I have made my pact with thee O Lucifer! Hear me, hear me! I will do thy bidding for all eternity. The following incantation by one of the followers caused the film to be banned in several places: Upon her arrival, she realizes that witchcraft is anything but dead in the town. The City of the Dead (1960) An old cult movie from the 1960s.Ī young female college student with an interest in the occult pays a visit to the fictional town of Whitewood, Massachusetts, where a witch had been burned at the stake in 1692. As he plans to sacrifice a beautiful blonde woman to Satan during the New Moon, Lugosi’s character attempts to save the day. Karloff plays the leader of a satanic group who takes his orders from a book called The Rites of Lucifer. Horror legends Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff team up in what is thought to be the first horror film to depict satanism as a cult. Movies about Cults The Black Cat (1934) The Black Cat is widely considered the first time cults were portrayed in cinema. So what’s scarier: another person controlling your fate, or a group with no physical leader to take down? Here are 50+ horror movies to help you find out. Movies have explored every aspect of these strange groups - the manipulation and brainwashing by human beings, occultism and the Devil, political and doomsday groups - you name it. Like cults, mass hysteria isn’t new and it’s easy to see how one small outcry can turn into something unstoppable - particularly when it involves an otherness. The Satanic Panic of the 1980s still permeates our society even though all claims of ritualistic abuse remain unfounded, equivalent to a modern-day witch hunt. There’s also a fear beyond this classification. Would we recognize it? Would we be willing to make a commotion? That’s what makes this kind of cult so terrifying - it could happen in our very own organizations. By the time a follower realizes that something sinister is underway, it’s too late. They start out just like any other church or collective by reeling their members in with the promise of unconditional love and community. So how does this keep happening? It’s simple, really. We’ve witnessed many groups that fit this bill in recent history: the Manson Family, the Branch Davidians, Jonestown, Heaven’s Gate, NXIVM, etc. Economic, sexual, and other exploitation of membersĪ satanic ritual happens in To the Devil a Daughter, a horror fan favorite from the 70s.In a 1981 edition of the Harvard Mental Health Letter, psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton defined three characteristics of a cult: The term cult comes from the Latin word cultus, which means to worship a deity, but in the last few centuries its colloquial definition has transformed. The fear (and fascination) with cults is nothing new and movies about cults have been around since we started making films.
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