Line #47 Main/MysticalHollywood


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8	Hollywood is arguably the most glamorous place on Earth, and yet [[HorribleHollywood it has a dark side: it is the place where many people's dreams of stardom were shattered, and several tragedies happened]]. Therefore it is not that uncommon in fiction to imply that this dark side is of mystical nature. Perhaps you need to strike a ''literal'' DealWithTheDevil to become a star, perhaps the luxurious avenues are haunted by the ghosts of dead actors, or perhaps Hollywood itself is an EldritchLocation where the line between real and unreal is blurred.
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10	Various productions throughout Hollywood's history have been said to have been "cursed" due to various mishaps befalling the cast and crew. For more information, see TheProductionCurse. Not to be confused with HellishLA (which for the most part focuses on the "PlaceWorseThanDeath" part of living in L.A.)
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12	!!Examples:
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16	[[folder:Comic Books]]
17	* The 1920s arc from ''ComicBook/AmericanVampire'' shows that a coven of the Carpathian vampires controls Hollywood, using it to strengthen both their financial clout and influence over mortals. It also turns old Hollywood from "merely" being [[HorribleHollywood cruelly exploitative]] to horrifyingly dangerous, as the conscienceless vampires are more than happy to feed on naive wannabe actors and actresses and have all the power necessary to cover up their sadistic and murderous deeds.
18	* ''ComicBook/LoriLovecraft'' contains all of standard HorribleHollywood stereotypes: sleazy producers, egomaniac directors, narcissistic actors, embittered writers, etc. Oh, and a demonic conspiracy running things behind the scenes.
19	* In ''ComicBook/{{Silverblade}}'', a mystical being grants ageing actor Jonathan Lord the power to transform into any character he ever portrayed on film, and he gets caught up in a millennia old battle between ancient forces, with Hollywood itself as the battlefield.
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22	[[folder:Films -- Live Action]]
23	* ''Film/InlandEmpire'' is centered around the production of a Hollywood movie which is said to be cursed, and the surreal events surrounding it.
24	* ''Film/MenInBlack'', its continuations and ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlackTheSeries'' demonstrates that many big-name Hollywood celebrities (including such people as Creator/StevenSpielberg, Creator/SylvesterStallone and Creator/DennisRodman) are all aliens, and one episode of the series had J and K visiting the MIB's Hollywood office on a missing aliens case, which was more of a talent agency with additional weirdness and less of a super-secret police station (the agents had even stopped carrying weapons a long time ago), and showcased that InUniverse stand-ins for the ''Alien'', ''Predator'' and ''Teletubbies'' franchises all starred aliens. As well, it's mentioned that Hollywood of all places is where people almost catch on to the fact aliens exist more often, forcing the Men In Black to wipe memories and allow films that cover things up to be produced on a regular basis.
25	* In ''Film/MulhollandDrive'', Hollywood is controlled by shady masterminds like a wheelchair-bound kingpin Mr. Roque and the mysterious Cowboy who are implied to be supernatural entities. [[spoiler: According to the most popular interpretation, the first part of the movie is the dream of a failed actress Diane Selwyn who invented a supernatural conspiracy in her mind as a reason for her failure.]]
26	* In ''Film/StarryEyes'', the Hollywood company Astraeus Pictures is revealed to be a sect worshipping a demon of the same name; in order to become a beautiful and successful actress, the main character makes a deal with the said demon.
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29	[[folder:Literature]]
30	* This is the core of Creator/CliveBarker's ''Literature/ColdheartCanyon''; the titular location is where a silent movie star's grand mansion stands... still inhabited by said movie star in TheNineties. A cursed tiled room within the house's depths has rendered her unaging and immortal, and on top of that, her perverse, hard-partying ways in her prime have resulted in the grounds being haunted by many celebrities from MediaNotes/TheSilentAgeOfHollywood and UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood, while HalfHumanHybrid creatures prowl the overgrown gardens.
31	* In ''Literature/MovingPictures'', {{Eldritch Abomination}}s arrive from Dungeon Dimensions as a result of alchemists creating movies at Holy Wood.
32	* ''Literature/SirenQueen'' by Creator/NghiVo portrays a dangerous [[FantasyKitchenSink Fantasy Kitchen Sink]] Hollywood that blends real history with elements of [[MagicalRealism Magical Realism]].
33	* ''Literature/{{Unsong}}'' shows that Hollywood is the way it is due to the Angel of Creativity having elected the area as her temple.
34	* In Creator/AdrienneBarbeau and Michael Scott's novel ''Vampyres of Hollywood'' and its sequel, ''Love Bites'', many Old Hollywood film stars and producers such as Creator/MaryPickford, Creator/ThedaBara, Creator/OrsonWelles, Creator/CharlieChaplin, and Creator/DouglasFairbanks are actually vampires who used their abilities to mesmerize audiences on film. Many of them are actually responsible for popularizing false myths about vampires being vulnerable to garlic and holy symbols by depicting vampires that way in films so humans would underestimate them. Many of these old film stars faked their deaths and are trying to get back into the film business without being recognized as their old selves. Barbeau gives a very detailed portrayal of Hollywood and the film industry from an insider's perspective, as well as a very detailed "what-if" scenario that shows Hollywood as being created and run by vampires from the beginning. There are a lot of humorous throwaway lines about various celebrities, such as a brief description of Creator/JoanCrawford as an out-of-control werewolf.
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37	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
38	* ''{{Series/Angel}}'' thrived on this. Its Los Angeles had an underworld of vampires, demons and an evil OccultLawFirm called Wolfram and Hart.
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41	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
42	* The ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'' supplement ''LA By Night'' has it that the founding and flourishing of Los Angeles was guided by an extremely powerful Toreador, who was Embraced at 13 and came to California after his artistic debut saw him laughed out of Boston's Kindred society. It's mentioned that this child vampire's ancient mindset and relative lack of talent may explain why nothing original seems to come out of Hollywood.
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45	[[folder:Video Games]]
46	* Holy Wood also makes an appearance in ''VideoGame/DiscworldII'', and at the very end, the Elf Queen uses the magic of the place to come from the screen.
47	* The game ''VideoGame/HollywoodMonsters'' by Pendulo Studios and its follow-up ''VideoGame/TheNextBigThing'' take place in an alternate 1950s Los Angeles where the monsters from Hollywood horrors are real and live side by side with humans.
48	* The AlternateHistory of ''VideoGame/RedFlood'' has a non-supernatural version, but one that still bears most of the hallmarks of this trope. In this timeline, the aftermath of an even worse UsefulNotes/WorldWarI sees the rise of Accelerationism, an ideology that can best be described as {{Mad Artist}}s coming together to craft a political program for national rebirth, which finds fertile ground in the arts all over the world, including the American film industry. In the event of [[DividedStatesOfAmerica the collapse of the United States]], California is one of the many independent states to emerge from the chaos, and one potential leader is Edward Longstreet Bodin of the Spiritualist Party, California's Accelerationist faction. Hollywood's actors, writers, and directors constitute an important chunk of Bodin's base of support, and when he takes over California after the Collapse, he renames it the Spiritual Golden Realm and moves the nation's capital to Hollywood, with cinema given an exalted position in society. Radical spiritual ideas and conspiracy theories about alien "hidden rulers" threatening the Anglo-Saxon race are elevated to a position of official sanction and backing, with Creator/LRonHubbard becoming one of Bodin's closest advisors and many experiments conducted into psychedelic drugs. This goes hand-in-hand with the [[ThePurge vicious persecution]] of Catholics (and by extension Hispanics) as a subversive threat, with one event saying a church was bulldozed to make room for a film set after it was the scene of a riot. Overall, Bodin's California can be described as the worst stereotypes of Hollywood New Age flakes given their own country to run as they see fit.
49	* In ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'', Hollywood is all but run by the vampires, particularly of the Toreador clan, and is host to all manner of supernatural creepiness.
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52	[[folder:Web Original]]
53	* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2163 SCP-2163]] is the entirety of the American film industry, with BrownNote effects accidentally being generated during film production.
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57	* A conspiracy theory prevalent among American evangelical Christians claims that Hollywood is one of the agencies that {{Satan}} and TheAntichrist will use in the Last Days to corrupt the hearts and souls of men by denying God, perverting morals, promulgating socialism, feminism, and false gods, making it okay to persecute Christians, and of course bringing down America. In this analysis, the Devil is alive and well and living in Beverly Hills and Hollywood is a godless miasma full of Satanism and Black Masses. [[ComicBook/ChickTracts Jack Chick]] probably wrote a tract about it.
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Context Main / MysticalHollywood