Category Archives: occult

Beyond the range of the ordinary.

Folk Horror Films

August 18, 2024 Christopher Davis

At the root of folk horror is our fear of the land. Not the dirt itself, but what lives in it, on it, or once did long ago. Of common folk whose ancient traditions are often tied to a remote island, small town or farm in the middle of nowhere. It is where protagonists are pitted against whole, seemingly quiet and quaint, communities where secrets are kept. Where sacrifice is part of life. And while there are many a film that fit this bill, none are more notable than the progenitor BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW (1971), the cornerstone that is THE WICKER MAN (1973), the modern movie the honors — and in some ways, subverts it — MIDSOMMAR (2019), and a relative newcomer that grows the genre in new directions, STARVE ACRE (2023).

The term folk horror (films) was first used in 1970 in Kine Weekly by reviewer Rod Cooper describing the production of what would become Piers Haggard’s BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW. Haggard would later adopt the phrase himself in a 2004 interview for Fangoria where the director contrasts his work with Gothic horror, noting his dislike of films like those produced by Hammer. Indeed, BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW has none of the trappings of Gothic horror. No decrepit castles. No undead monsters. No mad scientists. No hauntings. There’s a very different atmosphere of fear in folk horror. And BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW makes that clear from the start.

Linday Hayden in BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW (1971) — Linda Hayden in BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW (1971)

Set in rural England c.1860, BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW focuses on the corruption of a village by an ancient evil. After a farmer uncovers the remains of a mysterious creature, the town’s children, led by Angel Blake (Linda Hayden) begin to worship the devil, and a mysterious skin infection begins to infect people. There are problems with the film, and it may be among the weakest of the genre, but it is credited as the first (though some argue 1968’s WITCHFINDER GENERAL can make that claim [and they are wrong]). But as the first, 1971’s BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW deserves recognition.

BAD DAYS TO BE A CHRISTIAN

A few years later, the folk horror film that would set the standard for all such films to come, THE WICKER MAN, was released. The story of a conservative policeman, Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) searching for a missing girl on a Scottish island where the inhabitants celebrate ancient agrarian traditions of Celtic Britain, THE WICKER MAN slowly unfolds as a clash between Christianity and neopaganism.

The May Day Celebration in THE WICKER MAN (1973) — Christopher Lee leads the May Day Celebration in THE WICKER MAN (1973)

The island’s magistrate, Lord Summerisle (played with intense abandon by the always brilliant Christopher Lee) is, from the beginning, very hospitable with Howie, and quite open about the townspeople and their beliefs. Among many memorable exchanges between the two comes this dicussion of the clash of cultures.

Sergeant Howie: Your lordship seems strangely unconcerned.

Lord Summerisle: Well, I’m confident your suspicions are wrong. We don’t commit murder here. We’re a deeply religious people.

Sergeant Howie: Religious? With ruined churches, no ministers, no priests… and children dancing naked?

Lord Summerisle: They do love their divinity lessons.

Sergeant Howie: But they are… are naked!

Lord Summerisle: Naturally! It’s much too dangerous to jump through the fire with your clothes on.

the-wicker-man-1973-edward-woodward-britt-ekland — Edward Woodward’s Sergeant Howie looking quite uncomfortable around Britt Ekland’s Willow at the Green Man Inn.

At first, most on the island are very cooperative with Howie, but it soon becomes clear the sergeant is on a wild goose chase. Surrounded by temptations — including Summerisle’s own daughter, Willow (Britt Ekland) — Howie tries to hold on to his virginity and faith, unaware that he is being groomed for ritual sacrifice. And the audience knows long before Howie does that all of this will not end well for the buttoned-up policeman. It is their world, not his. Their ways, not ours.

Folk horror presents these worlds — and ways — in juxtaposition to the modern. But these strange communities are more than merely anthropological curiosities. Not unlike the lure of exploring a haunted house, yes, there is danger, but there’s also an attraction to some to explore the unknown.

Take, for example, the students of MIDSOMMAR (2019), directed by Ari Aster, (whose HEREDITARY from a year before is often celebrated as one of the best horror films of the twenty-first century).

In MIDSOMMAR, Sweden, not England, is the setting for the festivities, among a rural people that, like those in most folk horror films, have traditions that are not only alien to the outsiders, but in the case of MIDSOMMAR, downright shocking from the get-go!

In the film, Dani (Florence Pugh), the main protagonist, joins boyfriend Christian (symbolism alert), with whom her relationship is strained (due to his emotional distance in the wake of the death of her family) and travels with a few of his graduate student friends to their Swedish friend Pelle’s ancestral home in the rural Hälsingland region. They go to study the people and their once-every-ninety-years midsummer festival.

Rather quickly, things go sideways.

In a sacrifice of elders thatnot long into the film, it is almost as if Aster is upping the ante over WICKER MAN as he establishes horrific rituals early on. Friend Pelle normalizes the experience, saying it is part of tradition, as the others seem to just accept that they are strangers in a strange land. But just as the students begin to adjust to the goings on and be embraced by the people, some of them begin to disappear. Meanwhile, Christian is eyed by a woman desirious of him becoming the father of her baby. And Dani is crowned May Queen.

Florence Pugh as May Queen in MIDSOMMAR (2019)

All hell does eventually break loose, and the culmination is a fertility ritual where Christian impregnates a woman while surrounded by a cheering section of naked women, old and young. He even gets a little help with a nudge from behind. Dani witnesses the event, and has a panic attack. As the movie moves toward its conclusion, we learn that the dead elders and missing friends were part of a larger ritual sacrifice that requires 9 bodies. As May Queen, Dani gets to select the ninth. Will it be a native member of the community, or Christian? There’s no need to spoil it, but let’s just say that Aster’s subversion of WICKER MAN lies in Dani’s decision. The danger is not without, but within. And the audience is left to decide for themselves why she chooses as she does. Has she “gone native?” The camera lingers on her all decked out in May Queen accoutrements. Roll credits.

A NEW BREED

Where does folk horror go from here? 2023’s STARVE ACRE takes the traditionally communal aspects of folk horror and turns them inward, telling a tale of domestic dread. It is still a story rooted in nature, with a rural setting and a central sacrifice, but here, the tropes of folk horror are made familial.

Starve Acre is the story of archaeologist Richard (Matt Smith) and his wife Juliette (Morfydd Clark), who move to the husband’s remote family home in the English countryside. Tragedy strikes when their young son — a boy who had become increasingly violent as he comes under the influence of an imaginary friend / malicious sprite named Jack Grey — dies suddenly. The grief drives Juliette to depression, and Richard, to obsession, as the latter turns to unearthing both the roots of an ancient oak believed by the land’s seventeenth-century inhabitants to be a portal to other worlds, and his own father’s occult journals (which reveal not only the father’s own obsessions, but the abuse of his son).

Matt Smith uncovers an ancient tree in STARVE ACRE (2023) — Matt Smith uncovers an ancient oak, and much more, in STARVE ACRE (2023)

With cinematography that evokes the colors and saturation of seventies cinema, and a soundtrack so unnerving that the music alone can make any viewer quite uncomfortable, STARVE ACRE, like most representative folk horror films, is not a fun movie to watch. Here, the primary theme is grief, and the way that grief manifests — in the form of a hare that literally grows from a skeleton Richard uncovers during his backyard dig — is disturbing. Nature here is not something to be celebrated festival-style. It is, instead, sinew and bone and dirt and mud. It is sad. And it is sinister. As Richard and Juliette begin to care for the hare that has become a substitution for this lost child, Juliette’s sister Harrie (Erin Richards) is witness to the couple’s breakdown. Will she be able to save her sister? It’s a slow burn, and not a film for everyone. Dreary and sluggish in spots, it does, however, pay off in the end with a crescendo that will shock and disturb even the most hardened fans of horror.

FERTILE GROUND

Since the nineteen sixties, there have been at least a dozen or so films that have been labeled folk horror, but many of them have been, curiously, only made over the last decade. There’s the effective period piece A FIELD IN ENGLAND (2013), the derivative APOSTLE (2018), and the outright bizarre ENYS MEN (2022) — just to name a few. Even films like THE WITCH (2015) and the aforementioned HEREDITARY (2018) belong to the genre, though each of those leans further into witchcraft and paganism, eschewing the essential connections to agrarian practices, secret ceremonies, and human sacrifice that more traditionally come with the folk horror label.

Such subject matter is fertile ground for horror, and in the growth and harvest cycles of working the land can be found powerful metaphors for human life and death. These stories thrive because they connect us with the darker aspects of nature — both of the natural world, and of human nature.

And it is at the fundamental intersection of those elements that folk horror finds its terrible, beautiful source.

books, history, musings, occult

Not Dead, Yet Buried

August 12, 2018 Christopher Davis

"The Premature Burial" by Harry Clarke, 1919. — Illustration for Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Premature Burial” by Harry Clarke (1889-1931), published in 1919.

Taphephobia. Greek for “fear of the grave.” With science and medicine such as it was for hundreds of years, it was not uncommon for men and women — rich and poor, educated or not, famous, infamous, or otherwise —to be afraid of being entombed alive. On his deathbed, George Washington apparently told his secretary that “”I am just going. Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead.” Spoiler: he did die, and was buried at Mount Vernon in 1799. He was not later found to have bloodied his fingers by scratching at his coffin or chewing the tips for basic sustenance. He did not become one of the undead (though undoubtedly, someone is right now working on a novel to that effect). But he did have a very real fear that many shared in the 18th and 19th centuries: being buried alive.

The earliest known written reference of a premature burial comes from Pliny the Elder in his Natural History of 77 AD. In a chapter entitled “Persons Who Have Come to Live Again After Being Laid Out for Burial,” Pliny recounts tales of people waking up after being declared dead. Fast forward to the 14th century, and there’s the story of philosopher John Duns Scotus, reportedly found outside his coffin with bloodied hands. Three hundred years later, and European rationalists would be stymied by a vampire craze — fueled by bloody bodies of exhumed corpses that were said to run amok at night and plague their families. But one need only Google for a few minutes to find modern cases of premature burial. As recently as just a few short months ago, a Brazilian woman claims to have been buried alive, spending 11 days trying to get out of her coffin.

Popularity of his tale aside, there is no proof in his letters or other writings that Poe, himself, was afraid of Premature Burial

Curiously, though, the most widespread cultural obsession with being buried alive is found in the 18th and 19th centuries. Most famously captured in Edgar Allen Poe’s The Premature Burial (1844) — where (spoiler) the real fear comes from an overactive imagination or fevered dream — the panic and paranoia felt by the 18th and 19th century taphephobe can, in many ways, be blamed on a distrust of one’s doctor(s) to properly certify death, and an all-too-ready cadre of family, friends, and neighbors who were quick to get the body into the grave — mostly, for fear of spreading disease.

It is the latter that may explain some of the vampire hysteria that began in eastern Europe and spread west as far as Austria and Germany in the 1700s. As early as the 1670s, doctors wrote treatises about ‘grave eating’ where bodies were exhumed and found to have eaten their own shrouds or feasted on their own fingers. Bubonic plague lasted until as late as 1750, and it is understandable that villages throughout Europe feared that dead bodies could spread disease. Folklore of the vampire from Eastern Europe coupled with writers spreading the tale of Arnold Paole in Germany in 1732 added fuel to the fire that undead bodies, rising from their graves, could spread a disease, too.

Symptoms of tuberculosis, for example — light-sensitive eyes, pale skin, low body heat, coughing up blood — could easily be misconstrued as victimization by vampires. Many of those who passed from such a disease would have been buried in haste. As others fell victim, and a vampire suspected, exhumation seemed logical. Kill the vampire and prevent the spread of the disease. When the body — due to the natural bloating, bubbling of bodily fluids, and shrinkage of the skin we now know are associated with decomposition — was exhumed, it must have been a shock. To the superstitious, the undead were blamed. To the rational, there was suspicion of accidental premature burial. To some, both were a possibility. Physicians studying this so-called vampire epidemic of the eighteenth century wrote over a dozen articles in professional journals about the subject, along with numerous treatises. In some parts of Europe, there was widespread panic that vampirism would spread much like the plague.

It was modern-day folklorist Paul Barber — in his seminal Vampires, Burial, and Death — who most effectively argued that the incidence of presumed vampirism or being burial alive has been overestimated, and that the normal effects of decomposition are mistaken for signs of life. And as the Enlightenment gave way to more scientific explanations of all things related to death, it was serious medical doctors, not priests or doctors of philosophy, who were looked to as authorities on death and disease.

But did medical doctors sometimes get it wrong? Were certified deaths sometimes the result of a doctor not noticing a faint heartbeat or weakened breath? Unlikely. But as the superstitions of the eighteenth century gave way to the more scientific approaches to death of the nineteenth, it’s not without reason that people began to — and rightfully so — fear doctors. After all, it was quacks like Moore Russell Fletcher, M.D. who published as late as 1884 his “One Thousand Persons Buried Alive by Their Best Friends”, a pamphlet placed inside the back of a textbook on common ailments and diagnoses: Our Home Doctor. Books like these contributed to the paranoia that being buried alive was a real possibility (really, “one thousand persons”!).

Outbreaks of Cholera in the mid to late nineteenth century — such as that in and around 1854 when Antoine Wiertz painted his ‘L’Inhumation Precipitee’ (the work that appears in the feature section of this post) — did much to fuel the fire of ignorance and fear.

Such fear led to the formation of some curious clubs — among them, The London Association for the Prevention of Premature Burial, founded by Dr. William Tebb of Manchester (who also wrote a book on the subject, available in its entirety, here). His 1896 treatise is definitely a far more credible examination of the possible causes of, and ways to avoid premature burial than Fletcher’s (again, one thousand persons???); at nearly 400 pages, Tebb’s book is quite comprehensive, leading one to believe that the phenomenon was quite prevalent and quite real as the nineteenth century came to a close. Of course, modern-day scholars say it wasn’t, but that doesn’t make the beliefs any less potent.

Ardent beliefs certainly explain the prevalence of devices invented by enterprising men to combat premature burial at its source — from within the grave itself.

The first recorded of these, a safety coffin, was ordered by Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick in 1792. It was equipped with keys to open the coffin and, should there be one, the mausoleum door. There was even a window for light, and an air tube.

Grave Contraption, 1882 — Device for Indicating Life in Buried Persons, 1882

In 1829, Johann Taberger created a bell system that had ropes attached to the body so any slight movement would alert night watchman in the cemetery. In 1868, Franz Vester revealed his “Burial Case” — a coffin which included a tube for a curious passerby to see the face of the corpse. A nobleman, Count Michel de Karnice-Karnicki, patented a coffin in 1897. His coffin also detected movement, and would open a tube to supply air along with not only ringing bells but also raising a flag. Yet, despite the effort put in to making these devices, there’s no evidence that they ever actually saved anyone’s life.

This is not to say that people were no prematurely buried. Many an article online documents case after case in the nineteenth AND twentieth centuries. Authors and filmmakers a century after Poe wrote his seminal tale continue to fan the flames of this fear of being placed alive in one’s grave. There was even a most effective (and well reviewed) modern thriller, 2010’s Buried, that made the fear of live burial very much a possibility in this, the twenty-first century.

But is it all fiction? Actual or embellished, stories like the aforementioned Brazilian keep alive (pun intended) the notion that premature burial, even in the age of modern medicine, is still a possibility.

VAULT OF THOUGHTS