As Apocalypse Month draws to a close, I’m going to plug an underrated and relatively unknown Spanish film, Asmodexia  (2014). It initially seems like any other exorcism/Biblical “end of days” movie, but then the ending ruins all of those preconceptions. This is not to say that clues were not embedded throughout the film or even in the title itself.

I’m going to spoil the ending for you.

The title “Asmodexia” is a portmanteau of “Asmodeus,” a king of demons in Judeo-Christian tradition, and “dexia,” the Greek word for “right-handed.” Right-handedness is associated in many cultures with righteousness. In occult terminology, there are “Right Hand Path” traditions and “Left Hand Path” traditions, the former being associated with blessings and seeking union with the divine, and the latter associated with curses and seeking the divine within (or glorifying the self). In organic chemistry, asymmetric molecules are considered right-handed or left-handed. “Chiral” molecules appear to be mirror-images of each other, identical in composition but opposite in handedness. The molecules necessary for life on Earth are more often than not left-handed. Chirality is occasionally a trope in fictional works such as Through the Looking-Glass or the “mirror universe in the Star Trek series, in which not only molecules are reversed, but morality and any number of social norms. So, perhaps the title implies that our left-handed world, in which Christianity is a dominant religion, is evil; and in the right-handed mirror world, Asmodeus/Satan is righteous. This is supported by protagonist Eloy’s references to mirror worlds and reverse scriptures.

If my logic seems tortured and obtuse, wait until you see the movie.

Just think of it as “every day is opposite day,” or “Alternative Facts: Religious Edition.” This is bound to take the offensiveness right out of it, at least for American evangelicals.

Jesting aside, other works have employed similar devices. The first that comes to mind is the C.S. Lewis classic The Screwtape Letters, in which characters frequently refer to “Our Father” and “The Evil One.” But since the reader knows up front that the characters are demons, it’s no surprise that the traditional meanings of these terms are reversed. By the end of Asmodexia, we learn that the father-daughter exorcist duo Eloy and Alba are not casting demons out of the afflicted, but rather exorcizing the indwelling of Jesus and the Holy Spirit from the bodies of ” heretics.” They journey across Spain to initiate Resurrection Day, in which Asmodeus will emerge as the savior of humanity. I confess, I did not entirely see the twist ending coming, because I’ve become so accustomed to films on the tradition of The Exorcist that I didn’t assume frequently-used terms such as “the Lord,” “Savior,” “unclean spirit,” and “Evil One” had meanings other than the norm for the sub-genre. One comment made during an exorcism seemed potentially Satanic, but I wrote the subtitle off as perhaps merely poorly translated from the Spanish dialogue. Yet, there was always something noticeably “off” about Eloy and Alba.

Because of similar themes, Asmodexia is a great movie to watch in conjunction with Prince of Darkness. While it hasn’t received the recognition it deserves, I hope it gains respect for its original twist on a worn-out subgenre. Asmodexia is currently available on Netflix’s streaming service and also on DVD.