Just when we thought we'd seen every possible
spin on the police procedural, someone went
and threw the Devil himself into the mix.
Lucifer premiered in 2016, with Tom Ellis
playing the charismatic former guardian of
Hell, and Lauren German as LAPD detective
Chloe Decker.
If you've developed a taste for well-meaning-ish
Satan with a sense of humor, there are plenty
of movies out there to compliment Lucifer.
From teenagers summoning demons, to supernatural
beings mingling with humans, and another Neil
Gaiman adaptation, here are the films to watch
if you love Lucifer.
"It's like he's not even trying."
The Devil doesn't make an appearance in the
horror-comedy The Babysitter, but a group
of his followers are the main villains.
Cole is your typical 12-year-old enamored
with his hot babysitter, Bee.
That is, until she invites her friends over
to his house and murders one of them so she
can collect his blood for their Devil-worshipping
ritual.
Like Lucifer, The Babysitter treats its devilish
theme with unyielding dark humor, and it notches
up the gore to 11.
The cast is a Gen Z who's-who: the gang of
teens includes former Vine star Andrew Bachelor,
and model and actress Bella Thorne.
And if you're wondering why Bee looks so familiar,
you may recognize Samara Weaving from the
hit series Hollywood, her memorable performance
in another horror-comedy, Ready or Not, or
her brief role in Three Billboards Outside
Ebbing, Missouri.
The Babysitter is fun, it's tongue in cheek,
and it ticks all your Devil-worshipping horror
must-haves - all in a satisfying wink-wink
way.
"Did you just blow up Sonya?"
"No."
"I mean I'm not even mad; I'm a little surprised."
Part of the fun of Lucifer is watching mortals
interact with supernatural beings, especially
when they're initially skeptical about the
existence of things like angels and demons.
That dynamic also plays out in the 2018 British
horror film Malevolent.
Florence Pugh and Ben Lloyd-Hughes play Angela
and Jackson, siblings who scam homeowners
by presenting Angela as a medium and pretending
that they can rid haunted houses of their
ghosts.
Strapped for cash, they take a job for a woman
who owns a creepy orphanage, doing so despite
their better judgment.
Angela, Jackson, and their two accomplices
gradually realize that their little ghost-hunting
charade isn't going to cut it in a place that
may in fact be haunted by real, violent spirits.
2018 was a big year for Florence Pugh - in
addition to starring in Malevolent, she also
appeared opposite Chris Pine in Outlaw King.
The next year saw her in even more high-profile
roles.
She turned one of literature's most despised
characters into an unlikely heroine in Little
Women, and gave everyone nightmares about
bear skins and Swedish cults in Midsommar.
In the end, the scares in Malevolent, like
the movie's ghosts, are very real.
At first glance, 2019's Eli doesn't look like
it has much in common with Lucifer.
But wait for the twist and you'll understand
the link.
The film first introduces us to Eli, a young
boy who has severe allergies that mean he
has to be in a protective environment at all
times.
When he joins a medical program run by Dr.
Isabella Horn for kids with similar conditions,
it initially seems great.
But soon, Eli starts to experience creepy
specters and supernatural events.
He learns that all of Dr. Horn's other patients
have died during the treatment, and it starts
to look like his unique condition might have
devilish origins.
Directed by Ciaran Foy, Eli shakes up the
usual Devil myth.
Unlike Lucifer, it leans into the evil side
that comes with being a demon - perfect for
when you want to shake with fear instead of
laughter.
Lucifer started as a supporting character
in The Sandman, a comic series created by
British author Neil Gaiman.
Lucifer was later granted his own self-titled
spinoff series, which ran for 75 issues.
Stardust was also adapted from a work by Gaiman,
in this case a novel of the same name, published
in 1997.
And it also depicts humans dealing with magical
beings in disguise.
The story follows Tristan, who leaves his
small village of Wall for the magical kingdom
of Stormhold.
"I'm charged with guarding the portal to another
world, and you're asking me to just let you
through?"
"Yes, because let's be honest - it's just
a field."
He's hoping to capture a fallen star.
But out of the sky, the star is not a ball
of fusing gas molecules: it's a woman named
Yvaine.
Meanwhile, a witch sets out to find the star,
so she and her sister witches can eat its
heart and restore their youth and power.
Plus, the old king has just died, causing
a power struggle between his remaining sons.
The victor, Septimus, also wants the star,
and he currently has the magical stone he
needs to claim his throne and can grant him
immortality.
Stardust brings a quirky humor to the fairytale
fantasy genre - just like Lucifer does for
police procedurals.
"And you darling, I have some lovely dresses.
Take your pick."
"Oh no, really, I'm fine."
"Honey, you're wearing a bathrobe."
There's no Devil causing trouble in Bleach
- but there are supernatural beings roaming
Earth.
The 2018 movie is a live-action feature adaptation
of the manga of the same name, which was a
big hit during its run from 2001 to 2016.
It was also adapted into a popular anime series,
which was canceled in 2012 but is scheduled
for a reboot in 2021.
Ichigo appears to be your average 15-year-old,
except he can see ghosts.
Then he encounters Rukia.
She's a Soul Reaper, or a spirit guide who
brings the souls of the departed to the Soul
Society.
Left among humans for too long, souls turn
into monstrous creatures called Hollows, which
feed on other souls and cause general monster-like
damage.
Soul Reapers battle Hollows and purify them
so they can join the Soul Society.
When Rukia is injured while fighting a Hollow,
she transfers her Soul Reaper powers to Ichigo.
Since transferring them back to her would
kill him - until he's amassed enough energy
from battling Hollows - he subs in for her.
Unfortunately, the other Soul Reapers have
other ideas, leading Ichigo to agree to take
on the most fearsome Hollow of all, the Grand
Fisher.
Bleach, like Lucifer, is a slick, modern and
fun take on traditional concepts like souls,
demons and spirit guides.
Where Lucifer's version of the Devil is mischievous
but charming, May the Devil Take You's portrayal
is closer to the traditional merciless, soul-seizing
monster.
The movie starts with a man, Lesmana, making
a pact with the Devil in the basement of his
villa.
He receives riches in his lifetime in exchange
for his soul after death.
You know, the usual.
Ten years later, Lesmana is gravely ill, and
his estranged daughter Alfie grudgingly visits
him in hospital, where she witnesses a spirit
waiting to drag him to hell.
She returns to their now-dilapidated villa,
alongside her half-siblings and stepmother,
with whom she has a rough relationship.
But when they open the basement door which
had been nailed shut and covered in charms,
they unleash the spirit Lesmana conjured years
before, which starts possessing and picking
them off one by one.
Cue lots of veiny faces, blood vomiting, head-spinning,
and creatively grim deaths.
May the Devil Take You was directed by Timo
Tjahjanto, who is best known for his gore-heavy
action movies.
He also directed the widely acclaimed thriller
The Night Comes for Us in 2018.
If you miss the old-school style of Devil-centric
hauntings, this is a nice, gory complement
to Lucifer.
If Lucifer proved anything, it's that demons
cannot resist the human world - and Demonic
reminds us that humans likewise cannot resist
poking around with demonic spirits.
Six wannabe ghost hunters plan a seance in
an abandoned house, the site of a previous
seance that ended in a massacre.
Despite multiple supernatural red flags, they
proceed, gathering around a cryptic seal carved
into the floorboards of one room.
What happens to them next forms the core mystery
of the film, as their fateful night is slowly
pieced together by Detective Mark Lewis and
Dr. Elizabeth Klein, played by Frank Grillo
and Maria Bello, respectively.
The movie is a whodunit horror played out
through partial use of found footage.
Like Lucifer, Demonic combines the demon genre
with the police procedural - except in this
case, the demon is on the other side of the
law.
If your only complaint about Lucifer is that
it's not realistic enough, you'll appreciate
the 2017 exorcism documentary The Devil and
Father Amorth.
The movie has an excellent pedigree: it's
directed and hosted by William Friedkin, director
of 1973's genre-defining movie The Exorcist.
In the documentary, Friedkin revisits several
of The Exorcist's shooting locations, and
includes an interview with William Peter Blatty,
who wrote the movie's screenplay based on
his own novel.
But the main purpose of the film is to showcase
the supposed God-given talents of Father Amorth,
an Italian Catholic priest who claimed to
have exorcised tens of thousands of demons
from their unwilling hosts during his long
lifetime.
Since The Exorcist was his favorite movie,
he agreed to let Friedkin document one such
exorcism, the 11th for that particular "patient."
Where Lucifer is knowingly funny, The Devil
and Father Amorth is unwittingly so.
Unless, of course, you believe that he really
is casting out demons, in which case it's
even scarier than the movie that launched
it.
In Lucifer, it often takes a display of the
supernatural to convince humans that they
are, in fact, talking to the Devil.
But in Bright, beings like orcs, elves, and
fairies not only walk among humans, they do
so openly.
Human LAPD officer Daryl Ward is less than
pleased to be teamed with the first orc cop
in the U.S., Nick Jakoby.
Not only are orcs looked down on by the other
races, but Ward also thinks Jakoby once helped
an orc who was suspected of wounding Ward
to escape arrest.
One night, the duo is called to a disturbance
which leaves only one survivor: an elf girl
with a magic wand, a rare object which most
beings cannot wield without dying.
And the few who can are called Brights.
It turns out she's protecting the wand from
a group of bad guys who are trying to resurrect
the defeated Dark Lord, a figure many don't
even believe exists.
If you enjoy watching an LAPD officer solving
crimes of a supernatural nature alongside
beings that are not entirely of this world,
Bright is a fun way to do it.
If you believe TV and movies, humans scare
easy, so it's necessary for supernatural folks
to disguise their real, terrifying likenesses
in clever disguises.
You know, so the normal people don't get frightened.
"I'm not afraid of you anymore."
"You're not?"
Well, okay, normally that's true for Lucifer,
and it's definitely true for the antagonists
in The Witches.
As Luke is told by his grandmother Helga in
the opening moments of the film, witches hide
their large claws, toeless feet, oversized
nostrils, and bald heads under disguises - and
they hate children.
It's a cute story, until Helga and Luke go
on vacation and unknowingly book into the
same hotel as a convention of witches.
There, Luke discovers their plot to turn all
the children in the world into mice by spiking
candy with a magic potion.
The Witches is as fun and silly as Lucifer,
with a touch of The Goonies thrown in for
good measure.
What's not to love?
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