The Devil Rides Out

Jesse Walker | October 31, 2005

Halloween link #1: Twenty-one years ago, dozens of children at the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, accused their instructors of molesting them in bizarre occult rituals. The lurid stories, which were eventually debunked, set the tone for the satanic panic of the '80s, in which many innocent lives were wrecked by false accusations and overzealous prosecutors. In yesterday's Los Angeles Times, one of the accusers finally recanted.

From Debbie Nathan's introduction to the story:

In the decade and a half since the defendants were set free, research psychologists have shown that it's easy to pressure children to describe bad things that never happened. False memories can feel real, though, not just for preschoolers but for older children as well. But [Kyle] Sapp, now known as Kyle Zirpolo, says he never had false memories: He always knew his stories of abuse were made up. The adults at the McMartin Pre-School "never did anything to me, and I never saw them doing anything," he says today. "I said a lot of things that didn't happen. I lied." 

Halloween link #2: The grotesque abuses at the Bridgewater asylum for the criminally insane, on the other hand, really did take place, and were recorded in Frederick Wiseman's extraordinary 1967 documentary Titicut Follies, the first of several films Wiseman made about life under different total and semi-total institutions (High School, Hospital, Welfare, etc.). The state of Massachusetts banned the movie not long after it was released, and it was kept from public view from then until 1991; to this day, it has been hard to track down a copy. But now you can watch it online.

Halloween link #3: If you want to spice up your Halloween party with literature guaranteed to send a guest to Bridgewater or some other home for the hopelessly mad, here's some Martha Stewart-worthy tips on how to assemble your own Necronomicons. If you just want your guest to keel over dead, skip the Necronomicon and invite his abusive boss.

Comments

|10.31.05 @ 9:41AM|#

Lucy, Daughter of the Devil premiered on Adult Swim last night. Good stuff!

|10.31.05 @ 9:48AM|#

Halloween Link Number 4: Trick-Or-Treaters To Be Subject To Random Bag Searches

|10.31.05 @ 10:02AM|#

Humph... My buddies had to cancel this year's Halloween bash due to scheduling conflicts. I guess I'm just going to have to spend the night at home watching horror movies on TCM and handing swag to the rugrats... or at least I would if we weren't the shunned house in the neighborhood. The number of Trick-Or-Treaters we've had over the last 20 years could be counted on one hand.

Anyway, on a Lovecraft related note, a bunch of enterprising fans made a silent movie version of "The Call Of Cthulhu." Go to http://www.cthulhulives.org/cocmovie/index.html for more info.

fyodor|10.31.05 @ 11:00AM|#

I sure had to look up how and why Titicut Follies was banned! Interesting.

|10.31.05 @ 11:12AM|#

fyodor,

Yep, and doesn't it parallel the govt's reasoning in banning the rest of the Abu Ghraib photos?

Also, no account of Halloween devilry is complete without a reference to the pastor who was electrocuted during a baptism yesterday:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9872514/

|10.31.05 @ 11:58AM|#

It was all Gary Gygax's fault, if you recall.

I mean the whole '80's satanism thing, not the recent electrocution.

|10.31.05 @ 12:49PM|#

Given that you saw the Smirnoff piece, how could you not link to the interview with the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists?

Anon

|10.31.05 @ 6:51PM|#

Prior to becoming an urban planner, I lived in Bridgewater, where I had a lucrative career in transportation. Chinese food transportation.

I used to go out to the state prison complex all the time, and I can say without fear of contradiction, the guards at the Treatment Center for the Sexually Dangerous, as it's now called, are the biggest pricks on the planet.

|10.31.05 @ 7:05PM|#

the guards at the Treatment Center for the Sexually Dangerous, as it's now called, are the biggest pricks on the planet.

That sounds like the plot summary for a porn movie...

R C Dean|11.1.05 @ 7:43AM|#

The state of Massachusetts banned the movie not long after it was released, and it was kept from public view from then until 1993; to this day, it has been hard to track down a copy.

That's odd, because it was shown in one of my law school classes in 1985(?). I forget the exact context, but I think it was free speech. I think it was shown as an object lesson in the futility in banning speech, and to show that such bans are (of course) self-serving by the banning officiate.

R C Dean|11.1.05 @ 7:44AM|#

I should have mentioned - my law school was in Massachusetts.