Christian conservatives worldwide seem to have had their outrage activated by the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony. The French Revolution pageantry has been decried as satanic, but even more religious nuts are losing their mind over a tableau starring drag queens in a pose that could remind one of Da Vinci's Last Supper. According to the ceremony's artistic director, Thomas Jolly, the image was in reference to and reverence of a painting. But it was no piece of Catholic iconography, rather The Feast of the Gods by Jan van Bijlert, a depiction of the Olympians with Bacchus in the front.
Still, even if Jolly had re-imagined the Last Supper with queer performers, why would that be an insult instead of a celebration? Appeals to religious decorum are mere smokescreens, hiding hatred and trying to give it a justification. In response to such culture war odiousness, I can think of no better response than a provocation in the form of a list – here at TFE, we are known list-o-maniacs, after all. If you yearn to be offended by blasphemous media, satanic sensations, and some glorious filth, here are thirteen flicks to scratch that itch…
HÄXAN (1922) Benjamin Christensen
Reasons to Watch: Between documentary and pagan pageantry, this Scandinavian silent movie tries to engage with the history of witchcraft through a proto-feministic lens. And yet, empathy doesn't stop the picture from indulging in the grotesque possibilities of its subject. A cannibalized baby here, a feast of naked flesh there, the fire and brimstone splendor of Häxan can't be denied, and neither can its power to unnerve. At times, the filmmakers seem as excited to horrify religious nuts as to show the error in their ways. Always perverse, a tad prescriptive, never perfunctory.
Blasphemy Bonus: Christensen himself plays the Devil, giving his whole directorial effort a sweet satanic edge.
Where to Watch: Max, the Criterion Channel, Classix, Apple TV+, Tubi, Kanopy, Plex, Amazon Prime Video, and Fandango at Home.
VIRIDIANA (1961) Luis Buñuel
Reasons to Watch: A great master of Spanish cinema had thrived in exile for years, taking Mexican and French cinema by storm before an irresistible offer drew him back to Franco's Spain. Rather than play nice with the fascists, Luis Buñuel remained faithful to the political beliefs that had guided his work in past provocations – L'Age d'Or, for example. Yet, Viridiana does more than match the iconoclast's early creations. It goes further, indicting the Catholic church for its role in abetting far-right extremism, tracing the connective tissue between religion, the aristocracy, and the evils of the world. Hell, the movie's first act reaches its climax when an unconscious novitiate is molested by her nobleman uncle.
Blasphemy Bonus: If the drag queen lineup offended Christian conservatives, what would they make of this film's overt parody of The Last Supper? Tramps overwhelm and overtake the aristocratic home to partake in a stolen feast full of debauchery and not an ounce of shame.
Where to Watch: The Criterion Channel, Apple TV+, Kanopy, and Amazon Prime Video.
INVOCATION OF MY DEMON BROTHER (1969) Kenneth Anger
Reasons to Watch: Self-identifying as a pagan rather than a Satanist, Kenneth Anger was one of the great voices in American experimental cinema. His influence is impossible to overstate, but unlike other such artists, the man's work still feels risky today. Invocation of My Demon Brother is a miracle of editing and homoerotic imagery, proposing a ritualistic cinema whose frames feel charged with black magic. Sensual and malevolent, this 12-minute mass is an inimitable triumph.
Blasphemy Bonus: If you needed proof that twinks are ontologically evil, Anger's got the goods. If Invocation of My Demon Brother doesn't do it for you, try Lucifer Rising or The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.
Where to Watch: YouTube and Vimeo.
THE DEVILS (1971) Ken Russell
Reasons to Watch: There will never be another director like Ken Russell. The British visionary created a series of mad movies whose lunacy defies a common man's imaginings, often dabbling in the occult, downright heresy, Christian morality blown to smithereens. Such pictures as Crimes of Passion and The Lair of the White Worm deserve mention, but The Devils trumps them all. It's the filmmaker's supreme masterpiece, a Baroque nightmare encased within a Derek Jarman-designed fortress where nuns burst with sexual repression, Vanessa Redgrave delivers the performance of a lifetime, and Oliver Reed dons Jesus cosplay for a madwoman's wet dream.
Blasphemy Bonus: The nun orgy that was cut after the film's original release remains a curious artifact. Depending on the version you've seen, it might have parts of it restored. Whatever the case, it's an incredible piece of profane filmmaking.
Where to Watch: On physical media, Blu-Ray and DVD.
THE CANTERBURY TALES (1972) Pier Paolo Pasolini
Reasons to Watch: Not only did Pasolini make the best film about Christ's life, he also created a series of works whose carnal pleasures are in direct opposition to Christian morality. Every entry in the "Trilogy of Life" is a hit of purified hedonism, made more visceral through its handmade materiality. The Decameron has the horny nuns and Arabian Nights rejects Western mores altogether. Still, it's The Canterbury Tales that most openly defies the precepts of those who think themselves too holy to sin. A celebration of human ugliness and the paradoxical beauty herein, the film is the joyous inverse of what was to be the director's "Trilogy of Death." Only Salo was made for that planned project, as Pasolini was murdered before he could finish his great work.
Blasphemy Bonus: The entire finale is a hoot, like a Bosch painting given life by a troupe of clowns on acid. The camera's anal fixation is the cherry on top, resulting in some of the most sacrilegious fart jokes in film history.
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video, Fubo TV, MGM+, and Apple TV+.
BELLADONNA OF SADNESS (1973) Eiichi Yamamoto
Reasons to Watch: For years, Eiichi Yamamoto had been exploring the erotic possibilities of anime, making parodic sex tales full of humor, absurdity, bad taste galore. Belladonna of Sadness is a deviation from that model. In some ways, it's an evolution, the boundary-pushing ethos taken in a new direction, more brutal but also more ravishing. Oscillating between still painting and bursts of expressionist motion, sexual violence cascading over the feminine body, the film almost seems better classified as a visual experiment than a traditional animation project. Beware of its monstrosity, but know that it may be one of the most beautiful movies ever made.
Blasphemy Bonus: Amid the gorgeous New Age psychedelia, the demonic presence is a flurry of movement and cheeky design. How does one visualize the Devil? Well, as a phantasm cock, of course.
Where to Watch: Crunchyroll, Fandango at Home, and the Microsoft Store.
THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK (1987) George Miller
Reasons to Watch: Who knew cavorting with the Devil made you hotter than the sun while also giving you a rockin' 80s perm? It often seems that's the central message of The Witches of Eastwick. Or maybe the movie's motto is that there's nothing quite like superstar actressing to elevate a farce. Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer are glorious here, but so is Veronica Cartwright in a diabolical mockery of Christian zealotry. They are a spectacle unto themselves, their charisma so blinding it practically blasts Jack Nicholson off the screen. At the end of the day, they didn't even need witchcraft rites to get rid of their lothario Beelzebub.
Blasphemy Bonus: Free from morals or decency, the ending hints at the Devil's progeny winning out, absent father notwithstanding. Isn't that amazing for such a Hollywood dream? Ave Satani!
Where to Watch: Apple TV+, Fandango at Home, Amazon Prime Video, and the Microsoft Store.
THIRST (2009) Park Chan-wook
Reasons to Watch: Zola is re-imagined as a vampire tryst of epic Gothic romance proportion. Park Chan-wook takes the tale of Thérèse Raquin and sets it within a new South Korean milieu, in a contemporaneity teeming with vampiric possibility. It manifests as a disease, a plague that first infects a priest until the man becomes a monster. Only the blood-sucker is pious in comparison to his lover, for whom the dark gift is a blessing from down below. An animalistic Kim Ok-bin and guilt-ridden Song Kang-ho lead the way, surrendering to the piece's essential perversion without contradicting its formalistic stylization.
Blasphemy Bonus: Before Fleabag made the internet go gaga for hot priests, director Park had already presented the world with a cornucopia of graphic sex scenes featuring the vampiric holy man breaking his vows.
Where to Watch: Apple TV+, Fandango at Home, Amazon Prime Video, and the Microsoft Store.
THE VVITCH: A NEW-ENGLAND FOLKTALE (2015) Robert Eggers
Reasons to Watch: Though some would lump Eggers with the other "elevated horror" folk and the A24 craze, he's something of an outlier. Not just in the realm of horror, but the whole mainstream Hollywood apparatus. That's never more evident than in The Witch, an experiment in archeological dramaturgy that takes the beliefs of 17th-century Puritans and presents them as genuine, justified, even vindicated. Horrifyingly so, to the point that the natural world seems to be a womb for evils beyond compare, corruption hiding in every corner. But, in the end, evil is salvation, for faith is naught but a trap that punishes the innocent until they have no resource other than submission to Satan.
Blasphemy Bonus: "Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?"
Where to Watch: Max, Cinemax, Apple TV+, Kanopy, Amazon Prime Video, Fandango at Home, and the Microsoft Store.
THE LOVE WITCH (2016) Anna Biller
Reasons to Watch: Even for a director who has built a career in pastiche, The Love Witch is an impressive bit of throwback madness. Biller looks to the dying days of Technicolor melodrama, the indie trashterpieces lurking in the underbelly of New Hollywood, not to mention the paperback absurdism of low-rent pulp. She combines it all with the magic of twisted nostalgia, casting a spell of her own until a hallucination of feminine liberation possesses the screen. It's ridiculous, for sure, but that is precisely the point. And at the heart of it all lies a fundamental truth – happiness is never out of reach if you're willing to shed enough blood.
Blasphemy Bonus: This entire movie is home décor goals. The main abode is a masterpiece of kitschy design from stained glass to pentagram rug. It's the perfect setting for a blood ritual or two.
Where to Watch: Peacock, MUBI, Fandor, NightFlight Plus, Midnight Pulp, Apple TV+, Tubi, Kanopy, Popcorn Flix, Pluto TV, Plex, Amazon Prime Video, Fandango at Home, and the Microsoft Store.
THE ORNITHOLOGIST (2016) João Pedro Rodrigues
Reasons to Watch: The internationally renowned Portuguese auteur has never been more solipsistic than in The Ornithologist. Verging on self-portraiture, the riverside odyssey touches on Ancient mythology and bird-watching reverie, meta-cinema, political commentary, and even folklore tradition upheld with a Baptism of piss. Moreover, it's queer as fuck, basking in orgasmic euphoria, like some cum-stained religious monument atop the altar to an oversexed divinity. Mayhap, it's indecipherable to some. However, this isn't the kind of film you should try to solve, puzzle-like. Allow yourself to taste the ambrosia and the mystery, feel the heat of its flaming desire.
Blasphemy Bonus: Pagan traditions and Sebastian imagery aside, there's no bigger provocation in the entire film than its erotic interlude with a shepherd named Jesus. If you weren't already outraged over the bedded messiah, just you wait until you see the figure's ultimate fate. Poor guy.
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, and Strand Releasing.
HAIL SATAN? (2019) Penny Lane
Reasons to Watch: One would hope this documentary on the forcefulness of Christian dogma in the public sphere wasn't still so relevant. With the way things are going, its heathen messages will only become more important going forward, as will its arguments for freedom above one creed's hegemony. Dispelling notions of the Church of Satan as an evil cult, Lane considers it as a political organization whose fight often takes the form of provocation. Full of humor and a licentious spirit, this work of non-fiction feels vital even in moments where its journalistic intentions override the piece's value as cinema. If nothing else, it'll piss off all the right people.
Blasphemy Bonus: I don't know about you, but I know that the Baphomet sculpture is a delightful public monument. Wouldn't it look great on a town square near you? I think so.
Where to Watch: Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, the Roku Channel, Hoopla, Tubi, Flix Fling, and the Microsoft Store.
BENEDETTA (2021) Paul Verhoeven
Reasons to Watch: A scholar on Christ and one of the most devious filmmakers in recent Hollywood history, Paul Verhoeven was the only person who could ever create something like Benedetta. Dancing between genres and tones, the historical drama is also an erotic fantasy and a farce, testing the limits of faith and self-delusion. At times, it posits the two are the same. Virginie Efira is at the center of everything, willing to embody a fanatic and a lesbian con artist, a believer and cynical political player, all of it, all at once. A polysemic miracle fit for the Kingdom of Hell, her characterization deserves adoration. Somehow, Charlotte Rampling is even better in a supporting role, rotting with plague, choking on self-righteousness.
Blasphemy Bonus: In my book, the Marian dildo is already one of the best props in 21st-century cinema. Also, it would make a perfect Christmas present.
Where to Watch: Hulu, Apple TV+, Fandango at Home, and the Microsoft Store.
What about you, dear reader? Are you ready to indulge and have a sinful good time?