CW: rape

One worst parts is the false rape accusation. Statistically, these are rare and narratives that use them to demonize women are especially hurtful, promoting a fiction that has rooted itself so firmly police often refuse to even investigate rape claims. The actual rape scene is brutal, sickening, disturbing, and by all standards, should be the moment the devil-worshipers are irrevocably cast as the villains in this story. And yet, the way the story is built, and the figures it uses, make it hard to hate them.

It is a common enough narrative that witches were falsely persecuted women, killed for anything from sexuality to political opposition to simple misogyny; films featuring witches, devil-worshiping or not, tap into that…

Hoop-Tober #11

Instantly a central touchstone for my movie mythology. The ultimate in a kind of cosmic evil. Some malevolence, some malignant elemental force spread across the land, living in the land, permeating, haunting, waiting. Nothing is creepier, for me, than the sheer mundanity of Evil's unleashing in this film. Nothing as eerie as that evil eye in the soil. Just that bizarre unearthing conjures something inscrutable. But the eye is just a symbol of some nameless and horrible opening,

I love that the film does not truly have a central protagonist. And I love that it let's its mystery remain a haunting abstraction and open question. What is happening, who is doing it, where did it come from, why?…

The English Civil War was an era of vast tumult and upheaval. All seemingly solid and established institutions were being overthrown, warred with, corrupted, dissolved. It was a time of great renewal and creativity and freethinking. The Scientific Revolution was also taking hold, blossoming forth from/into complex alchemical systems capable of finely sensing and modulating the seen and unseen worlds. A chord was struck in spacetime, a chord which resounded in Dismay 1968 and after, a dark mirror flung up from the abyssal peaks and valleys of time, whereupon one age can gaze upon another as if through a dark glass. 'Witchfinder General', 'The Blood On Satan's Claw', 'The Wicker Man', the unholy trinity of British folk-horror of that twinned…

Strange things begin happening in a sleepy rural village in 17th Century England after a mysterious skeleton is unearthed, with the local judge (Patrick Wymark) going to investigate and discovering a sinister conspiracy, in Piers Haggard’s supernatural horror co-starring Linda Hayden, Barry Andrews, Michele Dotrice, Simon Williams and Anthony Ainley.

Over the years the film has built quite a cult following, and there are definitely a lot of genuinely creepy moments throughout, building an unsettling atmosphere that’s punctuated by memorable and off-kilter imagery. Haggard really has an eye for the period, bringing it to life through little details that make the villagers’ slow descent into corruption all the more unsettling, as seemingly innocuous traditions are warped and given ominous new…

Blood on Satan's Claw is folk horror done right! Set in 17th century England, Piers Haggard's film begins with the accidental unearthing of an ancient skull. This is followed by a series of strange events affecting the villagers - madness, possession, weird skin growth and more. The film was originally conceived as three separate stories before being merged into one narrative. The fractured plot actually works to the film's credit - as we see the effects of the unleashed evil spreading across the village population. It's all set off by a brilliantly realised surreal atmosphere; braced by an inventive and off kilter score by Marc Wilkinson. This lends the film a real imposing aura of suspense - it's never clear…

"The Blood on Satan's Claw" is an early 1970's British Folk Horror effort from Piers Haggard. Dabbling with a career of television and a few film efforts, "The Bood on Satan's Claw" has become Piers most notable entry as the film has garnered a bit of a cult following. Similar to something in energy as "The Wicker Man" (1973), which was actually released two years prior, "The Blood on Satan's Claw" is a deep atmospheric build into the smaller mentalitied village life within the context of the British countryside. Subject to isolation ingrained in tandem with superstition, the people within the area hold dear the close principles of religious values and matters of devil with a very up-close within its…

Basically every witchcraft movie I've seen, I wanted it to resonate with me like this one did, but there was always something missing. And I think it might be simply a lack of pastoral surroundings. It's always in a building or something and as much as I love the creepy building trope, and as much as I love how it is utilized in movies like Lords of Salem (which I know is a pretty modern and probably slightly derivative reference but shut up because it's my review and I will reference what I want) it just doesn't completely work to take any type of movie about an earth religion and set it indoors. The Witch comes a bit closer to…