The Chemical Wedding

Chemical Wedding is about a mad scientist (are there any other kind in Hollywood?) who downloads Aleister Crowley’s personality into the brain of a hapless test subject, who then goes on a murderous rampage through Cambridge. Right…

I didn’t expect much from this film, and it managed to deliver even less. In some respects it is not even competently made. The music is too loud in places, but at least it drowns out the horrible dialogue. Chemical Wedding is the kind of sub-Wheatly horror trash that Hammer used to churn out in the 50’s. It’s portrayal of Aleister Crowley is barely recognisable as the same man. The script is lamentably poor and features some of the worst lines since the remake of  The Wicker Man. It is littered with random Thelemic references that will make Iron Maiden fans rejoice and Thelemites weep. The ending is incoherent and features one of the worst cop-outs since Bobby Ewing stepped out of the shower.

Imagine the outcry if a film portrayed Jesus as a serial killer. Yet this is exactly how Chemical Wedding portrays Crowley. Even more worryingly, this image of Crowley has now been implanted in the popular consciouness by this execrable hatchet job masquerading as a film. Thelemites are used to being slandered in the popular media and will no doubt sigh with frustration and ignore this film. They should be angered by it. I long for the day when an accurate biography of Crowley makes it to the silver screen, but I suppose pigs will fly before that happens.   

No doubt Bruce Dickinson, the creative genius behind this gibberish, set out to shock but all he has done is reveal his own ignorance of his subject matter. On this evidence, he should never be allowed near a movie studio again.