What Is Real? [1989], Y2K Family Survival Guide [1999], Satanic Cults And Ritual Crime [1990]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Oh man, it's all about the wild vintage video tonight. We have recently discovered the YouTube channel Occult Demon Cassette, which is full of rips of video cassettes about things like various Christian-themed life advice videos, the terror of Satanism, instructional guides to strange products, cult recruitment, and Y2K scares, among many other oddities. We decided to do a taster platter of what the channel has to offer with three videos of varying lengths and enjoyment value.

What Is Real?

To be perfectly honest, we ended up watching this one because of false advertising. The video was explained as "Father Daughter Mormon Bondage." Apparently the last word should have been "bonding" and even then I'm not totally sure that's an accurate explanation for what we watched. It's a half hour video that's really meta ("This is a stage! What is real?") and about a youngish couple who has just had their first daughter. This causes the dad to spiral into an existential crisis about making sure that he has the answers to life, death, and everything before his daughter is old enough to do drugs and commit suicide. He and his wife, who frankly should have dumped him when he told her he was dropping out of college and wanted to marry her (basically asking her to support him), decide to shop for a church to do the heavy lifting for them and settle quickly on Mormonism because this is a propaganda video. It was pretty unremarkable aside from the opportunities to burst into "Book of Mormon" songs.

Y2K Family Survival Guide

This was an instructional video about Y2K narrated by Leonard Nimoy. We started from the beginning but the first twenty minutes of this hour long video are actually pretty boring. Basically they just talk about why Y2K could be a disastrous event and the explanation behind why it may cause all the computers to fail. We all lived through Y2K and were old enough to remember the panic so we didn't pay much attention. We skipped ahead to the Doomsday prepper part of the film which was a bit more interesting. They had a professional prepper, who was probably excited that his moment had finally come, explain how much water and food to store, what to do about cleaning and bathroom needs, and what to do about lighting and heat sources. They also talked about what to do with money and then had all the people interviewed rate how much of the disaster Y2K will be on a scale of 1-5. Most said 3 or 4 and then immediately regretted that on January 1st, 2000 at 1AM. Overall, this video is a fascinating piece of history but it wasn't very amusing. I bet there are better films out there that are more Doomsday prepper focused.

Satanic Cults And Ritual Crime

This video was only twenty minutes long but was probably the best of the three out of sheer ridiculousness. The film starts by claiming that ritual crime is on the rise and then claims that theorists think that 50% of all missing children cases are directly tied to Satanism. The video also says that Satanists have kids and sacrifice them and that this is all done in secret so there is no data on it but it's definitely happening. Right. Some other amazing facts from the video include:
* Fantasy role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons are gateway drugs to Satanism.
* Heavy metal music too, obviously. You know how dangerous Motley Crue is.
* Search your child's room for dark robes, black candles, and a book of shadows (which is totally a Wicca thing, not a Satanism thing but the video conflates the two constantly; it should be noted that Adam and Kay have both read "The Satanic Bible" and books on Wiccan practices and therefore were able to point out every time this mistake was made).
* Satanism leads to deviant sexual behavior like homosexuality and bisexuality. It also mentioned bestiality and necrophilia because yeah, all four of those things are equivalent.

* There was also a section about identifying Satanic symbols that was a real adventure. A few of the symbols pointed out were correct but some particularly bad examples were the tri-spiral (a Neolithic Celtic symbol that Kay actually has on a shawl she got in Ireland), a swastika (it just means Nazis, guys), a "hexagram" (it was the freaking Star of David), FFF (because F is the sixth letter of the alphabet, I guess), AC/DC (which the video claimed means "Anti Christ Devil's Child" but which actually means either "an Australian rock band," "bisexual," or "alternating current, direct current"), and finally, our new favorite symbol, the cross of confusion (on the right).
This video was definitely the best of the three.