Alicia I love this movie so much

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Roman James Hoffman Ever since his rampantly homo-erotic debut 'Fireworks' (1947) whilst still a teenager, Kenneth Anger has carved out for himself a singular reputation as a movie-maker whose films willfully transgress society's limits in search of mystical self-awareness. To this end, 'Scorpio Rising' (1964) is a blasphemous homo-sexual biker fantasy writ large while his magnum opus 'Lucifer Rising' (1972) is a gorgeous esoteric rite dedicated to Lucifer himself as well as English occultist (once dubbed "the wickedest man in the world") Aleister Crowley. 'Invocation of my Demon Brother' (1969) sits between these two career defining films and, to be honest, I only find it interesting in that respect. More specifically, the film itself is a 10 minute montage of a Black Albino, some naked men, people jamming and smoking in proper 60s fashion, shots of Anger himself performing a ritual to invoke a new Aeon (replete with Swastika), and a whole host of striking effects done with lights and different lenses, all sound-tracked by a deliberately monotonous moog synthesizer soundtrack courtesy of Mick Jagger who also pops up in a couple of shots. However, two other cameos are of note: the first is long-time friend, and founder of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey while the other is his former protégée (and later Manson Family member) Bobby Beausoleil who is still in prison for murder. Indeed, the fragmentary nature of 'Invocation…' comes from the fact that the footage was originally part of the original version of 'Lucifer Rising' but an argument Anger had with Beausoleil over money led to Beausoleil running off with the print whereby he inadvertently met Charles Manson who buried the film in the desert. The result? 'Invocation…' was stitched together and released and as it stands lacks the sumptuous, haunting visuals of films like 'Eaux d'artifice' (1953) or 'Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome' (1954), the feverish homo-eroticism of 'Fireworks' or 'Scorpio Rising', or the esoteric narrative grandeur of 'Lucifer Rising'. And yet…it's a film I find myself returning to. Perhaps this is somehow due to the fact that, although always ambiguous about his relationship to Satanism – preferring instead to promote solar worship and Thelema (the religion founded by his occult idol Crowley) – Anger has declared 'Invocation…' to be his most "satanic" film. Maybe it's this, or maybe it's just that I am very forgiving of the film as I value it as a sub-cultural document inextricably entwined with the dark-side of the sixties as well as an interesting interim feature between two career peaks. In conclusion, I can only recommend it to people with a similar niche interest as a casual viewer will probably find nothing of interest here.

A B There is a child 3:52. Does anyone know who that is? Also there's a man seen at 9:51, 9:54. He's in a kaleidoscopic scene between 9:58-10:16. A B&W flashing shot between 10:21-10:30 & seen at the end between 10:39-10:45. Who is that man? This is what I really wanna know. Thanks people! now the review...............................................................iTHINK it was GREEEEEEEEEEAT!My sister thought it was so weird & her daughter almost got flash male privates! LOL. That made her mad so I watched the rest at home. My BF showed me it. He's is the one who has got me interested in who the boy & man in the short was. All the symbols & stuff are enthralling. I think it's a trance video. The actually Jagger music could put me to sleep. When u listen with Ur eye & hear with Ur ear..Zap! Ur pregnancy! O.O LOL JK! No, but the imagery says a lot...That reminds me of school days. A girl asked what I was drawing, asked if I was a wiccan. I have no prob with wiccans but this girl thought she exposing me in some way. I told her by the end of tomorrow her mother would die & the dumb girl believed me! I should have wrote a note that said: Zap! Ur pregnant. That's witchcraft!

Quag7 There is a difference between "trippy" and "psychedelic." "Trippy" is what people who mostly have never had psychedelic experiences ascribe to weirdness in art, and "psychedelic" is art - be it music or film or whatever - that simulates or outright induces a state of altered consciousness as a proxy or alternative to psychedelic drugs, dream states, meditation, etc.People really like to pat themselves on the back a lot in their neurotic quest to dismiss all 60s or occult techniques, imagery, sounds, tropes, whatever. I can understand this to some degree. A lot of the 60s was just goofy. The case I'd make for this and Lucifer Rising is that this is about as good as this kind of thing can be done.It is not for everyone.Here Anger turns everything up to 11 in a relentless torrent of Thelemic, Satanic, and Nazi imagery, nudity, drug use, and blasphemy. This is a psychedelic film or, I guess, if you're just too hip or grounded or intellectual or contemporary or whatever for Kenneth Anger, an attempt at one. The purpose here is to get on top of you, by which I mean, tap a nerve. This is a torrent of input - visual and aural - pumped mercilessly into the viewer's senses. The disturbing soundtrack, varying film speeds, interlaced light effects and occult imagery (flashing unicursal hexagrams, etc.) are clearly meant to unsettle and induce a state of altered consciousness of some sort, but in my case it just kind of made me uncomfortable. In a good way. This is not to say a pleasant way. An effective way. (Is this film itself, a magickal working of sorts?)I can't help it. I like this, even if I don't *enjoy* it exactly. This is not an exploitation film. This is the real deal: the Age of Horus spontaneously exploding through (and nearly obliterating) the Age of Aquarius.Evil hippies, man.I found this nightmarish, frantic, and disconcerting. I suppose if you can simply dismiss the whole of the 1960s and the whole of the occult of the time, you can dismiss this, too. I'm just not that cool I guess.Worth a watch as art and as film-making with a different purpose than usual (while this is entertaining, I don't think this was conceived of as primarily "entertainment"). There's no plot here. If you need one, don't bother. Watch with an open mind.Then go to Church after.

mikael-funke I disagree with the comment that angers film is amateurish and boring. what you have to keep in mind is that is was made in 1969 on a shoestring budget. also that the whole MTV aesthetic was not even thought of then, and it would take 30 years until the way Anger does film would be incorporated into the mainstream music videos of acts like Nine inch nails,Marilyn Manson, etc.The use of juxtaposing sound and film, editing them in a way that creates maximum contrast and dynamic is something every video director - directly or indirectly - has gotten from Anger. he was the first to fuse rock music and experimental films, thereby by accident creating the seed of the rock video.Angers short films -and especially this one - has probably been more important in shaping pop and art culture than any other single short film. for that he deserves credit and recognition.