If you’re looking for a film along the lines of an after school special that feels like it may have been directed by John Waters and has a little inspiration from C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, then Satan Hates You probably still isn’t the movie for you.
Marc (Don Wood) is a closet homosexual who savagely murders anyone who gets close to him or challenges him. Wendy (Christine Spencer) is a teenage girl who does nothing but sleep with guys, takes lots of drugs, drinks a lot and gets an illegal abortion when she gets knocked up. If toned down Wendy’s story could easily be the aforementioned after school special. All while this is happening two unseen devils watch the events unfold and push the two main characters into doing their dastardly deeds (kind of like The Screwtape Letters).
They also exist in a world where the only TV channel is a religious channel where one of the preachers is Dr. Michael Gabriel (Angus Scrimm). As Marc and Wendy descend further and further into hellish sin there are those who are trying to save their souls. And therein lies the crux of the film, will their souls be saved or not?
There are two other horror icons who appear in this film: Reggie Bannister (Phantasm) plays Mickey the bartender and Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes) plays Mr Harker, the owner of a hotel. With three awesome horror legends in one film, you would assume that the film would surely be great. Sadly this is not the case.
It’s not that the story is bad, cause it’s not. It’s well made and surprisingly well acted for a b-horror film. The reason Satan Hates You doesn’t work is because the two lead characters are annoying. The audience is given nothing to grab onto with either of these characters and whether or not their souls are saved or not. And without that, you really don’t have much of anything at all.
It’s easy to see that everyone involved had a good time making Satan Hates You and it’s a well produced movie, but with two uninteresting lead characters the whole film just kind of meanders about until coming to what is supposed to be a shocking conclusion.
The film is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen and 5.1 surround. The film is pretty well made for a low budget film and it looks and sounds better than you would expect it to.
The Making Of: (22 min.) This is an okay making of, the best part is when they show how they turned a giant warehouse into pretty much all of their sets which was pretty cool. TV Segments: (37 min.) This is the unedited footage from all the religious TV stuff that appears throughout the film. December 23rd a short film: (3 min.) is short and confusing. It very much reminded me of one of David Lynch’s short films. And finally the trailer.
In the making of James Felix McKenney, the director, says that Satan Hates You is an homage to old Christian scare films. I guess that means you have to be a fan of the genre in order to get what’s going on here. It’s not a genre I’ve really delved into so maybe that’s why I didn’t like the film. Or maybe it just wasn’t that good. I guess you’ll have to watch it yourself and find out.
Danger After Dark presents Satan Hates You. Written and Directed by: James Felix McKenney. Starring: Don Wood, Christine Spencer, Angus Scrimm, Reggie Bannister and Michael Berryman. Running time: 95 min. Rating: Not Rated but contains adult language, situations and gory violence. Released on DVD: October 18, 2011. Available at Amazon.com.
