The Love Witch (2016) Analysis w/ Shane Bugbee (orig. 3.27.2026)

Claudia: It's recording.

Shane: Or do you want me to talk?

Claudia: Yeah, that was an interesting take on it.

Shane: What was?

Claudia: That it's basically what you've been saying.

Shane: Oh, it definitely felt like that. It felt like, "Wow, this is what I've been saying." Like how LaVey was a mama's boy—there's a lot of that kind of stuff going on in Satanism. At least, let's put it this way, that may be where the Satanic Temple shines. They have politically active, politically correct gals in the group. Maybe that's where the men—I bet you, like the Church of Satan, the women are very predatory. I'm going to bet, if I understood the Satanic Temple crowd enough, the men are the predatory ones. I'm going to bet you that's how it is.

And that's an interesting thought. I don't really hang out with Satanic Temple people. In fact, I don't hang out with anyone younger than the Church of Satan crowd anymore; I did that for a few years in my life. It was just because LaVey touched me. I talk about it a lot, or people ask me about it a lot. LaVey understood that, though.

I thought about him watching it and I felt like I could see LaVey in here laughing too. I started laughing at parts that no one else was laughing at. Some of it was obviously funny, and I laughed at those parts too, but I continued to laugh because it was just like a documentary of my life, and everyone's life I know that's into Satanism.

Just think about any of the heavy hitters in Satanism you know—anyone you're thinking about, anyone that knew Anton LaVey. Know this: they are having the same kind of life. They are with a very predatory woman who won them over with her sexual prowess, and they are under control. They are under that person's thumb. They cannot do anything without that person's permission; that's just the way it is.

But I grew up in Chicago—my nationality is a Chicagoan—but some of my family is Italian, so I got to see inside that culture. Italian tough guys are not really tough guys; it's their wife. They go in the house, and their wife is a predatory woman. It's just like that movie, where she'll get on him: "That guy is calling you, he's treating you like a bitch, you got to go fuck him up!" That's the woman inside the house. Then the guy comes out full of rage and kills someone because he was called a mama's boy or called names by his partner. It's like, holy shit.

But I thought it might be recent too because of some of the raps, like "marriage is bondage," which I've said. If this movie's only 10 years old, I'm not the first person to say that, but I definitely am the first in Satanism. There are not too many people in Satanism that admit to flaws and weaknesses—they're the alien elite, after all.

Claudia: Whatever that means.

Shane: Yeah, I'm the alien, I'm the fucking spaceship. I don't know what I'm saying, I'm like Kanye. I just thought it sounded cool.

Claudia: I thought it had a good visual aesthetic. I thought that was cool.

Shane: Oh, I loved it because it was campy and horrible. But I will tell you, whoever wrote that knows what they're talking about. This is what I'm saying. Wherever they read this stuff, it felt like we were in a time machine back in the day of LaVey. I would have loved to have seen this with Carla, because Carla has all these big ideas about doing shit with the Satanic Witch stuff. But that's the problem with the world: everyone's got big fucking ideas, and no one can make them happen. And the people who can make them happen are funded and killed. I know, I'm one of them. Yeah, so what else about that movie? Are we going to smoke that joint?

Claudia: Sure.

Shane: What the fuck, I thought we were going to smoke on the way in there, but I didn't need any, did I?

Claudia: No, I thought we were...

Shane: We were late, we were at the wrong movie theater. It was like retro—and don't tell me retrograde doesn't happen, because all these weird things happen. I'm never late to a movie, and if I am, it's probably because of a retrograde if I look at the calendar. It's a people watch. We're in Logan Square at the Logan Theater.

Claudia: I guess the first half hour wasn't that important.

Shane: Well, I figured it wasn't, based on the name of the movie: The Love Witch. I thought it sounded like a porn. And you know what? I thought about the old days of porn and how it was filmed with that beautiful aesthetic and those kinds of actors. They would act just like that. Old porn wasn't hard or what people would call misogynistic; the old days of porn were really campy and cool like that. So I say bring that back, or it should have had porn in it. I mean, porn is a little crude, but you can do things like finger-fucking to make it more graphic. I would have been more graphic.

Claudia: You already did that though.

Shane: What?

Claudia: You already did that though.

Shane: That's true, I'm Satan. I loved the movie. I went into it thinking, "Oh my God, what if this thing triggers me because of my life?" I'm not getting involved with any more witches, because I go to a therapist and a psychiatrist who tell me better. They talk me down. Just them teaching me boundaries and stuff like that has helped out a lot. Now I catch it and I'm like, "Oh Jesus Christ, another fucking witch." Witches.

Claudia: Well, it's better than that other one.

Shane: Which one is the other one?

Claudia: That four-hour castration movie.

Shane: Oh, the one you came out laughing so hard from. I don't know what I would tell you now that I'm smoking this weed, Jesus Christ, but I will tell you there's a flaw in that movie. They would say black witches are like the love witch. Satanists are pretty diverse, so I see that thread in there, but there's also a very upper-scale, healthy side. They've had generations of education and healthcare, they know what mental healthcare is, they go to counselors, and they deal with life a little differently than some of the more radical Satanists.

There are plenty of people who consider their mind the most important thing, not their genitalia. We are not only a carnal animal beast, but we're an intellectual breed. That turns people on. I'll tell you this, here's what I thought: oh boy, I've dated plenty of sad girls. That's what a witch is in the context of this movie—it's a sad girl. It makes me sad that someone would find power in their genitalia, because that's a very limited part of someone. It's very fun, and I get how manipulated you can be using it, but...

Claudia: I think the detective guy kind of spoke to that end, too, because he mentioned borderline personality disorder, or almost being on that spectrum. And that's really on the head, because I've noticed that's pretty rampant within Satanist groups, at least online.

Shane: You mean amongst women or amongst Satanists in general?

Claudia: In general.

Shane: Okay, so there's one person that's more aggressive. Weird, okay, got you. Yeah, thanks, I would agree. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think when people don't treat their problems, that is the bad thing, especially when they have access to healthcare. I get it, I've had plenty of problems. I didn't want to be there, thinking, "Oh, this is a fucking Satanist movie, I don't need to be here." The last place I want to be is a Satanist movie, because people will know me there. So I looked and said, "Let's go."

Claudia: Yeah. I wonder who made it, if they were Satanic.

Shane: You were absolutely...

Claudia: ...correct to guess that it was The Love Witch. It was.

Shane: It was worth it. 

End of Analysis.

Full Cup

Happiness is in a full coffee cup—

“I fell into you,

 now I’m in a rut,”

Malignant, crucial crutch

Ash and dust, dissolves into specks as the river rushes;

Apathetic end-scene collapse,

Inward crushing calamity,

Gravity surpassing Atlas’ strength—

Wits extend on cut wavelength…

Happiness: I’ll-brought social trend;

Innate emotion with artificially induced elevation

Demons of the Mind: Shakespearean, Freudian Frankenstein

 

Demons of the Mind is a 1972 film which in its essence is a Shakespearean drama and Freudian Frankenstein. The attacked and crippled man from A Clockwork Orange plays a medieval man of medicine, science and the occult study variety— called a charlatan, among other things by many— is hired to aid a Duke in curing some hereditary ailment; or as the balding Gandalf-esque character deemed it, a disorder which drives unsavory tendencies amongst the specific, familial gene pool. 

Namely and central to the plot are incestuous lacings where the Duke’s two children, Emil and Elizabeth, are shown to have quite a deep and seemingly very sensual attachment to one another. As it would seem and be realized through the course of his looking for an aid to the intergenerational malaise reported to him by the Duke, what disorder existed largely sprung of the Duke’s own devising and willing it to occur— in a mix of both unconscious and conscious course of doing so. Transpiring apparently as a result of grief due to witnessing his wife commit suicide and eventually developed attraction to his daughter. 

Ultimately he decides his bloodline can no longer continue, and sets out to end his ‘genetic curse’ and in the process shoots the hired wizard with his rifle on a mission to eliminate his two remaining kin and offspring. Following in close pursuit he manages to succeed in shooting Emil his son; but before he could then do away with an increasingly distraught Elizabeth, is engulfed by an angry mob of peasants and workers under his jurisdiction. Already agitated but then stirred up into a religious frenzy by a wandering, raving preacher they witness his familial transgression, and in quick action pin him to the ground to hack a hand off the Duke then finish the execution via planting a flaming crucifix into his torso with his daughter onlooking. 

Like Hamlet, the film focuses on the decay and ‘depravity’ of what those in the Marxist lineage would call the bourgeois’, or ruling class— as observed by the incoming attacking peasants. In that it resolves in a minor familial bloodbath as a result of its psychological decay beginning when Emil winds up killing his Aunt in order to get to his beloved sister after being induced into a psychotic episode where he also killed another girl— believing it was Elizabeth then resulting in aforementioned murder of his aunt. Similar to separated star-crossed lovers in Romeo & Juliet intentionally separated by familial disputes; nonetheless ending like Macbeth in masterminding oligarchs murder in a Frankenstein flash-mob fashion. 

Coming from the 1970s and the innate overtones of incest and projected pedophilic wishes from the Duke, I have to wonder how much takes inspiration from or in connection to a movement in the same decade— namely in France— of prominent intellectuals and figures moving to a more open consideration of the tendency. The French Petition against age of consent laws however did not come to until 1977 while the movie hit theaters in 1972. 

ÆGO

“Hang from the chandelier from a long, long time ago,”

All closed, open ticket with nowhere to go;

Thrill long since shrill churning on,

Regardless of correlation—

Sitting, lamenting till well after cold and still,

Wasted, untasted capsule of pills 

i

Anemic aesthetic

Monochromatic chic

Theatric, dull eccentric;

Gilded dress, 

Nines into wallowing, manic—

Messy distress

Intoxicating, seamless shredded garment 

Torn leg-wear adornment,

Netted torment;

Incorrect mirror indent

Mismatched imagined assessment 

Slippery Suicide

River rushes before me; it swells white mixed into turbulent, translucent blue-green. Walking past informational signs detailing about some 1889 fire— a tragedy. Combined with passing over the running water across various bridges with sight of where the old ones were; I began to wonder about a specific type of what is considered a tragedy in association, that being suicide by taking a jump. 

Researching into the topic, it would come up rather short in surprise. While in 2024 the city exceeded the norm of the entire state with 120 recorded successful acts committed with an average of 21 per 100,000 residents whereas the average for Washington state itself stands at only about 14.8 per 100,00 people. Then sizing down to solely Spokane statistics, the data shows most attempts occurring on the Monroe Bridge with around 400 since 2005 and a majority talked down with only an average of 2.5 deaths a year; making up only about 4% of the actual suicide cases out of roughly 300 hospitalizations a year. Ebbing and flowing with consistency, whereas the vast majority of suicides are enacted by self-inflicted gunshots, followed by hanging, and with more rising rates, overdoses. 

Unto Profundity

Nobody, twice underlooked

Odd, insistent—

—lost and unfound,

nowhere bound;

I’ll not be gone for too long

Exempt disheveled tinge;

Precarious-pretend profund—

“complicating, circulating,”

Nonstop daydreaming away out of Midway 

What’s it, new nightmare on high-brow lowlife,

Long-lost unnerved underdog

Lunar obscured limelight

Cloud covered memories

Pale-white light in black sky,

Grey spots and silver dots

Red-blinking planes, drones and satellites above

Crisp, clean— six hours from volcanic catastrophe 

Natural, off-topic setting

Wooded similarities to desert tendencies;

Roving gambler wandering about,

Less a game— more hyper-aware

reflective, grinning glare

Slight shiver in temperature,

Quick flick, spark and flame lonesomely quivers:

Odd-hour coffee endeavors

Evolving Dragons & Entropic Romance

While listening to the audiobook of The Hobbit, narrated by the wonderful Andy Serkis my mind keeps coming back to,“…incineration?” Bilbo Baggins questioned, reading his contract aloud with a shift to a higher vocal octave (as it gets portrayed in the film adaptation). Seemingly fitting, incineration, “and poof, you’re nothing but a pile of ash,” as the dwarves then explained. From ashes spring new forests and ages— like the woods around Mount St. Helens or rebuilt Chicago after massive inferno— then grown up to burn again and again and again.  Included in this imagining is scenes of incinerating planetary energy like aforementioned volcano; a quick burst of breathed flame from the breast of a dragon such as Smaug; or the mushroom shaped plume obliterating and charring bodies into shadowy outlines like ash-sculpted hollow ghosts in Pompeii— a singe of incredible pain then cut to black in the detonation of an atomic bomb. 

Although it was written prior to the race for the weapon even began, not even being published in the United States until 1938, that Smaug in Erebor could be a metaphor to nuclear power would be an iffy choice of posit. Nonetheless the general principle of Tolkien’s writings in an attempt at creating a new mythology for Europe is a high emphasis on food and cheer— delightful, vital revelry in simple, worked but plentiful existence— has more of an enriching value than feuding Lords and Lieutenants over hordes of gold and shiny superficial minerals. Simultaneously however those simplicities would also be the drive for even such conflicts: the three F’s being motivation for almost any action taken by any entity of any hominid species; taken individually and in broad, long-term combat, coming down to the brass tax bare minimum of Feasting and Fucking, leading to said Fighting. 

Hobbits coming about in their own way but ultimately their docile nature comes down to being a form of mini-men who self-domesticated to such a comfortable extent and leisure any feud is tantamount to any average neighborly or familial dispute. While there is importance placed on objects like forks and doilies it’s in the sense of family heirlooms still practically useful. Objects with an aesthetic attractiveness to them then are imbued with the instinct made to suit them— stand ins for those tendencies, keys to the castle… simplistically. 

Grandiosely the more gold the more food and whores to continue; riches accessing anything anytime anywhere. As can be seen with cases like the Epstein class, those like Thror amass unimaginable quantities of wealth and become bored. Tolkien called it ‘dragon sicknes,’ and I would, personally, attach the real-world terms of nihilism in hedonistic excess. Some might threaten nuclear Armageddon over the gold like Smaug laying waste to Lake Town or Dale or recently with the American Commander in Chief gave heavy implication of using atomic weaponry in annihilating an the civilization of Iran… Dragon as allegory to that developed destructive technology as time goes on could be taken in with added information from the Silmarillion where like Trinity test building up to the Tsar Bomba and Morgoth’s continent-obliterating Ancalagon in comparison to the younger one under the Lonely Mountain…

[…]            […]              […]

Another Noir Bites The Dust as the Heaven’s Fall

Analysis and written thoughts on Season 5 Episode 6 of The Boys

Latest episode of Amazon Prime’s hit comic book adaptation series The Boys released today, ending the consecutive and somewhat experimental ‘filler’ episodes of pure plot thickening— letting the situation set in for both viewers and presented world on screen. 

With this third to last installment the conflict between Deep and Black Noir II reaches a point of no return after the latter returns the favor for a death in the episode prior by busting a hole in an oil line near Alaska, resulting in the death of billions of sea creatures; giddily admitting this to Deep who then strangles New Noir with a coil and stabs him in the throat/chin… Dun, dun, dun, another Noir bites the dust! Will they bring out a New Noir or scrap the character entirely? Could such play into the miracle of Homelander idea being now fully committed to?

Bringing back to the series after his last appearance in Herogasm, the caricature of Stan Lee called ‘The Legend’ makes a fallen from grace debut, however then goes onto being one of- if not the only non-supe beside Stan Edgar (who is, presumably, still locked up alive in Vought tower) whom Homelander doesn’t instantly execute for calling him a wack job to his face— living up to his nickname as one can see. An unexpected moment, which initially seemed like one which would be like the scene in Schindler’s List wherein the depicted Amon Goth tries out Oskar Schindler’s explanation on the balanced nature of power to him over drinks; attempting to hold restraint in rage he lets his (fetishized) indentured servant leave without harm, but then reconsiders and flies into a harsher rage against her nonetheless… and as seen in nearly every episode of The Boys, such a killing is an average happening in the life of the worlds strongest superhero. 

During the scenes of their brief interaction, exploring the abandoned school serving as the protagonist crew’s lair in an attempt to find them, only to find the now opposing Sister Sage’s Taco Bell receipt. Realizing then much of what is going on was on her contrived basis. Not all according to her scheming however and countering all of her thoroughly thought out, planned and prepared expectations however. While not quite a surprise in his acquiring of the last loaded syringe of V1 to inject as it was glimpsed in the season trailer; but Soldier Boy unblinkingly handing it out for Homelander when only two episodes before he was out to destroy such a possibility of happening. Forming this for him being that of honoring Clara Vought— Stormfront, or as the older supe knew her, Liberty— and their mutually experienced sensually intimate relationships with her. Homelander then taking it in hand and lazering his wrist through his leather gloves so as to inject the substance. Eyes instantly filling with flare and like a stuffed black hole, bursts out uncontrollably in dual beams of death and destruction. But, how much of this acquirement of godchild is in mere vain? Bombsight had V1 as well as Soldier Boy and now Homelander does, and Soldier Boy was able to depower Bomight just a few moments before giving the last V1 vial to his son.

Closing the sixth episode: Homelander is now the god he envisioned; the Gen V characters have yet to appear; the Seven drops down to four as no replacement for Firecracker, Noir II or the now seditious Sister Sage have appeared, if any will at this point. Terror is off somewhere humping the shit out of his Homelander fuck-toy.