Search - In Search of the Great Beast 666: Aleister Crowley on DVD

In Search of the Great Beast 666 - the movie (about Aleister

Lawrence A. Connor | 06/26/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"In Search of the Great Beast 666 - the movie (about Aleister Crowley):

I bought this movie last year, in 2008, as a Region 0, PAL - DVD, of course I couldn't watch it on my regular USA type NTSC type DVD player and TV. Anyway, I watched it on my PC which was able to play it. I was hoping for more and better as a movie about Aleister Crowley. I still am. This one was okay, but, really, not much. What does it really convey if you are really interested and want to learn? Very little. In fact if you have already been interested and into Aleister Crowley and already have done any significant learning beyond the limited initial steps, and stages, from the many available sources, you will probably find this pretty void of any material of any significant value to you, as you may already know this much, and more contained herein. All it is about is giving you just a little bit of the story of Aleister Crowley, and having an actor to portray him as a character. It gives you some audio and visual, instead of just reading words. Don't expect much. Expect a tabloid level of superficiality in the portrayal of a person, that is merely extended into the audio and visual, rather than limited to words, only. Because that is what you get with this. Continue learning about Aleister Crowley in other ways, such as reading. You might enjoy it a bit as entertainment, of course. But somewhat limited, even at that. I don't give it a bad rating, it's just not that good. I was a little disappointed, is all. I was hoping it would be better, more involved, more interesting, more informative. Just more. It wasn't. I still await a better movie about Aleister Crowley.

Lawrence Connor

Lawrence A. Connor

Lawrence Albert Connor

"

Outstanding if you are new to Crowley, if not it is VERY rep

Cr. Prekim | Reading, PA | 02/22/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"In fairness I am never a fan of documentaries that feature actors playing the documentary subjects. That being said the actor portraying Crowley creates a version of the man that is very charming, probably best described as impish. I would not go SO far to say that this is a completely even handed documentary but it's by far the least clouded with all the "satanic" nonsense surrounding the man. I am desperately waiting for a PBS/BBC style documentary where those who are contemporary experts in the GD or AA (such as DuQuette, Regardie, etc) are either interviewed or excerpted to give a much rounder view of this almost impossibly complicated man. My biggest criticism of the film is that any and all archival images are inexplicably superimposed with an other image of crackled earth, making many images difficult to make out; sometimes obscuring them all together. As the title of the review says, if you are just taking your first steps to understanding the man, then I don't hesitate to recommend this. If you've read any biographies, Lon Milo DuQuette's outstanding works on Crowley and Thelema The Magick of Aleister Crowley: A Handbook of the Rituals of Thelema for example, or any of the writings of the great beast himself, you could probably skip this and not miss too much."