Satanic Panic (2009)
Directed by: Marc Selz
DVD Release Date: October 13, 2009
Review by: Marc Patterson

It’s sad to say, as it dates me a bit, but I’m a child of the 80’s. To my credit, it was really the early 90’s that were my formative years of high school and beyond, but I very much remember the 80’s as the time when I first got turned on to the devil, and as a time when the footholds of horror took hold in my heart. Much to the chagrin of my Baptist parents, I would have to give specific credit to the Satanic Panic scares of the 80’s as the main point of focus for my turn to the dark side. If it weren’t for these alleged events, I might have never learned of the spiritual warfare that was waged daily for my soul, or the art of casting demons from swine. And you thought my bio was a joke… Ever read ‘Pigs in the Parlor’?

Enter Satanic Panic, a low-budget production by writer/director Marc Selz (The Rockville Slayer), and the second of two films this year to take a stab at portraying the fear from that era in time. The other film, sitting on the opposite end of the spectrum, is Ti West’s The House of the Devil. Marc Selz offers up a more raw effort that takes nothing under assumption regarding your knowledge of this era by calling itself Satanic Panic.

The story begins with a slightly flamboyant Satanist defending his belief to an off screen documentarian. With cuts to anonymous victims of alleged Satanic crime, we’re off to what seems to be a somewhat solid start to this effort. Injected into the fray is a scene where one particular guy walks around his town showing the camera boarded up homes that town folks have abandoned. He verbally chooses to stand his ground and let those Satanists bring on a fight if that is what they want. It seems that’s exactly what they wanted as shortly following, he’s dispatched by cloaked assailants in torturous fashion.

As we move into the second act of the set-up, we witness the sacrifice of a child on a makeshift altar. The young boy’s twin sister runs for help in the woods before hell breaks loose, quite literally. Then the film takes an interesting turn. It leaves the 80’s and enters the modern day, and this is where I got a bit lost. Not lost as in confused. Lost as in Selz just lost me. From here Satanic Panic turns into a run of the mill low budget slasher. I won’t bother setting up the characters. They aren’t that interesting. And I’m not being dismissive because this second half of the film comes up lacking. No, Selz knows what makes good budget-based horror. He packs in blood, boobs, sacrifice, and even manages to toss in a topless lesbian make-out scene for gratuitous effect. It’s just that I’d have rather seen the film that was hinted at in the first twenty minutes of run-time.

Though slightly disjointed and schizophrenic in that the filmmakers seemingly struggle to determine whether the film should be a docu-styled throwback film or a modern day backwoods slasher, it’s nonetheless surprisingly well executed from a technical vantage point. What is refreshing is that Marc clearly understands the restraints of his budget, and takes to task to make the most of his technical limitations. The sound and camera work are surprisingly solid, and the attention to making the most of the effects proves that bringing the blood involves more than amateurishly pouring Caro syrup over naked breasts.

While the acting is nothing to write home about, and the dialogue at times a little rough and exposition heavy, I was impressed that Selz managed to conjure up some passable performances from his fairly large and diverse cast.

Ultimately, I would have liked to have seen the film take a little more focus, and perhaps really gone for the gusto in exploring those docu-horror styled elements. It wouldn’t be a new format for audiences, and I feel it could have managed to effectively evoke the spirit of those hype-driven scares so many of us horror fiends fondly remember.

Brutal As Hell Rating: 2½ out of 5