|
Post by helrunar on Sept 27, 2021 14:44:33 GMT
My personal favorite "Folk Horror" exemplar is the 1970 teledrama Robin Redbreast, screenplay by John Griffith Bowen--lead performances by Anna Cropper, Freda Bamford and Bernard Hepton had a great deal to do with making it as effective as it was. Maybe part of the mystique is that it only survives as a scratchy black and white kinescope and you have to pay really close attention to hear or understand all the dialogue. The scenario is similar to such films as Eye of the Devil (from 1967, an instance of the aforementioned French folk horror though the film was shot by a British team), The Wicker Man, and Thomas Tryon's Dark Secret of Harvest Home, but to me Redbreast is creepier and more offbeat... and obscure in how it plays out.
H.
|
|
|
Post by Dr Strange on Sept 27, 2021 14:51:20 GMT
Here's the Kine Weekly article, from April 1970 (filming had only just started, under the working title The Devil's Touch) -
|
|
|
Post by johnnymains on Sept 27, 2021 15:48:17 GMT
Here's the Kine Weekly article, from April 1970 (filming had only just started, under the working title The Devil's Touch) - That's brilliant, Dr Strange. Am off to change the wiki page for Folk Horror now!
|
|
|
Post by andydecker on Sept 27, 2021 15:59:43 GMT
Folk Horror Revival is affiliated to #FolkloreAgainstFascism ⨘ H. That's a good one. Always think ahead. Of course it is easy for the uninitiated to throw fascism (or communism) into the same category with its pseudo-mythic obsession with blood and soil ideology.
|
|
|
Post by andydecker on Sept 27, 2021 16:03:30 GMT
Here's the Kine Weekly article, from April 1970 (filming had only just started, under the working title The Devil's Touch) - That's brilliant, Dr Strange. Am off to change the wiki page for Folk Horror now! Not one word about its period piece nature? Strange. One should have thought that the historical setting would have been empathized, as it theoretically lend it some weight.
|
|
|
Post by helrunar on Sept 27, 2021 17:19:38 GMT
I don't think they were "thinking ahead" when they added that--I'm pretty sure it was in response to comments from some of those "White people only in Britain" groups (I can't recall any of the names at the moment) on the Folk Horror Revival social media group. It's a recurrent thing that happens. They ban people for fascistic racist comments now which is really for the best--attempting to dialogue with these individuals never seems to work.
Best, Steve
|
|
|
Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 27, 2021 18:41:38 GMT
The only reasonable meaning of "folk horror" would be by analogy with folk tales, folk music, etc, as, in this case, horror stories traditionally passed from person to person rather than in written form. But that is clearly not what we are dealing with here. And I do not see how Aickman's "Ringing the Changes" could be "folk" anything, under any definition. In fact, I think he was against "folk."
|
|
|
Post by Dr Strange on Sept 27, 2021 19:49:19 GMT
The only reasonable meaning of "folk horror" would be by analogy with folk tales, folk music, etc, as, in this case, horror stories traditionally passed from person to person rather than in written form. But that is clearly not what we are dealing with here. And I do not see how Aickman's "Ringing the Changes" could be "folk" anything, under any definition. In fact, I think he was against "folk." You are never going to get a definition of any genre that suits everyone (people can't even agree on a definition of "horror"), but this is what Adam Scovell identifies as the key links in the "Folk Horror Chain" in Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful & Things Strange (2017) - (1) landscape: "where elements within its topography have adverse effects on the social and moral identities of its inhabitants"; (2) isolation: "the landscape must in some way isolate a key body of characters, whether it be just a handful of individuals or a small-scale community"; (3) skewed belief systems and morality: the isolation means that "people are cut off from some established social progress of the diegetic world", which results in (4) the happening/summoning: where these skewed beliefs are manifested in a violent and/or supernatural way. BTW, I've seen a complete contents list for Damnable Tales using Am*z*n's "Look Inside", and it looks like Ringing The Changes has been replaced with Bind Your Hair.
|
|
|
Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 27, 2021 20:00:44 GMT
BTW, I've seen a complete contents list for Damnable Tales using Am*z*n's "Look Inside", and it looks like Ringing The Changes has been replaced with Bind Your Hair. Oh, that makes it all right then.
|
|
|
Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 27, 2021 20:06:18 GMT
The only story of Aickman's that I can think of right now that might in some sense be "folk horror" is "The Stains."
|
|
|
Post by helrunar on Sept 27, 2021 20:42:23 GMT
I like what Scovell has to say, and thanks for citing that, Dr Strange. When the Folk Horror Revival group started up on social media, I was quite intrigued, because the main people writing about this type of thing seemed to be identifying commonalities in various tales, novels, films, pieces of music, and other works of art that had engaged my attention through much of my conscious life. I don't recall discussion of how there was an awareness of "folk horror" as a sort of sub-genre (or sub-culture) prior to the late Sixties--by far the most energy, initially, was focused on the Seventies (and I think Scarfolk was an element as well in the early commentary).
There are certain authors or works that seem obviously to fit. Numerous tales by Machen, M. R. James, Blackwood, Lovecraft, Dunsany, de la Mare, all of whom had been favorites in my teen years (which happened to coincide with the decade of the Seventies). I could see a story such as "Man-sized in Marble" by E. Nesbit fitting in.
What I like about the short note by Scovell that you cite is that it goes beyond anecdotal enumeration of examples to identify the psychodynamics underlying why these stories got written and why they remain so compelling.
H.
|
|
|
Post by Michael Connolly on Sept 28, 2021 15:43:25 GMT
I like what Scovell has to say, and thanks for citing that, Dr Strange. When the Folk Horror Revival group started up on social media, I was quite intrigued, because the main people writing about this type of thing seemed to be identifying commonalities in various tales, novels, films, pieces of music, and other works of art that had engaged my attention through much of my conscious life. I don't recall discussion of how there was an awareness of "folk horror" as a sort of sub-genre (or sub-culture) prior to the late Sixties--by far the most energy, initially, was focused on the Seventies (and I think Scarfolk was an element as well in the early commentary). There are certain authors or works that seem obviously to fit. Numerous tales by Machen, M. R. James, Blackwood, Lovecraft, Dunsany, de la Mare, all of whom had been favorites in my teen years (which happened to coincide with the decade of the Seventies). I could see a story such as "Man-sized in Marble" by E. Nesbit fitting in. What I like about the short note by Scovell that you cite is that it goes beyond anecdotal enumeration of examples to identify the psychodynamics underlying why these stories got written and why they remain so compelling. H. What have I started this time? I'm lost again.
|
|
|
Post by helrunar on Sept 28, 2021 18:18:54 GMT
Michael, if I understand correctly, it would seem that Jojo was baffled as to how anyone could consider the Aickman story "Ringing the Changes" an instance of 'folk horror.' And thus ensued a discussion on just what the hell 'folk horror' is.
H.
|
|
|
Post by Michael Connolly on Sept 29, 2021 10:52:24 GMT
Michael, if I understand correctly, it would seem that Jojo was baffled as to how anyone could consider the Aickman story "Ringing the Changes" an instance of 'folk horror.' And thus ensued a discussion on just what the hell 'folk horror' is. H. I'm baffled how anyone considers Robert Aickman to be worth reading at all, as any kind of horror.
|
|
|
Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 29, 2021 11:47:47 GMT
No, I would not consider Aickman "horror," either.
|
|