The Book That Came From Hell

A demon's contract is printed in a 300-year-old book — with a blank line for you to sign. In 2021, at the Old Bailey, that name surfaced again: written in blood, in London, by a killer who never owned the book. This is the story of the Grand Grimoire, how a cheap French pamphlet invented a demon, how ships and mail-order catalogs carried him across the world, and how the internet finally set him loose. This is a documentary. All quotations from court records, statutes, and press are verbatim and attributed on screen. Some imagery is dramatized; dramatized documents are renders the text of the killer's actual note is deliberately withheld. Obeah and Vodou are living religions practiced by real people today; this film discusses the laws used against them as a matter of historical record, not as a judgment of any faith. In memory of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman. — MUSIC — "Unbearable Tension" — Myuu "The Unknown" — Myuu thedarkpiano.com ·    / myuuji   Additional music and sound effects licensed. — PHOTO & DOCUMENT CREDITS — Bibaa Henry & Nicole Smallman photographs: Henry/Smallman family, via BBC Evidence photographs: Metropolitan Police / PA Media, via BBC Sentencing remarks: R v Hussein, Central Criminal Court, 28 October 2021 (Open Government Licence) Portrait of Mrs Justice Whipple: Judicial Office, England & Wales, OGL v3.0 Old Bailey photograph: Acabashi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons The Obeah Act: Ministry of Justice, Jamaica (laws.moj.gov.jm) Prohibited items list: Jamaica Customs Agency (jca.gov.jm) Historical scans: Internet Archive · Wellcome Collection · Wikimedia Commons / Geographicus (Thomson, 1814) · Library of Congress De Laurence portrait (1909) & catalog (1916): public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Case research: "Obeah Histories" — Prof. Diana Paton · Port of Spain Gazette (1931) · The Daily Gleaner (1964) Some names, dates, and documents span three centuries and two hemispheres; every claim in this film is sourced, and where the record is silent, the film says so.