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Reviews
Satan Wants You (2023)
A Good Primer
I came to this documentary through Sarah Marshall, whose podcast inquiries into the Michelle Remembers and the larger Satanic Panic I've found very illuminating and thoughtful.
I enjoyed this, though it would be mostly nothing new to those who've delved into this material before. The major novelty here is Pazder's ex-wife Marylyn getting to tell her version of the story.
My main criticism of the film comes, probably partially as a necessary consequence of that: it's less thoughtful in its allocation of blame (and there is plenty to go around here, hard to avoid casting some) than it could have been. Far too much of it fell on Michelle Smith herself for my comfort. There was a moment near the end where the near-hostile, conservative Catholic participant snaps and suggests Pazder might have been more to blame and I was very thankful for it. Marylyn's attempts as a devout Catholic herself to alert church authorities to what happened, could have been better connected to the circumstances that put Smith in these straits to begin with, and placed her and Pazder in this toxic pas-de-deux. The pieces were there, but the lack of connection made it feel a tad mean-spirited. There's no single scapegoat we can lay this on and banish it.