Your Fashion: English Movie Reviews

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Rosalinda Celentano in The Passion of the Christ

Hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn. Rosalinda Celentano is the only female to occupy our top ten by breaking the sexy Satan stereotype and scaring the bejesus out of well, er, Jesus, in Mel “have another drink” Gibson’s 2004 God romp, The Passion of the Christ. Dressed in all black, she tries to tempt Christ in a deep, croaky and downright eerie voice in the movie’s opening scene, seeming that bit scarier by speaking in Aramaic. Her performance is so sinister and androgynous, we are left wondering if she could indeed be the Prince of Darkness himself.

Al Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate

Say hello to my little friend! It was a tough choice between Huston and Pacino for second and third, but Pacino steals it for his enthralling performance as law firm boss John Milton, alongside Keanu Reeves in 1997′s The Devil’s Advocate. Pacino gives Reeves the best satanic rant about God ever recorded on film. His character’s name was derived from the author of “Paradise Lost,” a poem on the fall of man, in case you didn’t know. Pacino’s Satan has it all. Lust, rage and manipulation – you name it. What makes his performance even better is that quite a few of his lines were improvised.

Walter Huston in The Devil and Daniel Webster

Walter Huston earned an Oscar nomination for his role as Mr Scratch in one of the earliest deals with the devil captured on film, 1941′s The Devil and Daniel Webster. He enters the pact with a 19th century farmer, who enlists notorious statesman Daniel Webster to discharge the agreement. Huston’s conniving grin and manipulative tactics have helped this rural devil stand the test of time. Al Pacino even studied Huston’s performance when himself taking up the role of the Dark Lord. The film also inspired a 2004 remake with Jenifer Love Hewitt as the fallen angel, but she doesn’t come close to emulating Huston’s classic portrayal.

Tim Curry in Legend

Curry has to take the top prize for his sizzling performance as the traditional red monster in Ridley Scott’s fantasy classic Legend. Curry sports cloven hooves, fangs and monstrous horns as he looks to massacre unicorns to stop the sun from ever shining again. Evil enough for you? His low sinister voice and maniacal laugh have been frightening the crap out of children since the film was made in the mid-Eighties, 1985 to be precise. Of all the devil’s on the list, it’s Curry’s Lucifer that you would least like to run into down a dark alley.

Tom Waits in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Veteran bluesman Tom Waits plays the slick Mr Nick in Terry Gilliam’s 2009 fantasy adventure The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. His charismatic incarnation, complete with bowler hat and quellazaire, places a bet with Dr Parnasuss, the head of a traveling troupe, that the first to capture five souls will take as his prize the doctor’s 16-year-old daughter. Waits purrs his lines and makes his Satan cool enough to turn the whole of hell into Antarctica. He adopted a similar persona in the music video for his song “God’s Away On Business,” where he dons the black umbrella used in the film.

Gabriel Byrne in End of Days

Not the greatest of films, End of Days, but Irishmen Gabriel Byrne steals the show with his performance as a cool, calm and lustful Satan. Here the archfiend possesses that bastion of all things evil – a Wall Street banker. In his human form, he looks to impregnate the woman chosen to bear his child. But there’s a catch. She has a protector, and it’s none other than Terminator-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger. Byrne boosts his evil credentials by setting a man on fire and indulging in a mother/daughter threesome – the lucky devil. 1999 was an evil year all round for Byrne, who also starred in the supernatural horror Stigmata.

Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick

Jack Nicholson and the devil seem the perfect fit given the veteran’s devilish smile in movies like The Shining. And Jack doesn’t disappoint in the 1987 comic horror The Witches of Eastwick. In trademark mischievous style, his womanizing Satan, Daryl Van Horne, seduces three desperate housewives, played by Susan Sarandon, Micelle Pfeiffer and Cher. The three women also experience the flamboyant devil’s wrath after trying to rid him with witchcraft, leading to a deranged tirade from Jack about God and women at a packed church congregation. A truly horny devil.

Robert De Niro in Angel Heart

In Angel Heart (1987), Robert De Niro’s Satan operates under the cleverly worded pseudonym Louis Cyphre – that’s Lucifer for those who missed it. The elegant Cyphre hires a private investigator, played by a pre-plastic surgery Mickey Rourke, to find a man who has failed to honor his contract – no prizes for guessing what that means. De Niro looks decidedly ominous with his stylish beard, long slicked back hair and manicured fingernails, which he uses to perform the creepiest cracking of a boiled egg in cinematic history. Despite the odd demonic gaze, De Niro remains menacing throughout without even having to lose his temper.

Peter Stormare in Constantine

Ah, Constantine. A below-par movie, released in 2005, brightened up by a sick-looking Dark Lord. Yes, here we find the infernal serpent in a crisp white suit looking as though he hasn’t slept for centuries. Swedish thespian Peter Stormare gives his devil a creepy lisp and diabolical swagger in another of Hollywood’s comic book movies. He burns the wings of the angel Gabriel, and you know he must be a real badass when he harvests the soul of Matrix chosen one Keanu Reeves, who plays detective John Constantine.

Viggo Mortensen in The Prophecy

In this cameo as the Dark Lord in The Prophecy (1995), Viggo Mortensen manages to out-evil Christopher “crazy eyes” Walken and even eats his heart. His sinister, witty and articulate Lucifer offers a young female schoolteacher a choice: “I can lay you out and fill your mouth with your mother’s feces, or we can talk.” She chooses the chat. To further demonstrate just how dark he is, he takes his anger out on the surrounding flora by eating one of God’s creations, a yellow rose. The Lord would not be happy. Neither would Gandalf.

Brokeback Mountain

It’s probably fair to say that most religious groups aren’t exactly keen on the gay community, so it was inevitable that a mainstream movie which revolves around two homosexual cowboys getting acquainted in a tent might not cut the mustard with the God squad. It was in certain Arabic countries – where homosexuality is often banned outright on religious grounds – that 2005′s Brokeback Mountain received the most scathing criticism, and a good deal of censorship, plus a banning to boot in the United Arab Emirates. Here in the US the movie was given an unhindered distribution, albeit against the incessant braying of a scattering of right wing nuts with time on their hands.

The Magdalene Sisters

For an institution steeped in stiff moral fiber, the Catholic Church sure does get some bad press in the movie world. In 2002, Peter Mullen’s movie, The Magdalene Sisters, caused such a stir with the cloth that it was officially banned by The Vatican. The movie depicts – supposedly with toned down accuracy – the atrocious conditions in which “fallen” Irish Catholic women were kept during their stays in Magdalene Asylums, workhouses in which they were meant to be looked after. Whether it truly touched a nerve or whether the Pope was just tired of all the defamation, we can’t say, but one thing that’s certain is that Mullen won’t be holidaying in Rome anytime soon.

The Matrix

The movie that spawned a thousand crappy online pseudonyms for nerds, the leather-trenchcoat-a-thon of the late nineties we know as The Matrix is one of the more surprising entries on this list. It was banned in a number of countries after it was deemed too sensitive to air a movie that so wantonly screwed around with the concept of man’s maker. Egypt was the country most vehemently opposed to the Wachowski duo’s slow motion masterpiece, stating that, “Despite the high technology and fabulous effects of the movie, it explicitly handles the issue of existence and creation, which are related to the three divine religions, which we all respect and believe in.”

Bruce Almighty

Perhaps the stupidest movie on the list to be banned, 2003′s Bruce Almighty, showcasing condom-faced comedian Jim Carrey’s predictable performance as a man temporarily blessed with the powers of God, didn’t go down too well in certain domains. Proving that even in our enlightened new millennium, causing offense is still all too easy, the fairly docile family comedy managed to receive an outright ban in Egypt and Malaysia (though the latter country eventually lifted the restriction), thanks to objections raised by Islamic groups that it was offensive to depict God as an ordinary man.

The Devils

Based on the Aldous Huxley book The Devils of Loudon – itself based on the predicaments of a priest living in Poitiers in the 16th century, burnt at the stake for seeing that a group of nuns were “possessed” – Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave played the lead roles in this 1971 movie. Part of the controversy surrounding The Devils related to an orgy scene in which crazed nuns sexually assaulted an image of Christ, and a generally unfavorable commentary on Christianity, particularly the Catholic Church, throughout. Censorship and ratings boards denounced the movie – with the the British Board of Film Censors being pressured by the socially conservative pressure group the Festival of Light – which prompted a lengthy editing process on the final cut, including the deletion of the aforementioned scene and half of another involving a sister masturbating using one of the priest’s burnt bones. Further explicit nudity was cut in the US, and in Britain it was totally outlawed by no less than 17 local authorities.

Monty Python’s Life of Brian

One of the funniest creations to have come from the collective comedy brain that is Monty Python, The Life of Brian is incredibly tame by modern standards, but that didn’t stop it from coming under massive scrutiny from religious groups following its release in 1979. The light-hearted take on one man’s comedic capers after being mistaken for the Messiah rubbed certain religious spoilsports up the wrong way, leading to numerous protests outside movie theaters in the UK and the US on grounds of the movie’s perceived blasphemy. On top of the film’s comments on religious infighting and fanaticism, the scene in which Brian is crucified proved particularly controversial, with some claiming it made a mockery of Jesus’ suffering. The movie was banned in numerous constituencies in Britain, as well as a handful of countries (it was famously sold in Sweden as “The film so funny that it was banned in Norway”), with some of those bans continuing on into the 21st century. So this is why they say religion lacks a sense of humor…

The Last Temptation of Christ

Whilst we wouldn’t want to discourage, or comment negatively, upon a director’s right to show controversial religious imagery in their works of art, we certainly can’t understand how on earth Universal Pictures ever thought this movie would slip gently under the religious radar. Didn’t they hear? God is omnipresent. The Last Temptation of Christ is a good movie, by a great director (Martin Scorsese, no less), but it isn’t really surprising that – back in the eighties – scenes in which Christ himself kisses other dudes and engages in sexual intercourse might cause a teeny bit of a furor. The movie was banned in a handful of countries, with censors wary of the film’s religious content, and it is still banned in the Philippines and Singapore. It also drove a gang of religious zealots to firebomb a Parisian cinema that was showing it. Very forgiving.

The Profit

If there’s one golden rule in Hollywood, it’s that you gotta have stones if you’re planning on taking on Scientologists. Much like “that kid” in elementary school, the affluent devotees of L. Ron Hubbard’s fairy tale sci-fi nonsense might believe they’re basically Jedi knights, but in this case delusion doesn’t necessarily equate to weakness. Ever philosophical and level-headed, Scientologists have a good track record of coming down like a ton of bricks on any of the big bad bullies that poke fun at them, even causing the temporary halting of shows as big as South Park. So it’s fair to say budget movie The Profit – a thinly veiled lampoon of religious cults in the same vein as Scientology – didn’t stand a chance. A lawsuit issued by the church led to a court order banning it from distribution, adding truth to that old saying about the nut jobs having the great lawyers.

The Passion of the Christ

Gibbering, demi-drunk bone-hole Mel Gibson is no stranger to controversy – or right wing sentiment – having been quoted countless times spouting various shades of hateful crap, possibly when inebriated. So it should come as no surprise that a movie that he conceived and directed might cause something of a stir in religious circles. The Passion of The Christ, Gibson’s inexplicably popular magnum opus, has been viewed variously as the anti-Semitic ramblings of a knuckle-headed souse or the masterful religious dedication of a genius. Its depiction of Christ’s rather painful-looking demise caused the movie to be banned by the Malaysian government for everyone except – obscurely – Christian audience members. Although it wasn’t actually banned in Israel, it was somewhat understandably boycotted, receiving no theatrical distribution.

Lemora - A Child’s Tale of The Supernatural

Up until the 1980s, the Catholic League of Decency was one of the most influential organized groups of ball aches in the US. They even had their own system of classifications, whose most extreme condemnation was “Morally unobjectionable.” Clearly these guys meant business. The Richard Blackburn 1975 horror movie, Lemora: A Child’s Tale of The Supernatural, was one movie that fell foul of the Bible-loving do-gooders. Featuring pedophilia, lesbianism and incest, plus dabblings with that ol’ Catholic favorite, the occult, we guess it was only a matter of time before theaters wouldn’t touch this movie with a very long stick thanks to pressure from the CLD. It was so denounced that until very recently it was still difficult to find a copy of it anywhere except France. Make of that what you will.

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