The Devil in the Details

So with Blood on Satan's Claw finally arrived, disgested and spat back out onto the internet, my next big task was to do much the same for my other extremely-late import copy of Witchfinder General. Now, seeing as I was quite pleased with the former, could the latter possibly live up to it? I mean this is an earlier film, after all. And presumably more of a historical film without any sort of supernatural element. How horrifying could it be considering I've seen later witch-finding films like Witchhammer and Ken Russel's mighty shocker The Devils? To say I was surprised by how ahead of its time it felt, especially in terms of violence and provocative subject matter, would be an understatement. I can see now why this is such a celebrated film that has inspired so many copycats of varying quality. It really is hard to shake. The film starts out quite slow, barring an effective opening sequence depicting a hanging under desperate protest that will make your blood run cold. W...

Released to decent reviews back in its day, Angel Heart nevertheless managed to offend many who saw it: critics, audiences, even the MPAA at one point. Directed by the very white Alan Parker, this film takes the urban neo-noir thriller and transplants it into New Orleans, complete with voodoo ritual and plenty of the local flavor. If this doesn't bother you, the occult fixation or indeed the sprinkling of incest that later becomes evident would most likely do the trick. For true devotees of the weird, however, you will no doubt find this blend of genres quite satisfying. The pacing can get a bit pokey at times, especially when our hero has to begin summarizing what seem to be deleted scenes to save time, but I didn't too often notice it or let it bother me because I was far too engaged to care. The criticism that the film is too full of exposition I think is unfair, especially for a film in this genre. Neo-noirs have always had lots of exposition coming hard and fast near thei...

This sprawling tale of terror, which unfolds in a style that is reminiscent of The Call of Cthulhu without the globe-trotting, details a series of terrifying events that follow the dredging up of a not-quite-human skull in an English field. Slowly, a malevolent force begins working its way through the village, which the peaceful townsfolk are unequipped for in every sense of the word. Have they all gone mad? Gripped by some sort of mass hysteria? Is it all the church's fault? Well, without spoiling too much, the film takes its beasts literally, and the forces of good aka Christianity end up saving the day at the end quite handily, though its rich subtext attempts to muddy things.  The most twisted and fascinating character of the piece is Angel Blake, an appropriately-named young woman who begins the story as an innocent, playing in the mud with other children, but soon finds herself growing up quite fast and wielding her beauty and sexuality in ways that are truly disturbing. Wha...

There exists a very fine line between leaving too much or too little to the imagination when it comes to horror. While Picnic at Hanging Rock isn't exactly what is typically considered 'horror,' there can be no denying that its infamous denuement is pure existential dread, and it wields ambiguity like a weapon to create what might be one of the most compelling fictional mysteries of all time.  Picnic at Hanging Rock is, at its core, a simple story: an all-girls boarding school decides to take a trip to Hanging Rock in Victoria, Australia to have a nice picnic, which they will afterward be asked to write a short essay about. After the picnic is concluded, four girls decide to take a closer look at the rock, and everyone else, growing steadily more drowsy after their meal, let's them go on alone. Soon, three of the girls have disappeared, along with one chaperone. We're left with scant clues and next to no idea of what happened and from there the story spirals out i...

The video nasty era in Britain is oft-mocked, especially in other countries where the idea of treating kids swapping violent VHS tapes on the playground like unregulated drug trade isn't seen in a great light. But hey, every country has its own population of crazies who blame everything bad that happens on things like video games, cell phones, homosexuality, or government mind control. Despite what the IMDb summary may tell you, none of this really has much to do with Censor, one of few films from 2021 that blew me away and represent something of a renaissance for psychological horror. Censor is a great deal more complicated and well thought out than that. The thematic connections are as obvious as you'd expect, and it almost feels like a House of the Devil or The   Scary of Sixty-First in terms of faking you out into expecting one thing, but then delivering something totally different. But if you examine the film closely, you'll see that this is, after all, a film abou...

A Cure for Wellness opens with a hook straight out of Apocalypse Now. When a disturbing letter from the CEO of a major company arrives, indicating that the man has lost his mind, and all when his signature is needed to complete an important merger his company in is the midst of, the board of directors decides to send up-and-comer Lockhart to retrieve him from a spa in the Swiss Alps. You see, they have some dirt on this Lockhart, played by a squeaky-clean Dane DeHaan, and so basically have to threaten him into taking the job, but take it he does indeed. Lockhart isn't very likable early on, though they do their best with Nicorette gum and totems from his widowed mother, whom he frequently clashes with. A sticking point for many an audience member is that he sticks her in a retirement home, though I'm not quite as quick to judge. As the film goes on, though, his circumstances become so harrowing and uncomfortable that I couldn't help but find myself rooting for him. And that...

Does what qualifies as scary to people change over time, do you think? I mean, over a long enough timeline sure: I'm certain neanderthals would never have been able to abide by, for example, our modern-day jet planes or earth-shaking washers and driers. But what about M. R. James? Who wrote ghost stories over a century ago that are still rather blood-chilling to this day? Stories that have been adapted for television and radio many times, but never before for the medium of film? Can such an old film compete for the attention of a modern horror fan? Well, friends, the answer is simple: probably not. First off, "Casting the Runes" is great, but isn't exactly James's most frightening story. He is a master of the ghost story and yet this isn't a ghost story at all, despite it being quite possibly the most famous story in his canon: it's an occult thriller and a great one at that, and very gripping. But not spooky the way "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to...

Well, folks: here it is. The final film I have left to talk about before diving into the centerpiece of it all: a documentary on folk horror entitled Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched. While I'm sad that this set has to end at all, I do have lots of other folk horror films to plow through afterward, so it's not all bad. Oh, but what was I saying? Robin Redbreast, yet another selection from Play For Today, an old BBC program that ran for over a decade. Our protagonist, Norah, is a woman stuck in an awkward place between not quite middle-aged, and no spring chicken anymore, and she has just broken up with her partner of eight years. Finding herself struggling to cope with the sudden loneliness and boredom in her life, Norah decides a little country air might be just what the doctor ordered. Good thing her beau didn't want to keep their cottage they recently purchased out in the country. After all, she's a writer for the BBC, so she can work almost anywhere (blatant aut...