Entertaining, slow moving, insightful, and sometimes shocking fourth installment to the Kenneth Anger short film collection; it possesses all these attributes, as well as being influential to experimental directors of today. A lot of what Anger was doing in "Invocation of My Demon Brother" (film layers, fast edits, bizarre soundtracks) can be seen in most of the music videos on MTV; a characteristic that has driven parents, as well as teenagers, crazy. The primary source of these ideas came from the Acid Trip footage, extensively explicated in Tom Wolfe's lysergic-fused biographical novel, "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." Nevertheless, the idea caught on and Anger utilized the technique to the fullest in "Demon Brother," counterweighted by an equivocal tape-loop supplied by Mick Jagger. In the second film "Lucifer Rising," Anger had already developed his experimentation with edits and layers, this time presenting a more formalized run to the film. Marianne Faithful makes an appearance in the film, as well as an assortment of 60's notables, which includes Manson family member Bobby Beausoleil who also wrote the film's score. Altho not Anger's best volume, (Scorpio Rising is the better) it still has many elements -- as I explained -- that will turn some people on; ergo, a cult following.
Review of Lucifer Rising
