Product Description
“An electrifying descent into ’80s-era cultural terror.”
-Mike McPadden, Author of Heavy Metal Movies
In the 1980s, it seemed impossible to escape Satan’s supposed influence. Everywhere you turned, there were warnings about a widespread evil conspiracy to indoctrinate the vulnerable through the media they consumed. This percolating cultural hysteria, now known as the “Satanic Panic,” not only sought to convince us of devils lurking behind the dials of our TVs and radios and the hellfire that awaited on book and video store shelves, it also created its own fascinating cultural legacy of Satan-battling VHS tapes, audio cassettes and literature. The second book by Canadian micro-publisher Spectacular Optical, Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s, offers an unprecedented and in-depth exploration of how a controversial culture war played out during the decade, from the publication of the memoir Michelle Remembers in 1980 to the end of the McMartin “Satanic Ritual Abuse” Trial in 1990. This new anthology, expected to be released in summer 2015, follows on the success of KID POWER!, Spectacular Optical’s inaugural book about cool, tough and sassy kids in cult film and television.
Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s features new essays and interviews by 20 emerging and established writers who address the ways the widespread fear of a Satanic conspiracy was both illuminated and propagated through almost every pop culture pathway in the 1980s, from heavy metal music to Dungeons & Dragons role playing games, Christian comics, direct-to-VHS scare films, pulp paperbacks, Saturday morning cartoons, TV talk shows and even home computers. The book also features case studies on McMartin, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth and Long Island “acid king” killer Ricky Kasso. From con artists to pranksters and moralists to martyrs, the book aims to capture the untold story of the how the Satanic Panic was fought on the pop culture frontlines and the serious consequences it had for many involved.
Satanic Panic features essays and interviews by authors and media critics including Adam Parfrey (Apocalypse Culture), Gavin Baddeley (Lucifer Rising: Sin, Devil Worship and Rock n’ Roll), Liisa Ladouceur (Encyclopedia Gothica), David Flint (Sheer Filth!), Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (Rape Revenge Films: A Critical Study), Adrian Mack (The Georgia Straight), Forrest Jackson (Cosmic Suicide: The Tragedy and Transcendence of Heaven’s Gate), Alison Nastasi (Flavorwire), Leslie Hatton (Popshifter), David Canfield (Twitch), David Bertrand (Fangoria; Spectacular Optical), Alison Lang (Rue Morgue, Broken Pencil), Kevin L. Ferguson (Eighties People), Wm Conley (Deathwound), Kurt Halfyard (Twitch), Samm Deighan (Satanic Pandemonium), Stacey Rusnak (The Postnational Fantasy: Essays on Postcolonialism, Cosmopolitics and Science Fiction), Ralph Elawani (C’est complet au royaume des morts), Gil Nault (Liturgie apocryphe), one-man band John Schooley and Joshua Benjamin Graham, alongside co-editors Kier-La Janisse (House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films) and Paul Corupe (Canuxploitation). The book also features comic art by Rick Trembles (Motion Picture Purgatory) and original illustrations by Toronto artist Mike McDonnell.
The full contents of the book are:
FOREWORD
By Adam Parfrey
INTRODUCTION
By Kier-La Janisse
REMEMBERING MICHELLE REMEMBERS
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
THE UNHOLY PASSION: SEX AND GENDER ANXIETY IN RUSS MARTIN’S EROTIC HORROR PAPERBACKS
By Alison Nastasi
DICING WITH THE DEVIL: THE CRUSADE AGAINST GAMING
By Gavin Baddeley
20-SIDED SINS: HOW JACK T. CHICK WAS DRAWN INTO THE RPG WAR
By Paul Corupe
MASTERS OF THE IMAGINATION: FUNDAMENTALIST READINGS OF THE OCCULT IN CARTOONS OF THE 1980s
By Joshua Graham
DEVIL ON THE LINE: TECHNOLOGY AND THE SATANIC FILM
By Kevin L. Ferguson
ALL HAIL THE ACID KING: THE RICKY KASSO CASE IN POPULAR CULTURE
By Leslie Hatton
“WHAT ABOUT THESE 10,000 SOULS, BUSTER?” GERALDO’S DEVIL WORSHIP SPECIAL
By Alison Lang
THE FILTHY 15: WHEN VENOM AND KING DIAMOND MET THE WASHINGTON WIVES
By Liisa Ladouceur
SCAPEGOAT OF A NATION: THE DEMONIZATION OF MTV AND THE MUSIC VIDEO
BY Stacy Rusnak
TRICK OR TREAT: HEAVY METAL AND DEVIL WORSHIP IN 80s CULT CINEMA
By Samm Deighan
STEALING THE DEVIL’S MUSIC: THE RISE OF CHRISTIAN METAL AND PUNK
By David Bertrand
THE TRACKING OF EVIL: HOME VIDEO AND THE PROLIFERATION OF SATANIC PANIC
By Wm. Conley
BEDEVILING BOB: PRANKING “TALK BACK WITH BOB LARSON”
By Forrest Jackson
CONFESSIONS OF A CREATURE FEATURE PREACHER: OR, HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE MIKE WARNKE AND STOP WORRYING ABOUT SATANISM
By David Canfield
BOUC EMISSAIRE: MANIFESTATIONS OF SATANIC ANXIETY IN QUEBEC
By Ralph Elawani and Gil Nault
THE DEVIL DOWN UNDER: SATANIC PANIC IN AUSTRALIA, FROM ROSALEEN NORTON TO ALISON’S BIRTHDAY
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
GUILTLESS: BRITAIN’S MORAL PANICS, SATANIC HYSTERIA AND THE STRANGE CASE OF GENESIS P-ORRIDGE
By David Flint
FALSE HISTORY SYNDROME: HBO’s INDICTMENT: THE MCMARTIN TRIAL
By Adrian Mack
END OF THE 80s: PARANOIA AS COMIC CATHARSIS IN JOE DANTE’S THE ‘BURBS
By Kurt Halfyard
AFTERWORD
By John Schooley
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SATANIC PANIC on NOISEY: http://noisey.vice.com/blog/satanic-panic-interviews
SATANIC PANIC on TORONTOIST: http://torontoist.com/2015/08/hail-satanic-panic/
SATANIC PANIC on CULTMTL: http://cultmontreal.com/2015/07/satanic-panic-book/
SATANIC PANIC on THIS NERDING LIFE: http://thisnerdinglife.com/2015/10/08/review-satanic-panic-pop-cultural-paranoia-in-the-1980s-2015/
SATANIC PANIC on SINFUL CELLULOID: http://www.sinfulcelluloid.com/2015/11/book-review-satanic-panic-pop-cultural-paranoia-in-the-1980s/
SATANIC PANIC on THIRD EYE CINEMA: https://thirdeyecinema.wordpress.com/2015/11/10/book-review-satanic-panic-pop-cultural-paranoia-in-the-1980s-kier-la-janisse-paul-corupe/
SATANIC PANIC in FANGORIA: http://www.fangoria.com/new/satanic-panic-book-review/
SATANIC PANIC in FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND: http://famousmonsters.com/archives/18906/5
