The official trailer for the movie “Chemical Wedding” has been released. Directed by Julian Doyle, and written by Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, the film stars Simon Callow as a Cambridge scholar who becomes a reincarnated Aleister Crowley.

From the trailer it seems fairly obvious that Crowley’s spirit will be portrayed as downright diabolical, with hints that there may be a bit of human sacrifice, if not some violent magical mayhem, involved. It also looks like he is being played as ardently heterosexual, despite Crowley’s intense love-affairs with men in his lifetime. The other major themes of the movie seems to be Crowley’s relationship with Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard, and a sci-fi “interactive suit” that transforms meek Haddo into Crowley.

“But did the issue [over producing a Moonchild] end with these three deaths [Crowley, Hubbard, and Parsons]? Would Crowley, as he claimed, ever return from death to rule the world? Why did US astronauts name a crater on the moon after Jack Parsons? Is L. Ron Hubbard really dead? What had been generated by the ceremony in California that seemed to signal Crowley’s demise? And what happened to the missing pocket-watch? Unanswered questions till, late in the twentieth century, when Dr. Joshua Mathers brought a ’state of the art’ interactive suit from Cal Tech California to Cambridge in England to be hitched up to the Z93, the biggest super-cooled, super-conductive computer in the world.”

Bizarre rituals! Young naked people! Conspiracy theories! Looks like it might be the occult popcorn flick of the year. Plus, with Crowley being a spirit, you can bring him back for innumerable sequels should “Chemical Wedding” prove successful. The film is being released in the UK on May 30th. No word yet on a US screenings.

Tags: Aleister Crowley, Chemical Wedding, film, Magick, movies, occult, Thelema