Artwork by americanvendetta

You know you're looking at Hollywood Satanism when you see Satanism portrayed as a Religion of Evil with bizarre, often disgusting rituals parodying Christian services and a particular fondness for Human Sacrifice and/or sex orgies. Common hobbies of the Hollywood Satanist include sacrificing people's cats, slipping backmasked messages into popular music to corrupt the youth, and engaging in carefully calculated world-domination schemes that have been in the works since the beginning of time. (These usually involve breeding The Antichrist — extra points if he's Aryan!)

Hollywood Satanism actually goes back to Medieval Europe, when it was believed that witches made a Deal with the Devil to gain their power and engaged in rituals intended to mock Christianity just for the heck of it. Basically, it was thought that Satanism was essentially reverse Christianity, and the idea stuck. Rosemary's Baby gave it a shot in the arm in The '60s, and during The '70s through The '90s, the Satanic Panic that many of the tropes associated with it became ingrained in the public consciousness (a Sub-Trope of the broader Witch Hunt).

Individual Satanists are often presented as criminals, unless they're outwardly respectable politicians or public figures, or the whole town, and of course, a single ritual performed by drunk teens will always make the Guy Downstairs himself (or one of his minions) show up to raise hell.

Real Life Satanism can be divided into two categories. One of them, sometimes called "LaVeyan Satanism" after one of its more famous figures, doesn't consider Satan a physical entity and instead refers to him as a symbol for freedom to follow your own desires and/or for fighting against tyranny (i.e., God). The other one, which is called "Theistic Satanism", worships or reveres Satan as a deity. Both of them, generally speaking, view Christian morality as self-destructive for both individuals and society. It's a religion whose followers, generally speaking, are no more or less likely to be evil than the followers of any other religion, though their sense of what constitutes right and wrong is likely to veer far from the mainstream. In reality, it is more akin to the Pagan religions of old, their primary belief being that Satan and the demons are a corruption of the old Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Greco-Roman gods. And no, human sacrifice is not a widely accepted practice in most branches (though symbolic sacrifices might be — but that isn't so different from the Christian Communion, which is itself a symbolic sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus).

Of course, if the work of fiction portrays its Satanists as part of a Secret Circle of Secrets, then the above objections can arguably be Hand Waved: if such a secret society existed, then we wouldn't know about it...

Note that just because a Black Mass or any other such Satanic activity is held in secret does not make it an example of this trope. Real Life Satanists have every reason not to boast about their religion, especially if they happen to be an influential politician or a movie star, even if personally they are some of the nicest people you'd ever encounter, unless they wish to have their careers flushed down the toilet and receive dirty looks from passers-by and media until the end of time.

Compare Religion of Evil, Always Chaotic Evil. Also compare Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters. Also compare Hollywood Voodoo, as Hollywood isn't always clear on the difference.

Examples