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Best Cinematic Satan? (and Constantine)

Film // Jim // 24th April 2005

Went to see Constantine a while ago, I was going to review it but really couldn’t be bothered, here is a stab anyway:

I am starting to get a little worried about Keanu Reeves. The messianic thing is going too far, someone really needs to have a word.

Constantine isn’t really a bad film, it is just not that exciting. In the credit column there is some interesting half-arsed Christian mythology stuff going on, it all looks very nice and there are a few interesting characters. On the debit side however, it is all a bit linear, Keanu is in full on wooden mode and Gavin Rossdale is in it. Strangely the whole thing is possibly the most drawn out, overblown anti-smoking film of all time.

Constantine: Messianic, anti-smoking

The one thing that does provoke some ongoing interest is that you know that the Devil is going to have to put in an appearance at some stage. I sat there wondering who it was going to be (God or the Devil always seem to be played by fairly famous/interesting actors - I suppose it appeals to their ego) and was pleasantly surprised by the inspired casting when a sleazy looking Peter Stormare in a white suit and dirty feet turned up. Subtle, ambiguous and a touch creepy, Stormare is a great choice to play Satan. As I was so bored during the rest of the hysterical climax of Constantine I started thinking about other efforts to bring the Devil to the screen...

Al Pacino - in The Devil’s Advocate 1997
Once more Keanu Reeves saves mankind with a heroic act of self sacrifice, does he have this written into his contract or something?
Anyway, Pacino’s Satan may as well wear a big T-Shirt with “I am the dark lord, you know” written on it - he has decided to call himself John Milton and runs a big evil law firm. Al starts off fairly subtle but soon cuts loose with all the scenery-chewing “God is an absentee landlord!” stuff. By the end he is hammily offering up incestuous sex with Connie Nielsen while he leers in the background. I’d probably shoot myself too.

Angel Heart: Creepy, eggs.

Robert De Niro - in Angel Heart 1987
This is a bit of a spoiler, but if you haven’t sussed that De Niro’s Louis Cyphre is Satan as soon as the name is mentioned then you have some deep dark questions to ask yourself.

Apparently De Niro indulged his legendary penchant for preparation by turning up all the heating in his house to hellish levels for two months before filming commenced and only answering to the name “Mephistopheles” for the duration of his time on set. He is certainly on the unpleasant side of creepy, plus the whole business with the eggs is unsettling.

Angel Heart is an intriguing and disturbing film which is well worth seeing, I would also recommend checking out the excellent (if even a little more disturbing) source novel Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg

Jack Nicholson - in The Witches of Eastwick 1987
Again giving the game away with the name Daryl Van Horne, Nicholson is probably just playing himself as he corrupts the sexually frustrated Pfeiffer, Cher and Saranden. A lot of vomiting as I recall

Gabriel Byrne - in The End of Days 1999
Least said the better. Terrible film all round.

Peter Cook - in Bedazzled 1967
This was a comic updating of the Faust myth, divided into segments where the Dudley Moore character is granted a number of wishes in exchange for his soul. Undermined constantly by the devil in the form of Peter Cook. Cook makes for an excellent Satan, administrative and authoritative with a scary, unblinking stare. Also doesn't piss about with stupid names, this incarnation of evil is called George Spiggott.

Anyone who has seen the shockingly depressing Derek and Clive film may also believe that Cook was portraying Satan in that one too.
Note: Regarding the Liz Hurley re-make; prominent theologians have apparently proved that it was actually the work of the devil.

Actors who should/should have played Satan

Klaus Kinski: The rabid stare, the maniacal sexual behaviour, the inability to drive a car more than four miles without writing it off - Kinski would have made a great Satan. Werner Herzog would probably have set him on fire to get the right tone of performance too.

Mr Claypole out of Rentaghost: Demonic in the extreme.

Christopher Walken: A man so chilling that he was scary reading children's stories dressed in a chunky cardigan on a Jonathan Ross chat show years ago. Always great even in the most appalling films, Walken has already had a crack at the biblical by playing an evil Gabriel in the Prophecy movies. However it is the scene with Dennis Hopper in True Romance (one of the greatest scenes in the history of cinema) that really seals it:

“I'm the Anti-Christ. You got me in a vendetta kind of mood, you'll tell the angels in heaven that you never seen evil so singularly personified as you did in the face of the man who killed you." (Check this sound clip).

Incidentally there is a school of thought that the character that Hopper plays in Blue Velvet is supposed to be the Devil, probably something to that.

Ricky Gervais: Already done it in The Office really, probably the most compelling vision of hell yet brought to the screen. Plus if it turned out that Satan is English I imagine he probably would come from Reading.

links links links...

More Walken soundbites

From the Wise Words By Cool Men web site, R. Lee Ermey page is worth checking too.

The Creature is Sly: On-line Guide to Klaus Kinski

As mad as a ferret in a washing machine and author of the greatest autobiography yet published.

Christopher Walken

Wikipedia entry for the scariest actor ever (especially in King of New York)

Constantine movie web site

Like anyone really cares...

Straight To Hell: A Hellblazer Site

All about the comic that is the source of the film, in which Constantine is a scouser.