The Devil in the Details

Continuing our discussion of the middle ages and how they would absolutely suck to live through, here's Hagazussa: all that except told from the female perspective, which historically has a tendency to make things much darker and more disturbing across the board. Taking place at a time when mental illness was called simply 'hysteria' and it was popularly considered the result of demonic possession, what was a woman like the protagonist of Hagazussa supposed to do when she begins having what can only be described as a psychotic break from reality, all alone with her newborn daughter in a hut somewhere in the forest? The result of such a difficult subject is one of the best psychological horror films ever made, one of the best folk horror films ever made, and an incredibly impressive debut for director/screenwriter Lukas Feigelfeld.  The opening third of the film establishes the tone perfectly; our protagonist is introduced to us as a child, surviving in the woods with her m...

Drawing from the same Nikolai Gogol story as Mario Bava's Black Sunday, I must admit I thought I knew what to expect going into this film. In actuality, I was way off-base and pleasantly surprised. This film is almost a folk horror-comedy in the vein of The Lair of the White Worm, and quite reminiscent of the recently-covered  Leptricia as well , only much more skillfully crafted and more gripping overall. Like a classic fable or folk tale, our normally dashing and heroic protagonist is replaced with someone decidedly more cowardly and pragmatic. Like the villagers in the story, we speak behind our hands and watch him closely from a distance, steadfast in the knowledge that he will get what's coming to him, though it's hard not to like the thick bastard by the end despite everything. As for the Black Sunday connection, there is almost none. The only parts that were even similar were a few mentions of vampires and a curse being placed on someone, and that's pretty much...

Here's the thing, dear readers: Titane is a watershed moment for me and this little journal of mine, as well as for horror filmmaking in the New '20s. When you're done with it, you will either love or loathe the film's attempts to make the audience feel uncomfortable and unmoored from genre expectation, no question about that. It's a film that flies in the face of traditional Hollywood screenwriting wisdom, and not because it dares to kill off characters arbitrarily, wink and nod at the viewer, or even because common character archetypes and cliches are turned on their head: it manages to create something unlike anything ever seen in film by taking several extreme story elements that seem to come straight out of the exploitation and body horror genres, and twisting them in tasteful, fascinating ways to create something new and utterly gripping from beginning to end that is always pushing boundaries and not just with simple shock tactics either (looking at you Vigo M...

In the rich vein of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Michael Reeves's Witchfinder General, Ken Russel's The Devils, and Robert Egger's The Vvitch comes yet another story of paranoia and religious hysteria laying waste to an insular rural village: Otakar Vávra's Witchhammer, a Czech take on the subject. This one has it all: folklore about women wiping their backsides with communion wafers and kissing the devil's literal ass right alongside social commentary and the blackest comedy. It all adds up to a scathing indictment of human nature and one of the most disturbing horror films of the seventies. You know the drill. When an old woman spits a communion wafer into a napkin and it's discovered, suspicions of witchcraft begin to spread like the plague throughout a tiny village in Czechoslovakia. It is only when they bring 'inquisitor' Boblig von Edelstadt into the picture that things spin completely out of control and turn violent. Edelstadt is a fasci...

Burn, Witch, Burn is a domestic thriller of an unmistakable vintage, armed with subject matter that would seem lurid and perhaps even sacrilegious in the decade in which it was born, but now feels almost playful, delightfully so. A husband suspects his wife may be up to something sinister when he discovers a number of odd, earthen trinkets lying around the house, and once he confronts her and has them all destroyed, he finds his life turning slowly to ruin as those around him either betray or abandon him one by one, threatening to take away everything he holds dear. Meanwhile, his poor wife will stop at nothing to scrape together something new to hold at bay the forces conspiring against her husband, even if it kills her. The script's pacing and drawing of its characters is fairly top-notch. Our leads and their descent into hell is gripping enough to keep you from checking your watch, despite the film being every bit as talky as you might expect for a horror film from '62. At ...

As with Štićenik, I find myself quite enamored with certain aspects of Devičanska Svirka, the final work from Serbian director Djordje Kadijević included in the All the Haunts Be Ours box set, but still a little frustrated and unsure of how to rate it overall. On the one hand, it's unsettling and coherent enough to create tension. On the other hand, I'm not quite sure that I completely understood it, and the fact that it's so slow is as ever a point of contention. As opposed to Štićenik, which takes place inside a mental institution located in the rural countryside, this film takes place in a gothic castle located in the rural countryside, and it immediately brings to mind things like Bram Stoker Dracula and Nikolai Gogol's Viy (particularly Mario Bava's loose adaptation Black Sunday .) while managing to eek out a place for itself: it's absolutely cavernous, with each sound and line of speech rendered through a variety of hypnotic delays, reverbs, and modulat...

Living in the middle ages would have been awful. If you didn't starve, you'd be killed by passing thugs; and if you managed to avoid getting burnt at the stake for being a heretic, you probably couldn't survive the bubonic plague, never mind the ever-present possibility of bumping into none other than the devil himself while out idly picking flowers. It's a period that's dense with cruelty, conflict and immense suffering, and thus tends to work well when used as the backdrop for horror. Which brings us to  Black Death : imagine Apocalypse Now by way of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and you're pretty close. While it isn't exactly genre perfection, and the storytelling and pacing may be a bit pokey towards the end, I think Black Death is worth any fan of folk horror's time and attention. The story has a great premise: in the midst of the bubonic plague, an envoy of soldiers is sent by the local bishop to investigate rumors of a town in a remote area of...

Well, seeing as each of the other short films included with Leptirica are nearly just as long as the feature itself, let's take them one at a time individually. Štićenik is a black-and-white horror film that mixes psychological horror with folklore and wraps it up with striking visuals and spooky ambiance to create something quite hypnotic. It's almost shocking that this is made by the same man who made Leptirica. The setup of the story is very simple: a creepy man clad in all-black and donning a distinctive bowler hat chases another man into an asylum, where he takes refuge. A doctor there takes him under his wing and tries to figure out a way to help him, all while that weird guy scouts the place out, threatening at any time to storm their stronghold and take back what is his. It works as a springboard for a nightmarish sort of indistinct dread that propels everything. It's mostly a psychological horror experience, contrary to its inclusion in a folk horror box set, but...

The first thing you'll notice upon sinking your teeth into Valerie and Her Week of Wonders will quite likely be its eccentricity. Cinematic non-sequiturs, surreal folk horror imagery, and an off-kilter structure will challenge viewers, but those adventurous enough to puzzle it all out will be rewarded. Valerie... is primarily concerned with the titular Valerie and her coming-of-age. Coinciding with her first period, her livelihood is threatened when an evil man known only as the Constable along with Valerie's grandmother conspire to rob her of her inheritance and toss her aside. Oh, and they may also be vampires. You see, Valerie's story takes place in a world that feels at once familiar yet alien. Events follow a logic that feels like it comes from a bedtime story, right down to the decision to have the main character be an orphan who lives alone with her grandmother in a giant mansion, despite it apparently taking place during the middle ages. And while the film definit...

Leptirica is a Serbian film that debuted on television in the early seventies, and it adapts a vampire story that is apparently quite famous in many parts of the world, but that I had never heard of before. The film's director, Djordje Kadijević, is a force to be reckoned with in his native region, as he released at least three similarly folky horror films in the same year, and this is the first of the bunch I'm to look at. Taking a dip in a foreign land of myth and legend can be a truly invigorating experience, but does Leptirica really stand out in a sea of vampire tales? Sure, the book this is based on was one of the first - it proceeded Dracula by two decades - but is it worth revisiting? Well, I'm not sure I can say for certain, but here's my take on this wonderful little slice of Serbian folklore: I thought this film was not great. The concept of a vampire that blurs the line between bat, wolf, moth, and butterfly is kind of neat, and the twist of who the monste...

The Devil Rides Out was a film I was excited to explore. It deals in the satanic side of folk horror, and it's a legitimate Hammer horror to boot, starring none other than the king of euro-horror himself, Christopher Lee. What could go wrong? Well, unfortunately, plenty, and while I certainly didn't hate my time with it and its age can excuse a lot of the issues I had, it still hardly rises above the best in its genre, including other films starring Lee. Hardcore fans of folkloric beasts and rustic locales may be surprised at the thrust of this folk horror classic: a satanic cult wishes to birth what is essentially the antichrist. Typically, this sort of fare doesn't get classified as folk horror, but the film's fixation on elaborate ritual that blurs the line between hypnosis and good ole' fashion lore keeps it firmly in that territory. Indeed, its deliberate, talky pacing and uses of ornate sets and locations remind me strongly of Mario Bava's Black Sunday , ...

As a way of ensuring I end up actually watching every film in the All the Haunts be Ours box, I have been popping the films in totally blindly, one by one, and just watching, similar to how I'm now trying to write this in a looser, less figured style. The first film in the set is an obscure American horror film, apparently previously unavailable on home video, entitled Eyes of Fire that I really quite enjoyed. It won't be to everyone's tastes and those who like their films a little more grounded and action-packed may not enjoy it, but overall I found it quite above-average for the genre, and a great deal more academic than is typical for horror films. It predicts genre titans to come such as Robert Eggers's The VVitch, and blends folklore from various religions and traditions to create something fascinating. When the film begins, you could easily glimpse the costuming, shaky performances from bit characters, and the use of voice-over narration from a child that helpf...

As a horror film, Wake Wood concerns itself mostly with the effect of tragedy on an initially quite happy and loving couple, and how their grief and inability to move on ultimately only cause further suffering for all those involved. Initially, its themes and characters are maturely handled, and its folk horror stylings well-realized, but by the time its climax arrives, it devolves into a simple slasher flick that fails to fully deliver on its very affecting premise. Ultimately though, the impeccable craftsmanship of its first half shines through, especially for those who enjoy the folksy side of horror. Wake Wood sports a crackling premise: two parents, carrying more than their fair share of emotional baggage thanks to the tragic death of their young daughter, arrive at the town of Wake Wood to start fresh. Aiden Gillen plays the husband, a veterinarian who lands a sweet new gig caring for the local livestock, and Eva Birthistle plays the wife, a pharmacist whose grief knows no end,...

Thanks to the efforts of the fine people over at Severin Films we fans of folk horror now have a sizable new treasure trove of material to dig through in  All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror,  and I am aiming to keep a catalog of everything as I dive in blind, tackling each film one by one and, eventually, each short film as well. These blog entries will be sprinkled in between other reviews, probably of other folk horror films, so watch out for appropriately-tagged material if you'd like to follow along with me: I'd love to discuss with others. Readers of this blog and fans of folk horror, come one, come all and listen, for I have wonderful news: Severin Films's All the Haunts Be Ours box-set is finally out, and I received mine last week. I'm still reeling from how well-presented it all is, and the many goodies featured within, but before I talk about any of the actual films, I'd like to talk about Arthur Machen's seminal folk horror short stor...