The Devil Is In The Details: Spine Tingling Films With Satan

Some of our best actors have played Satan, like Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, but no one played the Adversary quite like Peter Stormare. Dressed totally in white and as gleeful as a child when he is summoned to collect the soul of John Constantine, he drips with menace without breaking a sweat. He is friendly but very evil, without exerting too much effort. It's one of the film's centerpieces, and it is mesmerizing when he confronts John Constantine, a defiant Keanu Reeves in this film directed by Francis Lawrence.

"The Day Of The Beast" is an outrageous horror comedy directed by Álex de la Iglesia. Satan only makes a brief appearance, but the film concerns a priest and theologist who has to pretend to commit evil so he can find out where the Antichrist will be born on one fateful night. He enlisted the help of an occult talk show host and an actual heavy metal-loving Satanist who doesn't seem very evil. They find that Satan is the leader of a fascist gang that has taken over the Gate Of Europe.

No one ever knows when the Devil might walk into your life. Still, this film, from a story written by M. Night Shyamalan and directed by John Erick Dowdle, is about how the Devil roams the Earth, so you never know when he might show up in an elevator that you are riding. As the deaths start, the people in the elevator wonder if Satan might be in a human disguise among them.

"The House of the Devil" is one of Ti West's early films, with some surprises you will not expect. The film stars Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov, Greta Gerwig, A. J. Bowen, and Dee Wallace. It is a free-spirited and fun film right up until the moment that it becomes deadly serious. Donahue, as Samantha Hughes, is a college student who desperately wants out of the dorms and will do anything to accomplish that goal. Unfortunately, she gets hired for a babysitting job by Satanists who need a vessel for a Satanic birth.

This horror neo-noir film directed by Alan Parker that stars Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet, and Charlotte Rampling is the story of a private detective hired by one "Louis Cyphre," who has long nails and a pentagram ring. I don't know, but that seems like a pretty big clue that Satan has hired you. Louis Cyphre = Lucifer. Mickey Rourke's character Harry Angel is hired to find a missing man, Johnny Favorite. As he unravels the story, things get more and more nightmarish as people start to die.

A lesser-known film from 1968, The Devil Rides Out, is the tale of Nicholas, Duc de Richleau, played by Christopher Lee, who is attempting to save his protegé from a Satanic cult. Satan makes an appearance in the form of Baphomet during a Mayday ceremony. The film was directed by one of Hammer Films' best directors Terence Fisher and the screenplay was written by Richard Matheson.

The tagline for this film could be "He's cute, but he's evil." It is still amazing to think that this cold-blooded horror film was directed by Richard Donner, better known for "Superman," but it was. Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, and Billie Whitelaw also star in this tale of the Antichrist being placed in a rich and powerful family as Satanic protectors remove people from his life that threaten him in any way or impede their access to him. While there isn't a lot of blood, the violence in the film is pretty stunning even now.

Only John Carpenter would make a film where Satan is in it the whole time but is personified by a glowing green tube of goo. It's a fantastic idea. Satan is trapped in a tube but is trying to get out, which puts everyone in danger. But there's more. The priest and a scientist theorize that Satan is merely the son of a more powerful force, the Anti-God, from the realm of antimatter. It puts an entirely new spin on the idea of the source of the Adversary and evil itself. The film stars Donald Pleasence, Lisa Blount, Victor Wong, and Jameson Parker.

Al Pacino's turn as Satan is in "The Devil's Advocate" as the character John Milton. He appears as a seducer who attempts to capture the essential goodness of Kevin Lomax, played by Keanu Reeves, and his wife, Mary Anne, played by Charlize Theron. In one memorable scene, Milton enters a church and puts his finger in holy water to make it boil. In the film, Satan does walk the Earth, tempting the children he has had with human women to come over to his side to create the Antichrist. It seems a little complicated, but that is the plan.

"Satan's School for Girls" is a television horror movie treasured by dyed-in-the-wool horror fans. It was made by Aaron Spelling in the mid-seventies when the idea of cults was on many people's minds after the Manson murders, and people started worrying about Satan. Spelling knew how to tap into the zeitgeist of the moment. In the film, a young woman goes to a college to investigate after her sister dies by suicide after fleeing The Salem Academy for Girls. There she finds strange things happening and a Satanic cult led by a man the students believe is Satan in the flesh.