I have to say that in this particular Anger short, I was much more interested in the early synthesizer score by Mick Jagger than I was for Anger's straight-up Satanic imagery. That said, the Satanism and occult nature of this short is important because it's basically a testimonial to various ways in which this imagery has continued to subsist in the imagination of our culture. Images of Satanism and witchcraft, occult and ritual pepper film history from Haxan to the present day, especially in experimental and alternative film-making. There are many experimental short films that could be understood basically as a direct response, reproduction, or return to Kenneth Anger's particular vision. The theatrics of Satanism is compelling because of way it's practiced or imagined to be practiced, in the same way that the Carnivalesque references that need in humanity to mock and subvert through caricature and clowning. Mick Jagger's cooperation in this, and the Rolling Stones concert imagery (I'm assuming "My Demon Brother" refers to Jagger, but I could be wrong) is a winking allegory to the reputation Jagger started to have in the fears and anxieties of 1960s parents and the continual shadow of Altamont over their career (a Hell's Angels jacket appears, plus references to a dead cat that could easily be a stand-in for the murdered audience member as well as fill in the form of animal sacrifice popularly believed is involved in Satanic ritual).
Meanwhile, it's not as if the short itself is completely serious. At one point a doll rolls down a staircase with a sign attached to it that says "Oops you're pregnant! That's witchcraft!" The earlier part of the movie is a simple reaction shot structure where a strange blond (almost albino) man looks around and sees naked men lounging around, almost in reference to the effeminate Jagger--a reference that comes back with the swaying hips of one man in something like quadruple-exposure, etc. The whole thing is almost too playful, with demons literally dressed in red-faced costumes and plastic horns on their heads, and random dogs laying around watching what's going on with detached animal interest.
However, it is engaged cinema, and Anger is still pointing to some of his fascinations with the darker undertones of all humanity and their shifting perspectives and contexts. Nazi imagery shows up, this time closer referencing the original form of the swastika that the Nazis reappropriated for their own use. A hooded congregation leader looks like the high priest of a KKK group, followed by people who are obviously not KKK members. Birth and death are purposefully confused. Bubbling, boiling imagery is mixed with multiple-exposure imagery (Anger is always fond of pointing out that film is a chemical process, like alchemy) and kaliedoscopic imagery to reference bodies and forms as malleable things. Fire destroys it all in the end anyway.
--PolarisDiB
Meanwhile, it's not as if the short itself is completely serious. At one point a doll rolls down a staircase with a sign attached to it that says "Oops you're pregnant! That's witchcraft!" The earlier part of the movie is a simple reaction shot structure where a strange blond (almost albino) man looks around and sees naked men lounging around, almost in reference to the effeminate Jagger--a reference that comes back with the swaying hips of one man in something like quadruple-exposure, etc. The whole thing is almost too playful, with demons literally dressed in red-faced costumes and plastic horns on their heads, and random dogs laying around watching what's going on with detached animal interest.
However, it is engaged cinema, and Anger is still pointing to some of his fascinations with the darker undertones of all humanity and their shifting perspectives and contexts. Nazi imagery shows up, this time closer referencing the original form of the swastika that the Nazis reappropriated for their own use. A hooded congregation leader looks like the high priest of a KKK group, followed by people who are obviously not KKK members. Birth and death are purposefully confused. Bubbling, boiling imagery is mixed with multiple-exposure imagery (Anger is always fond of pointing out that film is a chemical process, like alchemy) and kaliedoscopic imagery to reference bodies and forms as malleable things. Fire destroys it all in the end anyway.
--PolarisDiB