Satanic Panic (2019) movie review By Seth Metoyer, MoreHorror.com Oh the mid to late 80s and early 90s. Personally growing up in a Christian household, my brother's and I heard a lot about the evils of Satan lurking within our toy boxes, movies and of course music. That darn backwards masking! Add to that horror stories of kidnapping, pentagrams and human sacrifices - you get what is now termed as the "Satanic Panic". More closely related to the 2019 film of the same name, I recall a conversation with friends at a Denny's about tipping servers in 1992. Back then I was actually an ignorant 19 year old who thought tipping was ridiculous unless the server "earned" the tip. Today I believe that all servers need to be tipped the minimum percentage, and will add more if the service was above par. A similar theme occures in the horror comedy film "Satanic Panic," directed by Chelsea Stardust. We have a snobby rich customer who decides not to tip pizza delivery gal Sam (Hayley Griffith) who treks up to the mansion on her first outing as a pie delivery employee. Furious about being snubbed of a tip, Samantha crashes the party and goes into the mansion, where she stumbles upon a coven while in the middle of performing what turns out to be a Satanic ritual. Eventually the cult members find out she is a virgin and they decide to lock her up because yeah, Satanic Cults love virgins and need them for their rituals. Duh! "Satanic Panic" is director Stardust's helming debut and she does a stellar job visually telling the wacky story. The movie is produced by Fangoria Presents, and is slated as a throwback film which channels the B movie essences of the 80/90s. For the most part it succeeds by channeling the gore and comedy found in a lot of those nostalgic films. The movie feels a bit clunky in parts as it shifts tones, trying to be funny over the top witty and then more serious, trying to be something else that is hard to put a finger on. That's probably due to the "story by" Ted Geoghegan and Grady Hendrix, not so much the director's fault. A bright spot for me was the character Danica, who is the elder witch, played by Rebecca Romijn. She offers up a very strong yet hilarious at times performance. Fans of gory practical effects should enjoy the many interesting and unique character dispatching events. Overall "Satanic Panic" is a fun horror film that doesn't take itself too seriously, but it could have benefited from a bit of script tightening. There's some social commentary here about the rich and poor classes but nothing groundbreaking that hasn't been covered before. Seek this one out when you want something to throw on in the background while having a pizza party with fellow horror fans. They're bound to a least get a good kick out of it.
Satanic Panic Trailer:
https://youtu.be/mpwVh6c7fFs