Most people are probably familiar with Satanic Panic, even moreso these days after the most recent season of Stranger Things which focused on the scare during the mid 1980s. But do you know where the paranoia began? No, not from Dungeons and Dragons or metal music or even from Satanism itself. Satan Wants You documents the true story about the beginnings of Satanic Panic, chronicling the story of Michelle Smith and Larry Pazder and how their relationship lead to the creation of mass paranoia and hysteria that struck communities across America.

Smith started as Pazder’s patient. Pazder was a psychiatrist who utilized recovered-memory therapy, a now discredited practice, to unearth some disturbing memories in Michelle’s past. Satan Wants You takes us on the journey with Michelle as we hear from Pazder’s recorded tapes the sessions between doctor and patient. In the horrific accounts, Michelle reveals that she was taken and subjected to Satanic ritual abuse. This came after her mother joined a Satanic cult and they turned her into one of their victims. Miraculously, Michelle says she was visited by the Virgin Mary and other holy deities, who removed the scars from her body and blocked the memories for her.
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Pazder and Smith would turn these sessions into a book published in 1980 called Michelle Remembers. Now, if this all sounds kind of wild, you’d be right to question the validity of Smith’s claims. While it’s unclear what kind of abuse Smith suffered as a child, what spirals out from the publication of Michelle Remembers turned the world on its head. Satan Wants You, directed and produced by Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams, presents the story from multiple perspectives, with some still believing Michelle and others quick to debunk her. While Michelle is never truly convincing, even in the private tapes between her and Pazder she sounds like she believes it. The recordings feel like they’ve been ripped right out of a horror movie — a nightmarish retelling of abuse and torture.

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Once Michelle Remembers became a hit, thanks in part to financial backing from the Catholic church, the bestselling book caused a growing panic. Suddenly, it wasn’t just Michelle who was abused by a Satanic cult, but a bevy of false accusations and wrongful convictions poured out. One of them, the McMartin family who ran a preschool, was accused of hundreds of acts of sexual abuse. This trial stretched on for almost a decade and became a key example of the heights of moral panic in America. While the McMartin family was not convicted, with all charges dropped in 1990, the damage was done with the trial being one of the most expensive criminal cases in American history.

What Horlor and Adams are trying to share isn’t just a story about moral panic but also what can happen when people become influenced by lies presented as truth. They connect it to conspiracies like QAnon and extremist movements, which can feel like a tacked on point at the end of this fascinating documentary but feels necessary considering the parallels. And although they touch on the influence of the Catholic church by putting it under some scrutiny, the institution is not held for as much blame as it should be.

Further, as is the case with many true crime documentaries these days, it feels like there is more story to tell, such as the how the romantic relationship between Pazder and Smith affected their families or Pazder’s suspicious death. Satan Wants You feels like a mammoth story with many nooks and crannies and the documentary wasn’t given enough time to dive deep into these details. It might have worked stronger as a docuseries, but as is, it is still an impressive telling of a disturbing time in American history.

Rating: B-

Satan Wants You premiered at the SXSW Film Festival.