Seven Heads, Ten Horns: The History of the Devil

Latest Episodes:

Project [Antichrist] 2025 Oct 31, 2025

Show notes

Some rich people can't stop talking about the antichrist. But who cares about the antichrist anyway and where did this mythical character come from? Travis and Klaus look at Philip C Almond's Antichrist: A New Biography as well the horror-comedy El Día de la Bestia (Day of the Beast) dir. Álex de Iglesia (1995) to figure out more about the sudden relevance of this JV Devil character.

Halloween Special '24: Of Books and Basements Oct 29, 2024

Show notes

"The only true mystery is that our very lives are governed by dead people." Kazanian, Inferno

Greetings from the Beyond. We are back for Halloween, having watched the following in preparation:

-Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972)

-The Evil (1978)

-The Beyond (1981)

-City of the Living Dead (1980)

-Rosemary's Baby (1968)

-Inferno (1980)

The Guardian on the Pelicot trial

It's Been A Minute Crossover Episode Oct 12, 2024

Show notes

Back from the dead to share that we were interviewed on NPR's It's Been A Minute about the devil in cinema.

We are also gearing up for a Halloween episode and are assigning the following films as homework (you can find most of these online one way or another...)

-Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972)

-The Evil (1978)

-The Beyond (1981)

-City of the Living Dead (1980)

-Rosemary's Baby (1968)

-Inferno (1980)

S 4.8 Hildegard of Bingen with Dr. Beverly Mayne Kienzle Feb 28, 2024

Show notes

This week we interview Dr. Beverly Mayne Kienzle about the visionary preacher and medieval abbess, Hildegard of Bingen. Join us to learn more about the tone-deaf devil from the 12th century as we explore the sermons, art, and visions of Hildegard.

S 4.7 Adieu, Adrian: Mann's Doktor Faustus, pt. 2 Nov 25, 2023

Show notes

What is the secularized, capitalistic, art-world equivalent to being torn limb-from-limb by the devil? Find out in our concluding episode on Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus.

-English translation of Mann’s Doktor Faustus

-Danny Riley, “Interpreting Joy: A Guide to Interpreting Beethoven’s Ninth”

S 4.6 Catholic Horror with Matthew J. Cressler Oct 23, 2023

Show notes

In observance of the spooky season we're posting our conversation with historian Matthew J. Cressler on the relationship between Catholicism and horror cinema. We explore the sub-genre of Catholic Horror through our analysis of two recent films centering on the Italian exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth (1925-2016): William Friedkin’s (!) documentary The Devil and Father Amorth (2017) and Julius Avery’s horror/dramedy/superhero film The Pope’s Exorcist (2023). The conversation was enlightening and just a delight. Please be on the lookout for all of Matthew’s great work on Catholicism and horror:

“The Netflix Series That Should Make Religious People Uncomfortable” The Atlantic, 10/25/21(on Midnight Mass)

“Exorcists, Abusers, and When Catholic History is Horror” The Revealer, 05/10/22

“You Can’t Have a Catholic Imagination without Horror” U.S. Catholic, 10/28/22

And the man’s making comics about this at Bad Catholics / Good Trouble !

S 4.5 ‘Doktor Faustus, I presume?’ Thomas Mann pt. 1 Oct 11, 2023

Show notes

This episode: we can’t leave well enough alone — another literary elaboration of the Faust legend by a member of the Mann family, Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus (1947.) We discuss: why learning is actually interesting to young people, the problems with studying theology and the humanities, why the devil owns music, whether committing yourself to creative excellence always means a deal with the devil, and what you’re not allowed to say about hell.

English translation of Mann’s Doktor Faustus

The “Jeremy Brett” version of Love’s Labor’s Lost.

S 4.4 Klaus Mann's Mephisto Sep 02, 2023

Show notes

Three Klauses walk into a bar…

This episode centers on literary wunderkind/prodigal son Klaus Mann’s attack on Nazi Germany (and an ex-lover, and possibly his dad, the canonical novelist Thomas Mann), in the form of the 1936 novel Mephisto. We discuss the film adaptation, what it means to compare demons to the Nazis, the book’s relationship to Goethe’s Faust, and the politics of race in the novel/film.

-Klaus Mann, Mephisto: Ein Roman einer Karriere

-Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark

-Farayi Mungazi and Olivia Marks-Woldman “Black people were Hitler’s victims too – that must not be forgotten”

-“Nazi Persecution of Black People in Germany,” Holocaust Encyclopedia (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

-Colm Tóibín: “I Could Sleep With All Of Them” (On Mann family dynamics in London Review of Books)

S 4.3 Beyond Black Aug 16, 2023

Show notes

Hilary Mantel's 2005 novel Beyond Black is the topic of discussion for this episode, continuing our series on devil-themed novels. This one's about psychics and their demons in neo-liberal Britain on the eve of Brexit.

-An interview Mantel did on this novel for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

-The Guardian's obituary for Mantel from September 2022.

-Etymology of "Old Nick"

S 4.2 The Devil Rides Out! Jul 28, 2023

Show notes

Summer is for trashy beach novels and Dennis Wheatley's 1934 The Devil Rides Out definitely qualifies. We discuss problematic genre fiction, fake rituals, the rhetorical trap of being asked "do you believe in evil?" and racial demonology of the late British empire.

Some useful scholarship: Timothy Jones, "The Black Mass as Play: Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out"M/C Journal, 17(4).

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