I think the most interesting about this short is the back story, which I highly recommend reading up on. For good or for worse, the back story alone makes this movie notable.When it comes to the movie itself, it's visually stunning and the music is brilliant. And that's about it. As an art flick, there's not meant to be an explicit storyline, so if you are not comfortable with that, this movie will probably not be very enjoyable as a "short" - but maybe as a music video of sorts. The previously mentioned music and visuals are good and match somewhat, so watching this is a good way to let your mind wander.If you are interested in the occult/spiritual world Anger taps into in his shorts, then you might get a kick out of this just for that. To me, that's less interesting. While I made an effort to connect the images with ideas and concepts that might lie behind them - I eventually lost interest and started following my own trains of thought.

If you are a friend of Kenneth Anger or are into ancient religions and the works of Aleister Crowley, then this film is for you. Or, if you've suffered a massive head injury or have done some LSD, then this film ALSO is for you. Otherwise, I just can't imagine anyone enjoying this very self-indulgent film.This film is inexplicable and according to Kenneth Anger's commentary track, it isn't up to the actors (and audience) to understand the meaning of the film--he understands it. The film consists of lots of ancient Egyptian gods walking about the desert, gods walking about ancient German ceremonial rocks, a lot of nudes and a final shot of a UFO flying over the ancient Egyptian ruins.As I watched this and listened to Anger's commentary, I was amazed that he was able to get a lot of people to get involved with this bizarre little art film/recruitment poster for the Aleister Crowley fan club. In fact, I watched all the films with the commentary track on and this is the only one in which I doubted the speaker's sanity. His talk about one person in the film being a living demon in human form (he was serious about this), the 911 conspiracy and his tales about UFOs was all rather disturbing...but also quite funny--making this very tedious and self-indulgent film a lot more enjoyable.

So if you've seen Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Scorpio Rising, and Invocation of My Demon Brother, you'll know what to expect in Lucifer Rising, right? WRONG. Anger got his hands on some special effects, film printing, and new film stock footage, and made something unique in his own oeuvre, not to mention basically unparalleled anywhere else in the history of cinema. Starting with some bubbling cauldrons in the form of active volcanoes, he goes through a short tour of some of the world's most famous pagan areas of worship (Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge, etc.) and, with some mightily skillful transitioning, turns the world into a vessel for the ... well... Rising of said Lucifer. This goes on for a while, gaining momentum and getting ever the more abstract as peoples from different nations and settings join in the festivities, until aliens appear. No, literally. It's all in the creation of a new symbol that represents Dr. Anger himself, a sort of sigil that you can see printed on some of his movies and recently on the Films of Kenneth Anger compilations.What's spectacular here is the color. Anger turns some of the color hues and tones you associate with tarot cards and brightly painted Satanism (as opposed to the darker, more firey stuff) and makes an entire movie out of that sense of primaries and contrasts. In doing so, he successfully recreates an entire new world, one that you explore visually and viscerally with him. Kudos goes to the guy who did the soundtrack (I forget his name) for matching that sense of color and space in the music, their cooperation turning the entire movie into a psychedelic awakening into Anger's own spiritual beliefs. It's like getting sucked into a religious demonstration without intending to, and for those who find Anger's belief remiss, this movie can be horrifying. Otherwise, for those just interested in his own idiosyncratic view of the world, Lucifer Rising is a coming-into-his-own unmatched and unexpected by his previous work.Also features Donald Cammell who, like Anger, made a darker-side-of-counterculture movie with Mick Jagger, called Performance. With Marianne Faithful and Jimmy Page, Anger certainly pulled together a unique collaboration here.

Far removed from the 'satanic panic' of 1969's Invocation of My Demon Brother, and closer to the imagery, motifs and ideas of his earlier short Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Lucifer Rising finds the infant terrible of the hippie counterculture once again dabbling in the occult, the mystical and the mythological, only this time, with a clear, focused and assured approach. Gone are the frantic superimpositions and chaotic editing. Lucifer Rising is for the most part cleanly edited, more refined in the selection of images and more carefully constructed than its predecessors. It sees Anger harnessing his delirious side in the service of a certain film-making finesse, without losing any of his symbolic potency. What other proof is there that this is Anger at his most professional when he even uses tracking shots in some instances! What next, professional actors? A Crowley-esquire view of ancient Egypt then, with Lucifer as the bringer of Light, touching themes of death and rebirth, Lucifer Rising may lack the visceral, hypnotic madness of its predecessor but makes up for it with an air of spellbinding psychedelia.