From Nightmare on Elm Street to Heartless (an…uhhh…probably some others I expect…) our screens are currently boiling with the stench of sulpher and brimstone as faustian pacts are forged, ethereal barriers are broken down and nasty do-badders escape from the bounds of hell itself to inflict second-tier horror schlockers on our unwitting eyeballs -the Satanic rat bastards. Yep, Mephisto is definitely a guy who’s around for the long haul cinematically speaking, and while Heartless has Joseph Maul as a weird, voodoo-doing East End Devil, we’re sure there must be better ways to portray the one who walks backwards on screen. Oh, wait! There are! Yep, time to bathe in holy water, get Jim Caveizal round and hope it’s the power of Christ compelling us to sit through a bunch of shitty horror flicks, as we check out six of the best: Movie Satans!
1: Tim Curry: The Darkness (Legend)
Ok, so he goes by the name of The Darkness, but his clever disguise isn’t fooling us! One look at those three-foot long horns, fangs and bright red skin and we know exactly who we’re dealing with. Unfortunately for the erstwhile Frankenfurter, Curry’s decided to pick on the only being in existance more evil than he is – That’ll be Tom Cruise then. Still, scores extra devil points for his fantastically spooky arrival on screen; stepping out of a mirror. Well, a taxi doesn’t really scream ‘Prince of Darkeness’ does it? Easily the most evil appearence in Curry’s considerable repertoire (apart from the hotel manager in Home Alone 3 obviously).
2: Viggo Mortensen: The Prophecy
Frankly, the idea of turning up at the pearly gates only to find that chief angel Gabriel looks like Christopher Walken is pretty terrifying to begin with, but halfway through seminal (in every sense of the word) 90’s straight-to-video shocker The Prophecy, the one angel worse than the tap-dancing king of spooky arrives in classic form. He may spend about 5 minutes total on screen, but the evil Aragorn manages to steal the whole movie (and hey, this is a movie starring that guy who played the creepy new roommate Eddie in ‘Friends’ -Oscar-worthy talent indeed!) by dint of a few whispered words and an entirely odd approach to vegetarian dining. Altogether now: “I love you more than Jeeeessssuuussssss…”
3: The Beast: Krull
It’s not often that Satan turns his hand to filmmaking, but a twisted mephistophian deal is the only possible reason we can think of to explain the presence of Bernard Brasslaw, Todd Carty and Liam Neeson in the same film. In his favour, The Beast doesn’t really go with the whole ’subtle trickster’ thing Satan tends to be known for, instead he looks fucking terrifying, landing a bloody great mountain on top of people at random, eating and zombifying the locals as he sees fit, and ditching any kind of psuedonym in favour of the far more straightforward: The Beast! You can’t argue with a name like that. The fact that he’s the only guy here that resembles Mount Saint Helens only adds to his mystique.
4: Robert DeNiro: Angel Heart
Oh Satan, you wily, wily trickster you! How would any voodoo-loving 20’s New Orleansian see through a too-clever-by-half psuedonym like ‘Louie Cypher’. Yep, it’s credit to Mickey Rourke’s general punch-drunkenness that he and that Cosby show chick take the better part of three hours to work out exactly who they’re dealing with. Of course, it’s entirely possible they could just be on an awful lot of drugs -something the audience wishes it had thought of before they started watching Alan Parker’s ‘87 gloomathon.
5: Gozer: Ghostbusters
Technically more a duke (or in this case, duchess…also sailor…) of Hell than a genuine Satan, Gozer still makes the list thanks to a really fucking weird MO. Normally Satan prefers to plant seeds of dissension, get innocent nuns loved up with AntiChrist babies or posess small girls in rural Maryland. Not the Goz’ though. Sure she starts small -I for one would welcome a fridge demon that made me eggs in the morning and gave me a multi-hand massage in my favourite armchair, but it isn’t long before the lord of the Sebuliai decides to give up being a large and moving torg, don a bubble wrap disco suit, and show downtown how prehistoric bitches do things – blowing the tops off skyscrapers, turning people into dogs and eventually turning into a gigantic confectionery that gets its kicks from stepping on churches.
6: Clint Eastwood -High Plains Drifter
He hasn’t got a name, he hasn’t got horns, in fact, you’d figure the king of upper atmosphere would have slightly more to his name than a donkey and a moth-eaten poncho, but that doesn’t stop Clint from being the meanest Satanic allegory of the lot. Let’s face it, if you had all eternity to spare would you spend it buggering about the Utah salt flats goading villagers into shooting the crap out of banditos? Of course you would! Expertly riling the townsfolk without ever just coming out and telling them what to do, Clint squints, spits and cigarillo-smokes his way into their lives before dissapearing in a puff of ‘Channel 4 News’ theme music.
