After keeping a low profile in the previous decade, the Devil made a comeback in the 1940s, when soon-to-be-war-weary audiences were both diverted and disturbed by satanic entertainment. Thanks to the darkness lurking in the world during those years, we shouldn’t be surprised to find there were a number of genuinely ominous visions of evil captured on celluloid at the time.
Reflecting on those terrible years of global bloodshed, the dawning of the nuclear age, and the years of exhaustion that followed the war, we find that many of the satanic films of the 1940s present a darkly pessimistic view that leaves no doubt that humanity really doesn’t need the Devil to encourage it to do evil.