The Old Ways
October 22, 2013 9:15 AM Subscribe
/puts kettle in wicker man.
posted by Artw at 9:23 AM on October 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by Artw at 9:23 AM on October 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
Aaaarrrghhh... Children of the Stones. Thanks for reminding me about that one :\
posted by pipeski at 9:30 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by pipeski at 9:30 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Those 70s turtlenecks and bad haircuts are indeed terrifying.
Anyone seen A Field in England? Opinions?
posted by Foci for Analysis at 9:33 AM on October 22, 2013
Anyone seen A Field in England? Opinions?
posted by Foci for Analysis at 9:33 AM on October 22, 2013
Also, if anyone is interested you can still listen to a series of Blackwood stories being read on the BBC Radio 4 iPlayer; they were the featured Book of the Week stories last week. They're also reading more Blackwood in the evenings on 4 Extra as well this week.
I've not yet seen A Field in England. None of the Netflixes have it.
posted by Kitteh at 9:33 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
I've not yet seen A Field in England. None of the Netflixes have it.
posted by Kitteh at 9:33 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Aaaarrrghhh... Children of the Stones. Thanks for reminding me about that one :\
Allow me to resale nightmares for anyone who has seen this.
posted by Artw at 9:34 AM on October 22, 2013
Allow me to resale nightmares for anyone who has seen this.
posted by Artw at 9:34 AM on October 22, 2013
From the article: “We still live deep in the past,” says Ackroyd. We have a lot of history, and a lot of folklore.
As strange as it may seem, Tolkien thought Britain lacked a mythology/folklore of its own. That's what got him going ...
posted by Termite at 9:38 AM on October 22, 2013
As strange as it may seem, Tolkien thought Britain lacked a mythology/folklore of its own. That's what got him going ...
posted by Termite at 9:38 AM on October 22, 2013
I am glad at least that I am not the only person who found Worzel Gummidge to be terrifying and incomprehensible.
posted by elizardbits at 9:39 AM on October 22, 2013 [6 favorites]
posted by elizardbits at 9:39 AM on October 22, 2013 [6 favorites]
Anyone seen A Field in England? Opinions?
Well I thought it was a work of genius, best film I've seen in years... with the caveats I'm English and somewhat rural
I am glad at least that I am not the only person who found Worzel Gummidge to be terrifying and incomprehensible.
Oh totally.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:48 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Well I thought it was a work of genius, best film I've seen in years... with the caveats I'm English and somewhat rural
I am glad at least that I am not the only person who found Worzel Gummidge to be terrifying and incomprehensible.
Oh totally.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:48 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
I am glad at least that I am not the only person who found Worzel Gummidge to be terrifying and incomprehensible.
The horror of the handsome head!
posted by Artw at 9:55 AM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
The horror of the handsome head!
posted by Artw at 9:55 AM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
As strange as it may seem, Tolkien thought Britain lacked a mythology/folklore of its own. That's what got him going ...
I think he was after some kind of Ring Cycle equivalent, but we have King Arthur and we have Beowulf and we have all kinds of other stuff... Throw a rock and you hit something with ancient mythic resonance... So he was kind of full of it, TBH.
posted by Artw at 9:57 AM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
I think he was after some kind of Ring Cycle equivalent, but we have King Arthur and we have Beowulf and we have all kinds of other stuff... Throw a rock and you hit something with ancient mythic resonance... So he was kind of full of it, TBH.
posted by Artw at 9:57 AM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Love all this stuff. I have done some hiking around supposed mystical sites in England, and although I am sure it is confirmation bias I have been spooked a few times. There is something about being in the woods in the British countryside when the light is fading and you wonder if you can get back before dark, and the fog is up just so. There is an oppression of history you can feel is just there, just out of view.
Then you go to the pub.
posted by Kafkaesque at 10:02 AM on October 22, 2013 [10 favorites]
Then you go to the pub.
posted by Kafkaesque at 10:02 AM on October 22, 2013 [10 favorites]
I just watched Kill List and enjoyed it very much -- some of the better reveals I have ever seen in a horror movie, and the climactic hunchback sequence was as shocking and unexpected as the ending of the Wicker Man. I am very much looking forward to watching A Field In England.
I remember watching Children of the Stones (now online!) when I was a boy. I moved to England from America when I was 10, and every so often something would pop up that felt unfathomably old, weird, and occult, from Punch and Judy shows to spring festivals in Woolly to the fact that I was a 15-minute drive to Stonehenge. Children of the Stones seemed to capture my sense that there was some old religion hiding beneath the surface, ready to bring back blood sacrifices; Wicker Man caught that feeling too, and it is one that I have always found enjoyably chilling. The sense that this is all a facade for a pagan world that lies in wait.
I also recommend the filmed version of M. R. James' "Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad," (online!) in which a doddering scholar on a walking holiday finds a bone whistle and, blowing into it, finds himself followed by ... something. It's a very eccentric piece of filmmaking, benefiting from an almost documentary sensibility and an equally eccentric performance from Michael Hordern. He plays frightened as effectively as anyone I have ever seen -- you get scared by the fact that he is scared.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 10:03 AM on October 22, 2013 [14 favorites]
I remember watching Children of the Stones (now online!) when I was a boy. I moved to England from America when I was 10, and every so often something would pop up that felt unfathomably old, weird, and occult, from Punch and Judy shows to spring festivals in Woolly to the fact that I was a 15-minute drive to Stonehenge. Children of the Stones seemed to capture my sense that there was some old religion hiding beneath the surface, ready to bring back blood sacrifices; Wicker Man caught that feeling too, and it is one that I have always found enjoyably chilling. The sense that this is all a facade for a pagan world that lies in wait.
I also recommend the filmed version of M. R. James' "Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad," (online!) in which a doddering scholar on a walking holiday finds a bone whistle and, blowing into it, finds himself followed by ... something. It's a very eccentric piece of filmmaking, benefiting from an almost documentary sensibility and an equally eccentric performance from Michael Hordern. He plays frightened as effectively as anyone I have ever seen -- you get scared by the fact that he is scared.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 10:03 AM on October 22, 2013 [14 favorites]
More of this sort of thing, pls.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 10:14 AM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 10:14 AM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
I think it's been on Metafilter before, but Alan Garner's essay/history of the genesis of a novel (Thursbitch) involves him running about as a young man in the landscape and coming across some right rum stuff. here it is The Valley of the Demon.
posted by aesop at 10:18 AM on October 22, 2013 [8 favorites]
posted by aesop at 10:18 AM on October 22, 2013 [8 favorites]
There is an oppression of history you can feel is just there, just out of view.
YES, especially as an American where our sense of history is weirdly stunted. The general feeling is like ooh, 400 years, that's forever ago. It's no wonder we have people unashamed to stand up and say that the earth is only 5,000 years old, all things considered.
It's very odd and fascinating to have a drink in a pub that has stood in the same place serving beer since before your country was even a country.
posted by elizardbits at 10:25 AM on October 22, 2013 [10 favorites]
YES, especially as an American where our sense of history is weirdly stunted. The general feeling is like ooh, 400 years, that's forever ago. It's no wonder we have people unashamed to stand up and say that the earth is only 5,000 years old, all things considered.
It's very odd and fascinating to have a drink in a pub that has stood in the same place serving beer since before your country was even a country.
posted by elizardbits at 10:25 AM on October 22, 2013 [10 favorites]
The focus of the linked article is cinematic, but I still feel this discussion isn't complete without a nod to Arthur Machen, who did quite a bit to popularize the "contemporary England as thin artificial crust over deep occult, ancient ineffability" thing.
Also really looking forward to A Field in England now; a friend recommended it not long ago, and its place in an article full of a style of horror I'm particularly fond of shows me why.
posted by byanyothername at 10:28 AM on October 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
Also really looking forward to A Field in England now; a friend recommended it not long ago, and its place in an article full of a style of horror I'm particularly fond of shows me why.
posted by byanyothername at 10:28 AM on October 22, 2013 [5 favorites]
Kill List was great, but the accents were a bit impenetrable for an American audience. I spent the first half-hour struggling with what the hell they were saying to each other.
The Devil Rides Out and Witchfinder General I love, and even though it's nominally Sci-fi, I think one of the great examples of this is Quatermass And The Pit (released in the US as "Five Million Years to Earth"). It makes connections to old London traditions and ghost stories and evokes that 'deep mystery' feel that the best English horror film contain.
posted by lumpenprole at 10:35 AM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
The Devil Rides Out and Witchfinder General I love, and even though it's nominally Sci-fi, I think one of the great examples of this is Quatermass And The Pit (released in the US as "Five Million Years to Earth"). It makes connections to old London traditions and ghost stories and evokes that 'deep mystery' feel that the best English horror film contain.
posted by lumpenprole at 10:35 AM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
As hinted above, if you like Nigel Kneale you really need to track down Beasts.
posted by Artw at 10:37 AM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Artw at 10:37 AM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
YES, especially as an American where our sense of history is weirdly stunted. The general feeling is like ooh, 400 years, that's forever ago. It's no wonder we have people unashamed to stand up and say that the earth is only 5,000 years old, all things considered.
On my honeymoon in London, we took an evening tour of the Thames with a guide. At the end, we were invited to walk along the exposed bank and look for interesting detritus. I saw completely manmade looking stone and snatched it up to show our guide. She glanced at it and in a mixture of dismissal and matter-of-fact stated, "Oh, it's just a brick from the Elizabethan Era..." I immediately gawked, "This was made just before Jamestown!"
I was disappointed that the article didn't actually go into much detail about England's folk horror, so much as just discuss movies and themes. I want meat and potatoes!
I grew up exploring woods as a child and when I did wander through the available forests of England, I sensed quite a bit of disappointment. These were woods that had been harvested and reduced, over and over, and their wildness felt long since tamed. The English countryside had the same feeling, of a place that had very long ago decided exactly that this field belonged here, that lane over there, and yes, there undoubtedly has always been two muddy ruts in the adjacent driveway.
Maybe it says something more of me, but I feel much more at peace and calm in the rural countryside than I would if I were lost in the midst of London or New York City.
posted by Atreides at 10:38 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
On my honeymoon in London, we took an evening tour of the Thames with a guide. At the end, we were invited to walk along the exposed bank and look for interesting detritus. I saw completely manmade looking stone and snatched it up to show our guide. She glanced at it and in a mixture of dismissal and matter-of-fact stated, "Oh, it's just a brick from the Elizabethan Era..." I immediately gawked, "This was made just before Jamestown!"
I was disappointed that the article didn't actually go into much detail about England's folk horror, so much as just discuss movies and themes. I want meat and potatoes!
I grew up exploring woods as a child and when I did wander through the available forests of England, I sensed quite a bit of disappointment. These were woods that had been harvested and reduced, over and over, and their wildness felt long since tamed. The English countryside had the same feeling, of a place that had very long ago decided exactly that this field belonged here, that lane over there, and yes, there undoubtedly has always been two muddy ruts in the adjacent driveway.
Maybe it says something more of me, but I feel much more at peace and calm in the rural countryside than I would if I were lost in the midst of London or New York City.
posted by Atreides at 10:38 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
On my honeymoon in London, we took an evening tour of the Thames with a guide. At the end, we were invited to walk along the exposed bank and look for interesting detritus. I saw completely manmade looking stone and snatched it up to show our guide. She glanced at it and in a mixture of dismissal and matter-of-fact stated, "Oh, it's just a brick from the Elizabethan Era..." I immediately gawked, "This was made just before Jamestown!"
I forgot to add, that in the United States, the brick would be in a museum somewhere. In London, it was trash in the river.
posted by Atreides at 10:40 AM on October 22, 2013
I forgot to add, that in the United States, the brick would be in a museum somewhere. In London, it was trash in the river.
posted by Atreides at 10:40 AM on October 22, 2013
Great article. Peeved to find that apparently nothing mentioned is available on Netflix.
posted by codacorolla at 10:48 AM on October 22, 2013
posted by codacorolla at 10:48 AM on October 22, 2013
Really interesting, though I agree that there was a hole in the discussion where Arthur Machen should have been. I've been thinking about haunted landscapes a lot lately. (I wrote an article on nineteenth-century New Zealand gothic that touched on the theme a couple of years ago.) This might give me the motivation to work up another piece.
posted by Sonny Jim at 10:50 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Sonny Jim at 10:50 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Ye Olden Times Region 2 DVD may be your only option on some of these... Or mysteriously streaming them from the aether.
posted by Artw at 10:50 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 10:50 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
(I wrote an article on nineteenth-century New Zealand gothic that touched on the theme recently.)
A country or so over, it seems like Picnic at Hanging Rock would fit in.
posted by Artw at 10:51 AM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
A country or so over, it seems like Picnic at Hanging Rock would fit in.
posted by Artw at 10:51 AM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
YES, especially as an American where our sense of history is weirdly stunted.
That has a lot to do with the fact that we seem to date our country mostly back to 1776, forgetting that Europeans have had a presence here for at least 500 years, and that the native population dates back at least 12,000 years.
And that's understandable; after all, Europeans displaced and murdered the indigenous population here. But the mounds that you find outside St. Louis are from the city of Cahokia, which was settled about 600 CE, and, at it's peak, had about 15,000 -- comparable with the population of London at the time. The United States did not have a larger city until 1780.
we could have our own legacy of these sorts of haunted stories. After all, haunted tales are often of buries sins resurfacing, and I can't imagine a greater sin than genocide. There are a few -- I'd say the movie Prophecy (1979) hints at this, as does The Manitou (1978). Unfortunately, they are not very good films. There's a hint of the sort of storyline in the much better Wolfen, but it's sort of subterranean.
It's a different sort of story, though. In the English folk horror stories, the horror is there in plain sight. It's a hidden part of the everyday, and everyone quietly knows about it (except the outsider who is usually the story's main character). It's seen as being part of our own lost heritage, something that we all have, but was set aside long ago, and can emerge at any time.
In the meanwhile, the story of America's ancient cultures is a story of a people we destroyed. But it's still ripe for horror, and I think we can do better than the "Indian burial ground" nonsense that seems to be the only form this story has taken.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:01 AM on October 22, 2013 [23 favorites]
That has a lot to do with the fact that we seem to date our country mostly back to 1776, forgetting that Europeans have had a presence here for at least 500 years, and that the native population dates back at least 12,000 years.
And that's understandable; after all, Europeans displaced and murdered the indigenous population here. But the mounds that you find outside St. Louis are from the city of Cahokia, which was settled about 600 CE, and, at it's peak, had about 15,000 -- comparable with the population of London at the time. The United States did not have a larger city until 1780.
we could have our own legacy of these sorts of haunted stories. After all, haunted tales are often of buries sins resurfacing, and I can't imagine a greater sin than genocide. There are a few -- I'd say the movie Prophecy (1979) hints at this, as does The Manitou (1978). Unfortunately, they are not very good films. There's a hint of the sort of storyline in the much better Wolfen, but it's sort of subterranean.
It's a different sort of story, though. In the English folk horror stories, the horror is there in plain sight. It's a hidden part of the everyday, and everyone quietly knows about it (except the outsider who is usually the story's main character). It's seen as being part of our own lost heritage, something that we all have, but was set aside long ago, and can emerge at any time.
In the meanwhile, the story of America's ancient cultures is a story of a people we destroyed. But it's still ripe for horror, and I think we can do better than the "Indian burial ground" nonsense that seems to be the only form this story has taken.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:01 AM on October 22, 2013 [23 favorites]
I often wonder if Lovecraft's cosmic horror comes from trying to do this sort of thing but in the new world where he doesn't really have a connection to a sense of pagan awe that, say, Machen would have.
posted by Artw at 11:06 AM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 11:06 AM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
I just realized one American equivalent that is disturbing in the same sense as some of these English examples, in part because it's a throwback to them.
Shirley Jackson's The Lottery PDF. Wikipedia here.
posted by Atreides at 11:14 AM on October 22, 2013 [6 favorites]
Shirley Jackson's The Lottery PDF. Wikipedia here.
posted by Atreides at 11:14 AM on October 22, 2013 [6 favorites]
I often wonder if Lovecraft's cosmic horror comes from trying to do this sort of thing but in the new world where he doesn't really have a connection to a sense of pagan awe that, say, Machen would have.
I think that is the case -- as I'm sure you know, he holds "The Great God Pan" by Machen in very high regard. I think that a case can be made that Lovecraft was creating similar stories, with ancient Gods and ancient cults that still worship them, and towns in which everybody is secretly corrupted by this, as in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth."
Lovecraft is casting about for Machen-style pagans. Unfortunately, he fills the roles with the people he fears or dislikes, so, you know, Jews and black people.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:17 AM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
I think that is the case -- as I'm sure you know, he holds "The Great God Pan" by Machen in very high regard. I think that a case can be made that Lovecraft was creating similar stories, with ancient Gods and ancient cults that still worship them, and towns in which everybody is secretly corrupted by this, as in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth."
Lovecraft is casting about for Machen-style pagans. Unfortunately, he fills the roles with the people he fears or dislikes, so, you know, Jews and black people.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:17 AM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
There's a kind of void in Lovecraft that's not there in Machen - he's less awed by glimpses into the otherworldly and more terrified by the emptiness of it.
posted by Artw at 11:21 AM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 11:21 AM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
And then there's CS Lewis, who does all that pagany stuff but ACTUALLy it's all Christianity. Hmm. Once you strip off the Jesus Lion there's all kinds of links to the pagan past there.
posted by Artw at 11:34 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 11:34 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Is there a way for Americans to see A Field In England ? Is it going to be released here beyond festival circuits?
posted by melissam at 11:44 AM on October 22, 2013
posted by melissam at 11:44 AM on October 22, 2013
An interesting read about a fascinating genre, thanks! This type of horror scares me far more thoroughly than your standard slash-fest. It's hard to put in words why, however.
I might put The Blair Witch Project in the same category, getting past its "found footage" framing and ARG-like marketing. And I will certainly try to track down A Field in England – the trailer looks very enticing!
posted by The Nutmeg of Consolation at 11:49 AM on October 22, 2013
I might put The Blair Witch Project in the same category, getting past its "found footage" framing and ARG-like marketing. And I will certainly try to track down A Field in England – the trailer looks very enticing!
posted by The Nutmeg of Consolation at 11:49 AM on October 22, 2013
It was released as Video on Demand in the UK; it may be possible to watch it directly from your computer.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:49 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:49 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
It seems odd that while the article acknowledges that many of the stories listed are recent fabrications, it derides The Wicker Man as an invention and goes on how there weren't really wicker men and the music is just new stuff written in a folk style.
posted by ckape at 11:56 AM on October 22, 2013
posted by ckape at 11:56 AM on October 22, 2013
Penda's Fen is very weird. Grant Morrison also nabbed some dialogue for Rebis in Doom Patrol.
I wish there were more weird Scottish countryside movies. The Wicker Man casts a mighty shadow.
There's stretches of Sutherland in the north of Scotland that fill me with pant-shitting terror when just being driven through them.
posted by gnuhavenpier at 11:57 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
I wish there were more weird Scottish countryside movies. The Wicker Man casts a mighty shadow.
There's stretches of Sutherland in the north of Scotland that fill me with pant-shitting terror when just being driven through them.
posted by gnuhavenpier at 11:57 AM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Fantastic post.
I think it's been on Metafilter before, but Alan Garner's essay/history of the genesis of a novel (Thursbitch) involves him running about as a young man in the landscape and coming across some right rum stuff. here it is The Valley of the Demon.
Thursbitch is an amazing dense, powerful novel about English landscape and myth; it blew me away. That essay gets to a lot of what I like about it. I reread The Owl Service a little while ago, and it had the same unsettling feeling of the ancient and the symbolic, thick with the past and the landscape, that links together the things I think of as being folk horror. "She wants to be flowers but you make her owls."
Maybe comes from a childhood where my most read book was my dad's copy of this. Still go back to it now, and it's chock full of weirdness.
posted by reynir at 11:57 AM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
I think it's been on Metafilter before, but Alan Garner's essay/history of the genesis of a novel (Thursbitch) involves him running about as a young man in the landscape and coming across some right rum stuff. here it is The Valley of the Demon.
Thursbitch is an amazing dense, powerful novel about English landscape and myth; it blew me away. That essay gets to a lot of what I like about it. I reread The Owl Service a little while ago, and it had the same unsettling feeling of the ancient and the symbolic, thick with the past and the landscape, that links together the things I think of as being folk horror. "She wants to be flowers but you make her owls."
Maybe comes from a childhood where my most read book was my dad's copy of this. Still go back to it now, and it's chock full of weirdness.
posted by reynir at 11:57 AM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
Actually, while the influence is there in the atmosphere, I think Lovecraft diverges thematically quite a bit from Machen in the extraterrestrial/extra-human aspect. The "fear of the unknown" at the heart of his best horror is not really "Those People," but imagining that there must be beings out there that are to us what we are to insects or microorganisms--and that would treat us in kind. That's an insight that goes beyond regional flavor, and is fascinatingly still a rather Forbidden Thought among science fiction writers despite its being really pretty logical.
Jackson, however, fits right in. The Mothman Propecies film comes to mind as an American stab at the same vein of folk-horror, too, and high weirdness and conspiracy stories may be a kind of similar/overlapping-but-different thing across cultures.
posted by byanyothername at 12:00 PM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
Jackson, however, fits right in. The Mothman Propecies film comes to mind as an American stab at the same vein of folk-horror, too, and high weirdness and conspiracy stories may be a kind of similar/overlapping-but-different thing across cultures.
posted by byanyothername at 12:00 PM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
If the celts burning people in wicker men is a fabrication it's one dreamed up by Julius Caesar: "The whole Gallic race is addicted to religious ritual; consequently those suffering from serious maladies or subject to the perils of battle sacrifice human victims. … Some weave huge figures of wicker and fill their limbs with humans, who are then burned to death when the figures are set afire. They suppose that the gods prefer this execution to be applied to thieves, robbers, and other malefactors taken in the act, but in default of such they resort to the execution of the innocent."
posted by Artw at 12:01 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Artw at 12:01 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
we could have our own legacy of these sorts of haunted stories. After all, haunted tales are often of buries sins resurfacing, and I can't imagine a greater sin than genocide.
(just to point out that a lot of Blackwood's most upsetting stories are set in the Canadian wilderness and many feature some kind of native mythology or Indian ghosts or desecration of Indian cemeteries and the like)
posted by Marauding Ennui at 12:02 PM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
(just to point out that a lot of Blackwood's most upsetting stories are set in the Canadian wilderness and many feature some kind of native mythology or Indian ghosts or desecration of Indian cemeteries and the like)
posted by Marauding Ennui at 12:02 PM on October 22, 2013 [3 favorites]
gnuhavenpier, Penda's Fen haunted my childhood. The shot of the angel, appearing behind Stephen as he sits by the water - I used to dream that. And not in a good way.
I wrote a blog post once about some of the things that had most inspired my own interests and writing, and just about all of them have had a mention here: Garner, Pendas's Fen, Algernon Blackwood. Those of you who have seen the Children Of The Stones might also remember the TV series The Changes. Perhaps it's nostalgia, but they made some strange programmes for children's TV back then, and I'm not sure they'd get made today.
Here's another interesting article about folk horror. A taste of it:
Folk horror typically is concerned with the uncanny and often unsettling vitality of folk/pagan traditions and beliefs – with witchcraft, black magic, fertility rites and festivals; in essence, with the idea that the Old Ways, the Old Religions, and the Old Gods never really die out. They remain hidden under the surface of the modern world, preserved in secluded rural enclaves, or waiting to be rediscovered in ancient manuscripts, artefacts, and monuments. The greatest iconic signifier of folk horror is the endlessly mysterious and suggestive form of the Neolithic stone circle – with their eerie mixture of nature and artifice, primitivism and a sense of elusive technology, these Neolithic monuments are the emblem par excellence of the uncanny return of the antiquated.
posted by reynir at 12:12 PM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
I wrote a blog post once about some of the things that had most inspired my own interests and writing, and just about all of them have had a mention here: Garner, Pendas's Fen, Algernon Blackwood. Those of you who have seen the Children Of The Stones might also remember the TV series The Changes. Perhaps it's nostalgia, but they made some strange programmes for children's TV back then, and I'm not sure they'd get made today.
Here's another interesting article about folk horror. A taste of it:
Folk horror typically is concerned with the uncanny and often unsettling vitality of folk/pagan traditions and beliefs – with witchcraft, black magic, fertility rites and festivals; in essence, with the idea that the Old Ways, the Old Religions, and the Old Gods never really die out. They remain hidden under the surface of the modern world, preserved in secluded rural enclaves, or waiting to be rediscovered in ancient manuscripts, artefacts, and monuments. The greatest iconic signifier of folk horror is the endlessly mysterious and suggestive form of the Neolithic stone circle – with their eerie mixture of nature and artifice, primitivism and a sense of elusive technology, these Neolithic monuments are the emblem par excellence of the uncanny return of the antiquated.
posted by reynir at 12:12 PM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
Thanks to John Allison, I know all about the horrors of rural England. Having read Scary Go Round and Bad Machinery, I know that if I visit version areas of England I will probably end up mistaken for a yeti and be chased by a mob shouting "OBBLY OBBLY!"
posted by happyroach at 12:28 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by happyroach at 12:28 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Synchronistically (?), The Wicker Man is out in some theaters right now, in an expanded "final cut" using footage from a recently discovered 92-minute print of it.
posted by dnash at 12:32 PM on October 22, 2013
posted by dnash at 12:32 PM on October 22, 2013
There's a kind of void in Lovecraft that's not there in Machen - he's less awed by glimpses into the otherworldly and more terrified by the emptiness of it.
He's also much more modern than Machen: his horror is fueled by the progress of science revealing the insignificance of humanity:
He's also much more modern than Machen: his horror is fueled by the progress of science revealing the insignificance of humanity:
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.posted by MartinWisse at 12:49 PM on October 22, 2013 [4 favorites]
I grew up exploring woods as a child and when I did wander through the available forests of England, I sensed quite a bit of disappointment. These were woods that had been harvested and reduced, over and over, and their wildness felt long since tamed. The English countryside had the same feeling, of a place that had very long ago decided exactly that this field belonged here, that lane over there, and yes, there undoubtedly has always been two muddy ruts in the adjacent driveway.
Maybe it says something more of me, but I feel much more at peace and calm in the rural countryside than I would if I were lost in the midst of London or New York City.
I spent half my childhood overseas with my dad being in the Air Force, and the two years I spent in England - we lived just outside of Brackley in the off-base housing for RAF Upper Heyford and Croughton - were the best two years of, like, some "pure" childhood experience. Wandering the fields and little wooded areas outside of the little suburban base housing neighborhood, or sneaking off into Brackley itself, was like this kind of dangerous adventure - an old dilapidated barn, a condemned building (Boarding house? Hotel? Many rooms and rusted bed frames.) in what seemed like the middle of nowhere to a kid but was probably a few blocks off a main street, an old shut down factory (Candle factory? I don't know. Everything had a rumored former purpose among the kids.) with holes in the floor that you couldn't see without a flashlight. Terrifying and amazing. Perfect, absolutely perfect for a 9-year-old boy. Oh yeah, and overnight field trips to see freaking castles and dungeons and the Isle of Wight and umm a bunch of random stuff in Wales (I remember Rhyl Sun Centre was fun and some kid broke a tooth there but the rest of the trip was hazy) because DoDDS schools had the best program ever, Host Nation. So great. Looking back at the area on Google Maps now it's crazy overdeveloped, all those fields turned into housing and strip malls, which is sad, but inevitable.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:58 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Maybe it says something more of me, but I feel much more at peace and calm in the rural countryside than I would if I were lost in the midst of London or New York City.
I spent half my childhood overseas with my dad being in the Air Force, and the two years I spent in England - we lived just outside of Brackley in the off-base housing for RAF Upper Heyford and Croughton - were the best two years of, like, some "pure" childhood experience. Wandering the fields and little wooded areas outside of the little suburban base housing neighborhood, or sneaking off into Brackley itself, was like this kind of dangerous adventure - an old dilapidated barn, a condemned building (Boarding house? Hotel? Many rooms and rusted bed frames.) in what seemed like the middle of nowhere to a kid but was probably a few blocks off a main street, an old shut down factory (Candle factory? I don't know. Everything had a rumored former purpose among the kids.) with holes in the floor that you couldn't see without a flashlight. Terrifying and amazing. Perfect, absolutely perfect for a 9-year-old boy. Oh yeah, and overnight field trips to see freaking castles and dungeons and the Isle of Wight and umm a bunch of random stuff in Wales (I remember Rhyl Sun Centre was fun and some kid broke a tooth there but the rest of the trip was hazy) because DoDDS schools had the best program ever, Host Nation. So great. Looking back at the area on Google Maps now it's crazy overdeveloped, all those fields turned into housing and strip malls, which is sad, but inevitable.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:58 PM on October 22, 2013 [2 favorites]
Strange and hilarious to know that The Wicker Man soundtrack was a brilliant pagan audio pastiche concocted by an American composer. As mentioned in the book Electric Eden.
posted by ovvl at 8:36 PM on October 22, 2013
posted by ovvl at 8:36 PM on October 22, 2013
There's a strong sense of unsettled East-coast creepiness running through Lovecraft from Hawthorne, Poe and Irving. I've always thought of this genre as "New England Gothic", but Wikipedia is still thrashing about on the label.
posted by ovvl at 8:47 PM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by ovvl at 8:47 PM on October 22, 2013 [1 favorite]
More of this sort of thing, pls.
Rivers of London and Ben Aaronvich's other Peter Grant mysteries. He uses the feeling Bunny Ultramod mentioned - that pagan Britain persists, just out of sight - as the basis for some alternately creepy and very funny, affectionate storytelling about London. Highly recommended.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:56 AM on October 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
Rivers of London and Ben Aaronvich's other Peter Grant mysteries. He uses the feeling Bunny Ultramod mentioned - that pagan Britain persists, just out of sight - as the basis for some alternately creepy and very funny, affectionate storytelling about London. Highly recommended.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:56 AM on October 23, 2013 [2 favorites]
I'm just reading through some of M R James' short stories now, and have bought that boxset of the BBC's Christmas horror stores. So perfect timing.
posted by Fence at 12:03 PM on October 23, 2013
posted by Fence at 12:03 PM on October 23, 2013
Looking back at the area on Google Maps now it's crazy overdeveloped, all those fields turned into housing and strip malls, which is sad, but inevitable.
Worth noting that one of the things I love about living in Wales is that parts are opposite to "I remember when all round 'yur was fields". With the death of coalmining, the hills are going green again, and nature is taking back over. There's definitely subdivision sprawl, but coming across random railroad tracks totally grown over (somewhere between Aberdare and Hirwaun I think?), you can see it all starting to go back.
And I have definitely been in parts where I expect to see Annufn's red-eared hounds any moment. Despite the fact that working in heritage destroys a lot of romance -- the land here really has something. You feel like you could see it, if you looked through a hagstone, or over your left shoulder, at just the right time. I loved reading this, and I love supplementary links everyone is posting. (And it's reminded me to pick up The Hill of Dreams again, although Caerleon is about as pretty and un-wild as you can get these days...)
posted by kalimac at 12:21 PM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
Worth noting that one of the things I love about living in Wales is that parts are opposite to "I remember when all round 'yur was fields". With the death of coalmining, the hills are going green again, and nature is taking back over. There's definitely subdivision sprawl, but coming across random railroad tracks totally grown over (somewhere between Aberdare and Hirwaun I think?), you can see it all starting to go back.
And I have definitely been in parts where I expect to see Annufn's red-eared hounds any moment. Despite the fact that working in heritage destroys a lot of romance -- the land here really has something. You feel like you could see it, if you looked through a hagstone, or over your left shoulder, at just the right time. I loved reading this, and I love supplementary links everyone is posting. (And it's reminded me to pick up The Hill of Dreams again, although Caerleon is about as pretty and un-wild as you can get these days...)
posted by kalimac at 12:21 PM on October 23, 2013 [1 favorite]
If you want to be creeped out by faux-English traditions, check out Scarfolk Council (not a film, but it's good and weird) and the mighty The League of Gentlemen.
posted by vickyverky at 1:57 PM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by vickyverky at 1:57 PM on October 23, 2013 [3 favorites]
We don't like strangers here
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:27 AM on October 24, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:27 AM on October 24, 2013 [2 favorites]
Many of these are available on YouTube, by the way:
Witchfinder General
A Warning to the Curious
The Ash Tree
Stigma
The Owl Service
Children of the Stones
Robin of Sherwood
Worzel Gummidge
Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (YouTube rental)
The Devil Rides Out
Wake Wood (YouTube rental)
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 6:51 AM on October 24, 2013 [12 favorites]
Witchfinder General
A Warning to the Curious
The Ash Tree
Stigma
The Owl Service
Children of the Stones
Robin of Sherwood
Worzel Gummidge
Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (YouTube rental)
The Devil Rides Out
Wake Wood (YouTube rental)
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 6:51 AM on October 24, 2013 [12 favorites]
Many of these are available on YouTube, by the way:
If I hadn't seen most of these I'd be overjoyed.
(Alan Garner doesn't get enough love.... although I have nothing good to say about Boneland.)
posted by Mezentian at 7:58 AM on October 24, 2013
If I hadn't seen most of these I'd be overjoyed.
(Alan Garner doesn't get enough love.... although I have nothing good to say about Boneland.)
posted by Mezentian at 7:58 AM on October 24, 2013
I grew up exploring woods as a child and when I did wander through the available forests of England, I sensed quite a bit of disappointment. These were woods that had been harvested and reduced, over and over, and their wildness felt long since tamed.
M.R. James' "A Neighbour's Landmark" plays on this feeling, I think. The "haunted wood" at the center of it is a spinney hemmed in by farms - a vestige of an old forest. Although it, too, is finally "grubbed up" to grow corn, it's the source of all the threat - and magic - in the landscape.
posted by ryanshepard at 9:45 AM on October 24, 2013 [2 favorites]
M.R. James' "A Neighbour's Landmark" plays on this feeling, I think. The "haunted wood" at the center of it is a spinney hemmed in by farms - a vestige of an old forest. Although it, too, is finally "grubbed up" to grow corn, it's the source of all the threat - and magic - in the landscape.
posted by ryanshepard at 9:45 AM on October 24, 2013 [2 favorites]
@ryanshepard Thanks for that link. Just the ticket for an autumn chill. I wonder if the 'remnant of an ancient wood' motif can be extended straight to Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood? And what's this Landmark that gets removed? Might it have been a stone?
posted by aesop at 1:21 PM on October 25, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by aesop at 1:21 PM on October 25, 2013 [2 favorites]
And what's this Landmark that gets removed? Might it have been a stone?
Depending on what version of the Bible you read, maybe - but I'm guessing M.R. James was a King James kind of guy and more interested in the first part of the passage:
"Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark." - Deuteronomy 27:17
posted by ryanshepard at 3:10 PM on October 26, 2013
Depending on what version of the Bible you read, maybe - but I'm guessing M.R. James was a King James kind of guy and more interested in the first part of the passage:
"Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark." - Deuteronomy 27:17
posted by ryanshepard at 3:10 PM on October 26, 2013
Oh, man! Watching the first episode of Children of the Stones just now hit me like a hammer. I must have seen this on Nicelodeon as a kid.
posted by paulg at 3:03 PM on October 27, 2013
posted by paulg at 3:03 PM on October 27, 2013
If you are of the right age you'll probably have seen it on The Third Eye. I haven't seen all of the shows they packaged up, but I think Children of the Stones will have been the best. Under The Mountain holds up really well.
Into the Labyrinth isn't really much in the way of horror, and doesn't hold up quite so well, as much as I loved it as a kid.
One which I loved, and I think holds up well is your quintessential English haunted house show Clifton House Mystery and your Survivors for kids show The Changes.
(I'm still hunting for a show I know must have existed that was basically Threads For Kids, but I haven't come across one yet).
posted by Mezentian at 9:44 PM on October 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
Into the Labyrinth isn't really much in the way of horror, and doesn't hold up quite so well, as much as I loved it as a kid.
One which I loved, and I think holds up well is your quintessential English haunted house show Clifton House Mystery and your Survivors for kids show The Changes.
(I'm still hunting for a show I know must have existed that was basically Threads For Kids, but I haven't come across one yet).
posted by Mezentian at 9:44 PM on October 27, 2013 [1 favorite]
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posted by elizardbits at 9:21 AM on October 22, 2013 [9 favorites]