes. Oborn told Bloody Disgusting, “Probably one of my favourite films ever and a huge influence on the band. Even though it’s an Italian/Spanish co-production it captures the bleak loneliness of the English countryside perfectly. Even anti-hero Georges dodgy Cockney accent…haha.”
The band also used a sample from the film in the song “Wizard In Black”:
The Inspector : You’re all the same, the lot of you, with your long hair and faggot clothes. Drugs, sex, every sort of filth! And you hate the police. Don’t you?
George : You make it easy.
“The Hills Have Eyes” from Dopethrone
Obviously, Wes Craven’s film is basis for this instrumental.
“Barbarian” from Dopethrone
That sample that says, “The wizard!” is from Conan the Barbarian.
“We Live” from We Live
There’s a sample from Psychomania in this song:
Officer: Something must have forced him over. Did you get anything out of the witnesses?
Officer: Yes sir. Exactly the same story from all of them. Two motorcyclists jabbing at his tire with a knife.
Officer: Any identification?”
Officer: Yeah, the living dead again
The Sinful Dwarf
The band played this movie when they curated Roadburn 2013.
The Electric Grindhouse Cinema
They also played Mark of the Devil Part II (under the German title Hexen geschändet und zu Tode gequält which means Witches Raped and Tortured to Death), Janie, Erotic Witchcraft, Take An Easy Ride, Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave, Hunchback Of The Morgue and the Lasse Braun shorts Perversion-Violence, The Vikings Trilogy, Lady M, Hooked!, The Maniac and Psycho Doll. 
“Son of Nothing” on Come, My Fanatics…
The sample that ends this song is from Beneath the Planet of the Apes: “In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe, lies a medium-sized star, and one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead.”
The Satanism speech in “Vinum Sabbathi”
This comes from an episode of 20/20: “When you get into one of these groups, there’s only a couple of ways you can get out. One is death. The other is mental institutions.” The band also used another sample from the show: “Look if this happens to your kid, or if you look at this and you have children you say: Could this happen to my child out of some kind of rebellion? How would a parent be aware? Many youngsters are into it, teenagers and younger The clues are there, the satanic symbol 666. If you see that written on your child’s notebook, if they’re into heavy metal music, if they are associating with strange characters or drifting off to ceremonies and not explaining where they’re at, it’s well worth it for parents to look deeper and ask: What exactly are you up to? And with whom. Because this is serious. It could be harmless, it could just be a diversion. But it could also be deadly serious Absolutely” on “Mind Transferal” on the album Dopethrone.
“Wizard of Gore” on Supercoven
While this song references the Herschell Gordon Lewis movie, the sample comes from another moive that was inspired by that film Bloodsucking Freaks.
Sardu: “Good, good, good, good, good. What a marvelous, wonderful, attentive audience you are. And now may I add, a brave one, too. Now those of you who are weak-willed or cowards would have fled by now or regurgitated over the seats in front of you. Tonight we begin with torture. Again I warn you that if you find what you see is a little upsetting to your stomachs, then just pretend we’re playacting. But if you are skeptical or bored, then just pretend that what you see is real. Magic? Then let Mr. Silo explain our next trick… dismemberment.”
“Return Trip” on Come, My Fanatics…
“Get off my case, motherfucker” comes from Cannibal Ferox.
“I Am the Witchfinder” on Dopethrone
“I am Albino. You wish to see me?” is from Mark of the Devil.
L.S.D.
This song is on the soundtrack of Lucifers Satanic Daughter, along with the song “Black Mass.”
“Black Magic Rituals and Perversions” from Witchcult Today
This song is the theme from the Jean Rollin movie The Shiver of the Vampires.
Other references:
“The Satanic Rites of Drugula” is obviously a play on Hammer’s The Satanic Rites of Dracula, while Thriller is referenced on the cover of Legalise Drugs and Murder, The Devil Rides Out‘s poster was used for Witchcult Today and “Night of the Shape” has a sound from — and is about — Halloween.
Movies mentioned in the book Come My Fanatics: A Journey into the World of Electric Wizard
Thanks to Letterboxd user Huurretursas, the following movies are mentioned in this book: Eye of the Devil, The Amityville Horror, Bad News Tour, Cannibal Ferox, A Clockwork Orange, The Defiance of Good, Hammer’s Dracula, Dracula A.D. 1972, Flash Gordon, Gummo, Hells Angels London, Hell’s Chosen Few, Last Days Here, The Last Temptation of Christ, Legend of the Witches, Lucifers Satanic Daughter, Mad Max 2, The Naked Vampire, The Northville Cemetery Massacre, The Outcasts, The Outsiders, Pink Flamingos, Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii, The Power of the Witch, The Producers, The Sadist of Notre Dame, The Shout, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Tombs of the Blind Dead, A Town Called Hell, Wake In Fright, The Warriors, Zombie, Zero Hour: Massacre at Columbine High, Hooked, Robert Fripp: New York – Wimborne, To Kill a Mocking Alan, The Vikings, Delirium, Sex Express, The Rites of Uranus, Necromania, The Satanist, The Initiation of Sarah and Black Magic Rites.
There are so many more references that I am sure that I am missing. I am indebted to the band and the sources below that found so many that I didn’t know. If you know one, post in the comments and I’ll credit you.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Wizard
https://www.vice.com/en/article/6w3896/electric-wizard-a-to-z-jus-oborn-interview
https://letterboxd.com/danranza/list/electric-wizard-samples-and-references/detail/
https://letterboxd.com/fieldmouse/list/our-witchcult-grows-an-electric-wizard-movie/
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