If you’ve ever dropped a tab of acid and stared at a Steve Ditko panel until the colors started screaming, you might have an inkling of what was brewing in the 1970s. But behind the neon mandalas and the “Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth” lies a rabbit hole that connects Silver Age ink to the darkest corners of occult history.

“Almost everyone is unaware of the true history of one of today’s most popular Marvel characters, Doctor Strange. What is the connection to Satanist Aleister Crowley, Satanism, the ancient heresy of Gnosticism and Doctor Strange? To truly understand the spiritual foundation of Marvel’s cosmology, one must first understand the influence of many comic book writers. These same influences were brought into the first iterations of Doctor Strange, beginning in 1961, when he was introduced as Dr. Droom, and then as Dr. Druid in 1976. Journey with us as we pull back the curtain further in Part 2 of Marvel & DC’s War on God to discover how the top movie franchises are continuing to indoctrinate and perpetuate Satanic lies to hundreds of millions of young people among their unsuspecting audience.”

A major point of this video is the story of Doctor Strange vs. Siseneg, which started in Marvel Premiere #13. Sise-Nig, Genesis backward, took both Dr. Strange and his enemy Baron Mordo on a journey through time, trying to add power to his already formidable grimoire of spells.  As they continued to move through time, they battled Shuma-Gorath, the chaos lord responsible for the death of Strange and Mordo’s teacher, the Ancient One.

The story ends with Sise-Nig heading to the literal dawn of time. Sise-Neg stands there in the nothingness, pulsing with the power of a thousand suns, and drops a truth bomb that would make Nietzsche weep. He realizes his plan to “improve” the cosmos is a fool’s errand. Why? Because after attaining total godhood, he figures out that humanity—with all its messy, flawed, beautiful chaos—is already the peak of perfection. A blinding flash of light, a roar that echoes through eternity, and a Big Bang that sends Strange and Mordo hurtling through the timestream like cosmic pinballs, sending them back to modern time. Mordo’s brain is short-circuited by seeing the fact of the creator, while Strange wonders if this was really the first Big Bang or a cosmic reset.

Stan Lee found out about this story and was pretty upset, but writer Steve Englehart and artist Frank Brunner scammed him. Take it from Brunner: “We had just completed Marvel Premiere #14-well, I had just completed the pencils, most of the art, but for some reason or another, nobody took notice of what we were doing. When the book came out, Stan finally got a hold of it, and I don’t know, somebody pointed it out, or he read it, and he wrote us a letter saying, “We can’t do God. You’re going to have to print in the letters column a retraction saying this is not the God, this is just a god.” Steve and I said, “Oh, come on! This is the whole point of the story! If we did that retraction of God, this is meaningless!” So, Steve happened to be on his way to Texas for something, this is when we were in California, and we cooked up this plot-we wrote a letter from a Reverend Billingsley in Texas, a fictional person, saying that one of the children in his parish brought him the comic book, and he was astounded and thrilled by it, and he said, “Wow, this is the best comic book I’ve ever read.” And we signed it “Reverend so-and-so, Austin, Texas”-and when Steve was in Texas, he mailed the letter so it had the proper postmark. Then we got a phone call from Roy: “Hey, about that retraction, I’m going to send you a letter, and instead of the retraction, I want you to print this letter.” And it was our letter! We printed our letter!”

Thanks to CBR, here’s the letter:

“Dear Mr. Lee,

The other evening at our Church’s Christmas social, a young member of my congregation showed me a comic book you presented, Marvel Premiere (#14, March). He told me it dealt with God.

I borrowed the comic from him, thinking that I would find another denigration of our Lord in the manner so fashionable these days. However, after reading this issue, I must commend you on the taste and perception you, your editor, and your writer showed in handling a very difficult subject. It is magazines such as yours that truly perform the Lord’s work and open new eyes to His majesty.

I have since recommended Marvel Premiere to many of my congregation and friends. Thank you, Mr. Lee, for your fine work.

Rev. David Billingsley

8794 East-West Highway

Denton, Texas”

As Englehart was a member of the OTO, a group founded by Aleister Crowley, you can only imagine how this movie views him.

This goes into the origins of Dr. Droom, who first appeared in Amazing Adventures #1 and was seen as a sort of trial run for Dr. Strange. Anthony Droom is referred to as a psychiatrist, lifelong learner and physician and is independently wealthy, as all comic book heroes should be. He meets a lama in Tibet who transforms him into an Asian man — the film claims he looks exactly like Crowley — and gives him the magic he needs to protect Earth.

Over a year later, artist Steve Ditko — who inked Jack Kirby’s five Droom stories — approached Stan Lee with a new magic character called Mr. Strange.

As for Druid, according to Wikipedia, he “is often ranked amongst the worst Avengers members, worst leaders of the team, and often considered a B-list hero. The original origin story for the character has also been cited as problematic due to the race-swapping aspect.”

Also: Dr. Druid is relatively unknown, despite what this film would have you believe.

As with all Good Fight Ministry docs, this goes all in on Gnosticism and then details how The Scarlet Witch is the Whore of Babylon. Strangely — pardon that pun — I don’t see Dr. Stephen Strange looking like Jack Parsons, but I did appreciate this getting him in, as well as Marjorie Cameron showing up in other films by these folks.

Between the child sacrifice allegations leveled at Crowley (which many historians dispute) and his rumored Nazi ties (despite his work for British Intelligence), the history of Dr. Strange’s influences is just as murky as the Dark Dimension itself. I liked how they got across Ditko as a drug-addled lunatic staring into space and dreaming up comics; nothing is further from the truth.

Whether you see Strange as a harmless psychedelic hero or a gateway to the OTO, one thing is clear: the history of the Sorcerer Supreme is far weirder than any movie has dared to show.

You can watch this on Fawesome.

There are supposed to be seven of these; I’ve been through three, so I am ready for what comes next. 

This time around, here’s what’s on the menu: 

• Anti-Christ Themes: The documentary contends that these media franchises normalize or promote anti-Christ themes.

• Glorification of Occult and Violence: The series alleges that storylines often glorify violence, the occult, blasphemy and sexual perversion.

• Satanic Imagery: It investigates whether comics and movies reframe Satan or demonic figures as heroes or saviors.

• Influencing Children: The film argues that leading writers use manipulation and occult themes to alter how children view the God of the Bible.

• Occult Roots: The series explores the influence of occult figures like Aleister Crowley on popular media, specifically in relation to characters like Doctor Strange.

I was wondering when these guys would get to Grant Morrison and Garth Ennis. After all, Morrison openly admits to practicing occult rituals to fuel his work. The documentary views this not as creative quirkiness, but as a literal attempt to use Sigil Magick through comic panels to alter the consciousness of young readers.

You can only imagine what they thought of Preacher.

And wow, that reveal in Avengers #31 that — in the words of We Got This Covered — when Tony Stark was investigating the mysterious appearance of a million-year-old Iron Man helmet, he teams up with a talking snake, who’s actually Mephisto, the Marvel Universe’s devil. The talking snake reveals to the hero that Howard Stark made a deal with him: if Howard was to become the most intelligent man on the planet, he would give his son to the devil.”

It’s hard to tell whether the stories in this are What If or Elseworld stories, and so many of the upsetting tales have been retconned. This also recycles a lot of the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby hate. 

The series often takes a hard line on the creators, suggesting that the Jewish-Christian roots of early comics were a facade for deeper occult interests. By recycling the hate, the film attempts to show that the industry’s foundation was flawed from the start, moving from Kirby’s Celestials (space gods) to the overt Satanism of modern runs.

You can watch this on Fawesome.

X Trilogy: Collector’s Edition Box Set is a three disc box set that has all three movies by Ti West: X, Pearl and MaXXXine and is the first U.S. release of X and Pearl on 4K UHD. It also has a 64-page booklet with a new essay by Jon Dieringer, unreleased concept art, costume sketches, behind-the-scenes photography, the original poster, VHS artwork created as set dressing for the films and more, as well as over 90 minutes of making-of featurettes and new commentary tracks on all three films.

X (2022):  Consider the law of diminishing returns: X is the best slasher that I’ve seen all year, last year, the year before and probably for the rest of this year.

It may also be the law of the desert island in that it may be the only slasher in years that approaches the blood-soaked heaven of 1978-1981, yet were it released then, would I feel the same way?

And after seeing tweet after tweet about how debauched and filthy and sexed-up this movie was, did we see the same film? Or am I really the “affable pervert” that Grindhouse Releasing said I was and I’ve become too desensitized? Or, probably more true, has this generation become more puritanical and repressed than we were?

Probably most importantly, I decided to just shut up and enjoy the movie.

What I came away with was a film that actually gave me that uncomfortable and awesome feeling of “I wonder what’s next” and a worry for each of its characters.

Back in 1979, a group of young filmmakers set out to make a dirty film in rural Texas, learning nothing from another Texas-shot slasher. And when their elderly hosts discover what’s happening, the cast find themselves in a way different movie.

Reading that description, I felt sure that I would dislike this movie, but then again, this was Ti West, who somehow took a very basic story in The House of the Devil and made something great and lasting.

I’ve been burned by an A24 trailer before. Come on, we all have. But again, I decided to shut up and watch the movie.

And I’m glad that I did.

Maxine Minx (Mia Goth, Nymphomaniac) dreams of being an adult film star and people knowing her name. This brings her to deepest, darkest New Zealand, err Texas, along with her producer/boyfriend/suitcase pimp Wayne (Martin Henderson), director RJ (Owen Campbell), his assistant/girlfriend Lorraine (Jenna Ortega, Scream) and two co-stars, Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow, the Perfect Pitch movies) and Jackson Hole (Kid Cudi!). As they go deeper into the rural world, we’re reminded — of course — of that aforementioned Texas film, what with the van that propels them and the farmhouse they end up in.

RJ has a goal. Just because it’s porn doesn’t mean that it can’t be art, he says, almost like a non-burnt out Gary Graver. Wayne knows something more important: porno chic died because middle America is stil too afraid to go to a porno theater and still blushes when they buy a skin mag. But if they can have that movie in the safety of their home? He’s ahead of the video era, Caballero and VCA before they’d even realized what was next. The themes of this movie are desire and age battling hand in hand and the fact that the new type of entertainment they’re making is based on the oldest joke there is — The Farmer’s Daughters — points to the intelligence of this endeavor.

Meanwhile, there’s Howard (Stephen Ure) and Pearl (also Mia Goth, we’ll get to that shortly), the elderly couple who owns the land. Howard barks at everyone while Pearly stays in the shadows, except for the moment where she invites Maxine in for lemonade, a remembrance of youth, some jealousy and a rebuffed sexual December to May advance.

That afternoon, Pearl watches Maxine and Jackson at work and begs Howard to make love to her one more time, but while the spirit and the emotional heart are willing, the flesh and the physical heart are weak.

That night, Lorraine surprises everyone by asking if she can be in the film. RJ tries to use art as the reason why the script can’t be changed; she defeats his argument and he watches her make love through the eye of his camera. That night, he leaves everyone behind but runs into Pearl and that’s where — nearly an hour into the film — “Don’t Fear the Reaper” plays and we’re reminded of exactly what kind of movie we’re in for.

The end of the film surprised me. I should have seen it coming, but the repeated dialogue, the divine intervention and Greek chorus of televangelists all came together in a way that I had no idea was going to occur. Seriously, that preacher gives Estus Pirkle a run for his money.

I also had no idea that Goth spent ten hours a day in makeup for the dual role, which she’ll take up again in Pearl, a prequel that was shot at the same time as this movie.

Even the soundtrack works, written by Tyler Bates and Chelsea Wolfe, who covers Fred Fisher’s “Oui, Oui, Marie.” What doesn’t, however, is the moment where Snow and Kudi sing “Landslide,” as we’ve already established the closeness of the actors and this seems only in the movie to have them remind us they also do music.

As bad as 2022’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre is, this is good. It feels closer to Eaten Alive, another Hooper film, what with the alligator scene — I winced when someone claimed this movie had a scene that echoed Alligator — and I love how the final girl is the least chaste character in the movie, continually doing drugs and putting herself first.

Here’s to more horror being committed to only being inspired by the past instead of wallowing within it, pushing itself to new heights. I was worried if West would ever come close to House of the Devil again; my fears were unnecessary.

Pearl (2022): Most sequels and prequels rely too much on the movie that they gestate from. Yet Ti West’s Pearl does what seems to be impossible: it takes a movie I really liked, X, and makes me love it. Together, these movies become so much more than the sum of their parts, creating a reflection in the same way the letter that informs them, that denotes pornography, that crosses out the violence on your old TV screen, bifurcating your mind and giving you so much more than you expected.

Back in 1918, during a very different pandemic, Pearl (Mia Goth) is trapped in Texas while her husband Howard fights in World War I. Her father is a shell of a human being, paralyzed and unable to even communicate, while her mother Ruth (Tandi Wright) keeps her on the farm, taking care of the dying man and the crops and serving as her whipping girl. Pearl dreams of a life far from here, of being special, of performing and oh yes, she may also be deranged.

Pearl dreams of more than just being in movies; as she watches them, she’s inspired to be more. She imagines the scarecrow in the cornfield is the projectionist (David Corenswet) who gives her attention. She makes love to it in a way that she never has with her husband. That same projectionist shows her A Free Ride, considered to be the first American hardcore movie, and that night, after she sets her mother on fire and leaves her to die from her burns, she makes love to that man.

There’s an audition for dancers for a traveling show and Pearl must be in that show. By now, she’s already pitchforked that projectionist, her mother and father, all acts that she confesses to her sister-in-law Mitsy (Emma Jenkins-Purro).

For nearly eight minutes, Goth breaks the film, explaining who she is and what she’s been through; a husband who has basically abandoned her, the joy she had when his child inside her died and how much she enjoys killing things. It’s astounding, a moment that takes this movie away from basic slasher into psychobiddy — and I say that with sheer delight and absolute kindness — territory.

How heartbreaking then that Howard arrives the next morning to discover his wife serving a maggot-filled pig to her dead parents, holding a smile that goes through the entire credits and dissolves into tears?

West, the director and writer, had worked on this with Goth as a backstory for her character but after dealing with COVID-19 filmmaking, he decided to keep working and make the prequel as soon as the filming of X wrapped, saying “I came out of quarantine and I was like, “We’re already building all of this stuff, it’s COVID and we’re on the one place on Earth where it’s safe to make a movie.””

He saw this film as being a combination of a Douglas Sirk film, Mary Poppins, The Wizard of Oz and a “demented Disney” film, while the film combined Mario Bava with, obviously, Tobe Hooper.

Both films show how Hollywood has influenced people for better or, well, let’s be honest — worse.

This isn’t the end, as Maxine will continue in MaXXXine. West says, “I’m trying to build a world out of all this, like people do these days. You can’t make a slasher movie without a bunch of sequels.”

I often despise any of the films of today, the ones I’m told that I must see. But since House of the Devil, I’ve been on board with West. It’s not always perfect, but I can say that he definitely makes movies that I in no way expect. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

MaXXXine (2024): I have never been at once more excited and more worried about a movie. After X and Pearl, I was beyond hyped for what would come next. To take my fever pitch ever hotter, this movie was sold as a giallo in 1980s Hollywood, a film like Body Double. I’d be shocked if Maxine and Holly Body didn’t do coke together at the AVNs or at least scissored in a Bruce Seven film)

But to so many American creators, giallo just means synth, bright colors and black gloves. Could Ti West pull it off and make this work alongside the first two movies?

Totally.

Ten minutes into this movie, and I was sold. 

Maxine Minx has escaped death in Texas that claimed everyone else, the final girl who has moved beyond and become a major star in adult films, as they moved from grindhouses and jack shacks into the VHS era. The movie begins with her trying out for a mainstream film, The Puritan II, and yelling that every other girl in line can just go home. She has the part.

Of course she does.

While her contemporaries like Amber James (Chloe Farnworth) and Tabby Martin (Halsey) are out partying in the Hollywood hills, she’s working a second job at Show World, dancing in a private booth for men there just to objectify and masturbate to her. That’s fine — she’s the one making the money. She’s interactive, like OnlyFans, before that was a thing, doing everything she can to keep making money and get the life she deserves.

At the same time, a black-gloved killer is stalking her and killing everyone near her, as well as sending detective John Labat (Kevin Bacon) after her. Maybe the guy dressed as Buster Keaton who wanted to rape her should serve as a lesson: don’t fuck with Maxine Minx. She brings a gun to a knife fight, forcing him to his knees to suck off her weapon before she stomps his sex organs into fleshy and bloody pulp.

The cops have gotten their hands on the video filmed in Texas, and Maxine has a copy sent to her, too. She watches herself get off, hiding the footage from her friend Leon (Moses Sumney). At the same time, she’s won over director Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki) and scored a role in her film, which delights her agent and lawyer, Teddy Knight, Esq. (Giancarlo Esposito). What I love about Teddy is the care he shows Maxine when she reveals she’s being followed; sure, he also shows it through violence, as he and Shephard Turei (Uli Latukefu) help Maxine decimate Labat. 

Whoever is following her has an entire cult, one hiding their murders under the same killing ways as the Night Stalker. Even Molly Bennett (Lily Collins), the star of the first Puritan movie, is not safe. Everyone is going to these Hollywood parties and not coming back. Go figure: this cult is gathered to destroy Maxine — in the house from Body Double — and at its head is her father, Reverend Ernest Miller (Simon Prast). They’re filming a snuff movie they plan on releasing, all to prove that Hollywood is evil. You can see that their Christian mission is more evil than any of the filth that Maxine is part of.

Everyone is an actor, even the cops, Detective Williams (Michelle Monaghan) and Detective Torres (Bobby Cannavale), who may save Maxine but are just as ineffective as any giallo police. It’s up to her to be the final girl all over again, the star of her own movie, facing down the man who has tried to ruin her and blasting his face into shotgun oblivion, all under the Hollywood sign. 

Again, while so many movies try to be 80s, this has the right look and soundtrack. I mean, Frankie’s “Welcome to the Pleasuredome,” New Order’s “Shellshock” and Ratt’s “I’m Insane?” To make it all come back to giallo, this also has a Stelvio Cipriani song. Sure, it’s from The Great Alligator, but it’s a good song. Plus, this somehow has the Psycho house show up, and it never feels like borrowed interest. 

I’m glad that all my waiting paid off. I mean, it didn’t. I should have known this would be good.

Bonus features include:

X
○ Commentary with D.P. Eliot Rockett and production designer Tom Hammock
○ Pearl makeup timelapse
○ “The X Factor” featurette
○ Original trailer

Pearl
○ Commentary with D.P. Eliot Rockett and production designer Tom Hammock
○ “Coming Out of Her Shell: The Creation of Pearl” featurette
○ “Time After Time” featurette
○ Original trailer

MaXXXine
○ Commentary with production designer Jason Kisvarday and set decorator Kelsi Ephraim
○ “The Belly of the Beast” featurette
○ “XXX Marks the Spot” featurette
○ “Hollywood is a Killer” featurette
○ Deep Dive with composer Tyler Bates
○ Q&A with Ti West
○ Original trailers

You can get this set from A24.

You may hate every single person in this movie, but hey — they won’t be around for long.

You know those scenes in 1970s Giallo where there are huge parties, where women fight one another in paper dresses (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh) or where people soft-swing on couches while people pass out around them (Amuck!)? What would those parties look like today? That’s one of the things I learned from this movie.

Directed by Halina Reijn (Babygirl) and written by Sarah DeLappe and Kristen Roupenian, this movie begins with a wild party thrown during a hurricane at David’s (Pete Davidson) house. Everyone’s on drugs, they’re all entitled, they’re all gorgeous, and most of them are going to die.

Amongst this rich jet set, Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) has brought her new girlfriend, an Eastern European immigrant named Bee (Maria Bakalova). It’s not comfortable at all for her, as she gets to know Jordan (Myha’la), David’s girlfriend Emma (Chase Sui Wonders), Alice (Rachel Sennott) and her boyfriend Greg (Lee Pace). Things are so fractious already that one person, Max (Conner O’Malley), has already left.

The storm ruins everyone’s phone reception, the power goes out, and a game of (Mafia, Werewolf, Murder In the Dark) goes wrong. Bodies, Bodies, Bodies. David slaps Greg too hard, who leaves, then David gets angry about the game and starts smashing things. Then, they find his body with his throat slashed. As you can imagine, this already tension-filled night explodes, as without the internet, everyone, well, loses their minds and starts to kill one another. 

But what if there wasn’t a murderer in the first place?

Nearly an Agatha Christie story with relationship drama, this movie has taught me to never allow people to saber at my house.

In an interview with the director, she said that the sources of light each person uses symbolize their personality. Bee has her phone on her hip, which shows her selflessness. Jordan has a headlamp for confrontation. Alice has glowtubes so that she is the center of everyone’s attention. Emma is introverted, so she never has a light and neither does Greg or David. 

As happy as this ends, the underwear that Bee finds in Sophie’s car belongs to Jordan, which is a clue that they did have sex and more than just a relapse, she cheated on her.

Jim Wynorski gets the assignment.

In the sequel to Attack of the 50 Foot CamGirl, Beverly Wood (Ivy Smith) is working to repay all the damage she did in the first movie. She even has a boyfriend, Mike (Brian Gross), the foreman in the quarry where she works. However, a chance to repay all of her debts comes when Anna Conda (Masuimi Max) is super-sized to fight her on a pay-per-view, with $50 million to the winner. She’s been given her powers by Brian (Steve Altman), the father of the ex-boyfriend whom Beverly killed back in that first movie.

Yes, continuity. Lisa London and Frank Cullen also return as their characters from the first movie.

But wait! Aliens get involved, as Spa-Zor (Kiersten Hall) from the planet Buxomus, a place where they’ve obviously all seen Star Trek, because they repeat dialogue from the episode “The Corbomite Maneuver.”

I do love how IMDB nerds—well, like me—leave goofs on movies. This one seems ridiculous. “While Anna Conda and Spa-Zor have their first battle, the number of times their tops are on and off keeps changing.” Come on. Do we expect this?

This is way better than you’d ever think it could be: a goofball, less than an hour giant woman as kaiju romp that recalls the softcore of the past. Is there still a market for that? Well, I watched it!

You can watch this on Tubi.

Jim Wynorski, working with writer Kent Roudebush, is still out there, making the kind of movies I’d stay up to 1 AM on a Friday for on Cinemax. Attack of the 50 Foot CamGirl places Only Fans star Beverly Wood (Ivy Smith) being rude to her boyfriend and manager, Bradley (Eli Cirino) and assistant Fuschia (Christine Nguyen) when she isn’t getting naked on camera. But ah, when she meets Dr. Rhodes (Lisa London) — and of course, has the kind of male gaze softcore Sapphic romp you’d expect with her, but let’s just enjoy things and not obsess, right? — she starts to grow into a giantess.

Bradley and Fuschia have been plotting to get rid of Beverly, but now, this messes with their plans. And if Fuschia ends up becoming a giant, giving us a girl-on-girl catfight, we won’t complain. And we don’t.

This is pretty much a winner: the ladies are attractive (and yet fun and own their hotness), Becky LeBeau even shows up and sings two songs, the humor is corny, and the sets are actually pretty good. Sure, it’s an hour-long streaming Full Moon movie, but it made me wistful for the past, a day when this movie would have definitely played on Cinemax and Showtime, when it would be on the shelves at my mom and pop video store, and I would have been too young to rent it.

You can watch it on Tubi.

At once a sequel to Giantess Attack vs. Mecha Fembot and a remix of the original film, this movie proved to me I’d watch anything. And I liked it, as Mark Polonia keeps showing up as a hapless military man.

Here’s how Full Moon is selling this: “Hungry for more huge honey smackdowns? Of course you are! Get ready for Full Moon’s latest lunatic release, a prequel to the just as jaw-dropping GIANTESS ATTACK VS. MECHA FEMBOT! If big boobs, butts and beastly broads are your thing, don’t miss this massive hit!”

Deidre (Tasha Tacosa) and Frida (Rachel Riley) have just been cancelled — their show was Battle Babe and Combat Queen — but soon become giant women thanks to twin space fairies called the Metalunans (Christine Nguyen). Gen. Smedley Pittsburgh (Jed Rowen) tries to stop them, which ends up with, well, Deidre basically urinating on him, which gets watersports mixed in with maxcromastia, like some masturbatory chocolate and peanut butter.

They also shove the general into their, well, you know, parts.

There’s something for everyone.

Look, it’s 51 minutes long. You can do worse.

You can watch this on Tubi.