“Nikolas and Zeena are interviewed by insane televangelist Bob Larson, defending Satanism.
Larson spends the majority of the interview alluding to the bible and cutting his guests off. Zeena and Nikolas spend the majority of the interview toying with the befuddled fundamentalist, poking holes in argument after argument with their superior intellect. This feat is not difficult, but does show how ignorant Larson is.”
” Twenty-one years ago tonight, television standards plunged further when NBC aired “Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground,”a two-hour “documentary” from “journalist” Geraldo Rivera.
The network touted the special as an investigation into crimes and a correlation between heavy metal music and Satanism, but the Washington Post’s Tom Shales had a different description, calling it “dirty-minded teleporn,” filled with “talk about butchered babies, dismembered corpses, cannibal cults and sex orgies.”
He noted the networks had cut their departments of standards and practices, attributing the whittling to “hyped competitiveness fostered by the Reagan administration’s sweeping deregulation” of broadcasting.
NBC began “Devil Worship” at 8 p.m. – the slot it reserved for “ALF,” “The Cosby Show” and “Family Ties” on other nights – requiring frequent interruptions for disclaimers and parental advisories.
As Shales reported, Rivera himself addressed parents during the broadcast: “I am begging you. This subject is just too upsetting for your young children. Please, get them out of the room or change the station!”
NBC’s entertainment division produced “Devil Worship,” triggering much strife within the network.
The news division refused to allow Rivera on “Today” to promote “Devil Worship,” and “Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw told the Los Angeles Times “quasi-news programs cheapens the genuine news product.”
In the days before broadcast, with negative publicity mounting, NBC was forced to sell some commercials at half price.
The Los Angeles Times reported KNBC’s “Devil Worship” broadcast carried just 14 commercials, including two for the National Enquirer and three for new horror movies.
An NBC spokeswoman told the Times the network’s switchboards received 331 complaints in New York and Burbank. (A secretary at the NBC affiliate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said it received just one call – from a viewer whose home lost power as the broadcast began and wanted a rerun.)
“Devil Worship” finished fifth in the weekly ratings, with viewers in almost 20 million homes. Only NBC’s “Cosby,” “Cheers” and “A Different World” and CBS’s “60 Minutes” ranked higher.
In his 1992 memoir “The Last Great Ride,” NBC entertainment chief Brandon Tartikoff recalled hiring Rivera after he scored big ratings opening Al Capone’s vault in a live syndicated special in 1986.
Another concession: “Devil Worship” was conceived as a “blunting weapon” to counter the second episode of ABC’s “Roseanne,” which ended up ranking eighth.
Although Tartikoff was apologetic in the days after the “Devil Worship” broadcast, he struck a somewhat defensive tone in his book, noting affiliates received calls and letters from viewers thanking NBC for “exposing this very real problem … infecting their communities.”
Still, Tartikoff wrote, “If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t.”
Charles Manson Superstar is a documentary film about Charles Manson, directed by Nikolas Schreck in 1989. Most of the documentary (the entire interview) was filmed inside San Quentin Prison. Schreck narrated the segments while images were shown, and music played in the background. There was brief footage of Spahn Ranch, and a short clip of James M. Mason being interviewed about the Universal Order, and Manson. Olivier Messiaen‘s “Death and Resurrection,” Bobby Beausoleil‘s “Lucifer Rising,” Krzysztof Penderecki‘s “Apocalypsis,” and Anton La Vey‘s “The Satanic Mass,” and Manson’s own songs “Clang Bang Clang” and “Mechanical Man” from the album LIE The Love and Terror Cult, were played during the film.
For forty years, Charles Manson has survived most of his life in what he calls ‘the hallways of the all ways,’ the reform schools, jails and prisons that have been his home and tomb. His thought was born in the hole of solitary confinement, apart from time and beyond the grasp of society. In his cell, he created his own world and speaks his own language: he has concluded that there is only the mind. This DVD will relinquish to you the extreme story of the killer of all killers: Charles Manson. From convincing his followers to move into the desert to train for the apocalypse, to leading a murderous crew through a string of devilish murders, you will see and hear from Manson himself of how he created a preconceived terror based on his philosophy of life. Manson claims that the so-called ‘straight’ world outside of prison is but an inverted reflection of the underworld in which he has lived. To him, the reality that presidents and law-abiding citizens accept begins in the hermetic alternate universe of criminals, cons and outlaws. Much as simplistic historians have dismissed Hitler’s 3rd Reich as the overcompensation of a failed artist, Manson’s vision of a holy war has been generally categorized as nothing more than the jealous rage of a spurned musician.
In this made for TV movie, Powers Boothe plays the infamous leader of the “People’s Temple Cult,” Jim Jones. 1,000 followers give away their life savings to live with the cult in Guyana. When the illegal activities of Jones and his higher ups becomes known and investigators began searching the property, Jones decides to take himself and his followers on the fast track to heaven by staging the largest mass suicide in history. This film depicts Jones’ maniacal worldview and tragic end in graphic fashion. Boothe’s performance as Jones has long been revered as his absolute best, and the supporting cast, made up of such veterans as Ned Beatty, Randy Quaid and James Earl Jones, are equally good.
The film draws on Guyana Massacre: The Eyewitness Account and reports from The Washington Post at the time, to describe the life of Jim Jones from a 1960s idealist to the November 1978 mass murder/suicide of members of Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. In the beginning of the film, Jim Jones is seen helping minorities and working against racism. Later, after a move to San Francisco and increased power and attention, Jones becomes focused on his belief in nuclear holocaust, and moves hundreds of his followers to Guyana. Congressman Leo J. Ryan is notified that some individuals are being held against their will, and after going to investigate, the Guyana tragedy itself is depicted.
