Michelle Smith – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

SATAN WANTS YOU – Review by Rachel West

August 7, 2023August 8, 2023 Rachel West documentary, Dr Larry Pazder, Michelle Smith, Satan Wants You, Sean Horlor, Steve J. Adams

Satan Wants You looks back to the satanic panic of the 1980s and 1990s but it’s the film’s central subject, Michelle Smith, and its presentation of her that proves to be the most interesting. Watching Satan Wants You in an era of rampant Qanon conspiracy theories makes the film all the more timely. Viewed with a lens of the past, it’s easy to dismiss the reaction as ridiculous, spoon-fed to a gullible audience. But one only needs to turn to Twitter (or X or whatever it’s called today), to see the same type of claims causing the latest version of the “satanic panic.”

Festivals Reviews

SATAN WANTS YOU (Fantasia Fest 2023) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

August 2, 2023 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas documentary, Dr Larry Pazder, fantasia fest 2023, Michelle Smith, Satan Wants You, Sean Horlor, Steve J. Adams

Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor’s documentary Satan Wants You about the satanic panic that swept North America during the 80s and 90s is at its strongest when it situates the historical satanic ritual abuse moral panic of the period in a longer historical context, drawing a direct line to eerily similar and equally hysterical present-day conspiracy theories like Qanon and Pizzagate. Sadly still all too relevant, the documentary is an unflinching examination of the endurance of certain fears, and the equally persistent way that those fears can be cynically mined for financial and political gain by a morally bankrupt few who should know better.