Chemical Wedding
2008 British science fiction/horror film. Directed by Julian Doyle with a script written by Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, it was recently released in the United States on DVD by Anchor Bay as Crowley.
The movie's plot deals with the reincarnation of Aleister Crowley through a virtual reality experiment gone wrong, and his effort to ensure his continued existence through an ancient rite called the "Chemical Wedding". In the meantime, hilarity ensues.
Tropes used in Chemical Wedding include:
- Depraved Bisexual - Aleister Crowley. This is also Truth in Television.
- Final Girl - Subverted? Lia, while pursued by Crowley because she's a natural redhead and thus suitable for his ritual, is not depicted as a virgin, and is shown sleeping with the hero. Also, she's not the one who defeats Crowley, because Crowley dosed her with heroin.
- Reincarnation - After his experience in the VR suit, shy, stuttering professor Haddo becomes the bald, stout, and imposing Aleister Crowley. Crowley himself claimed to have been famous occultists and alchemists such as Eliphas Levi and Cagliostro.
- Soundtrack Dissonance - In one scene, we are treated to the sight of Simon Callow as Aleister Crowley striding down a Cambridge University hallway to deliver a lecture while listening to the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah. It get weirder from there.
- Techno Babble - Most of the weirdness is explained in terms of pop-culture quantum mechanics.
- Urine Trouble - Particularly when Crowley pisses on Haddo's students during a lecture on Shakespeare after reciting "To pee, or not to pee?"