I remember reading Rosemary's Baby a while back. It's filled with Satanists, and they all seem so happy. I bring this up because I going to write a horror screenplay over my summer break. It's all mapped out in my head. I wonder if I should make my characters happy go lucky like the one's in Ira Levin's book.
(Mod note: I moved this from the Lounge to Character Development) Why not? One of the appeals of the book/movie (more so the movie) was that the Satanists were buttoned-downed, upper class, 1960s New Yorkers who seemed to lead normal lives aside from the Satan thing. Had they been a bunch of goth kids adorned in pentagrams, well, everyone would have seen that twist coming.
It all depends on the kind of story you want to write. The great thing about Rosemary's Baby was the way it broke stereotypes in unexpected ways. That makes it feel fresh and interesting, and at the same time allows you to relate it to real life. You start to look around at people like this: . And what was really great about it is, the satanism works as a perfect metaphor. Because everybody you see on the street or in stores or anywhere has their own life, and you have no idea what it is just by seeing them in their everyday clothes and manner. Being a writer and artist, I used to walk the streets of my neighborhood (back when that felt safe) late at night and see all these ordinary houses, and wonder are there others like me living in some of them? People who seem ordinary on the surface but have an inner world of imagination that runs deep, who build worlds and populate them, who make things in the basement that make people say "Really, you made this?" One day as I rode by on my bile I saw an old man sitting on a screened-in porch typing. I had never seen him doing that before, and my imagination ran wild, Was it his attempt at the Great American Novel? Science fiction? Fantasy? Or just a letter to a fiend, or filling out a form that had to be mailed somewhere? (Probably one of the latter, since it didn't take more than the one afternoon.) I wanted badly to knock on the door and ask, but I never did. Thus in my mind it's in permanent Schrodinger's Cat status, he is and he isn't at the same time. Edit—yes, I'm aware of the typos. I left the because funny.
I found that Get Out had a really modern take on that same approach. I'm not sure if Jordan Peele was directly inspired by Rosemary's Baby when he created it, but I wouldn't be at all surprised.
Those were Laveyan Satanists right? As Lavey said himself, his Church of Satan is just Objectivism with some ceremony and theatrics added (I'm paraphrasing). I think the Church has some subtle differences though, when it comes to views on sexuality and revenge. I was going to point out this distinction when I saw this post, but since the OP referenced Rosemary's Baby it was obvious they were talking about the Theistic Satanists (the kind that supposedly drink blood and sacrifice people).
satanists are idiots I almost became one but then God and a near death experience woke me up/saved my life not even kidding
How would a demon act? Would it be like the one in The Exorcist, or would it be more like the devil in Needful Things?
