1 00:00:02,630 --> 00:00:05,372 [birds chirping] 2 00:00:08,244 --> 00:00:10,681 [Narrator] Whatever walks through Dooney Woods 3 00:00:10,725 --> 00:00:13,597 holds its silence like the leaves. 4 00:00:13,641 --> 00:00:15,294 That decay in Dooney Woods, 5 00:00:15,338 --> 00:00:18,820 a sudden autumn weeps and grieves. 6 00:00:18,863 --> 00:00:21,953 Whatever whispers in the woods is heard by some 7 00:00:21,997 --> 00:00:23,477 and some alone. 8 00:00:23,520 --> 00:00:25,479 The rasp of mossy tongue and lips, 9 00:00:25,522 --> 00:00:28,046 the muttering of bark on bone. 10 00:00:28,090 --> 00:00:30,484 Whatever moves within the woods, 11 00:00:30,527 --> 00:00:33,138 it watches with a yellow eye, 12 00:00:33,182 --> 00:00:35,184 and whatever hunts within the pines 13 00:00:35,227 --> 00:00:37,404 is not of kin to you or I. 14 00:00:38,492 --> 00:00:40,450 Whatever sleeps in Dooney Woods, 15 00:00:40,494 --> 00:00:43,671 you must not meet or catch its stare. 16 00:00:43,714 --> 00:00:46,325 And should you travel Dooney Woods, 17 00:00:46,369 --> 00:00:49,633 then pass by swift and best beware. 18 00:00:49,677 --> 00:00:52,767 [soft ominous music] 19 00:00:59,035 --> 00:01:04,040 ♪ One's for sorrow, two's for joy ♪ 20 00:01:07,217 --> 00:01:12,222 ♪ Three's for a girl and four's for a boy ♪ 21 00:01:14,964 --> 00:01:19,969 ♪ Five's for silver, six for gold ♪ 22 00:01:22,275 --> 00:01:27,280 ♪ Seven's for a secret never told ♪ 23 00:01:30,414 --> 00:01:33,461 ♪ Oh the magpie brings us tidings ♪ 24 00:01:33,504 --> 00:01:38,030 ♪ Of news both fair and foul 25 00:01:38,074 --> 00:01:41,773 ♪ She's more cunning than the raven ♪ 26 00:01:41,817 --> 00:01:46,735 ♪ More wise than any owl 27 00:01:46,778 --> 00:01:49,955 ♪ For she brings us news of the harvest ♪ 28 00:01:49,999 --> 00:01:52,784 ♪ Of the barley, wheat, and corn ♪ 29 00:01:52,828 --> 00:01:56,309 ♪ And she knows when we'll go to our graves ♪ 30 00:01:56,353 --> 00:02:01,358 ♪ And how we shall be born 31 00:02:02,490 --> 00:02:07,364 ♪ Devil, Devil, I defy thee 32 00:02:10,106 --> 00:02:15,111 ♪ Devil, Devil, I defy thee 33 00:02:17,592 --> 00:02:21,291 ♪ Devil, Devil, I defy thee 34 00:02:26,862 --> 00:02:30,126 [twangy ominous music] 35 00:02:38,221 --> 00:02:42,704 - [Howard] Folk horror is based upon the juxtaposition 36 00:02:44,619 --> 00:02:47,186 of the prosaic and the uncanny. 37 00:02:49,537 --> 00:02:53,323 - [Mark] It's strange things found in fields, 38 00:02:56,674 --> 00:02:59,330 lights flickering in dark woods, 39 00:03:03,029 --> 00:03:05,684 the darkness in children's play, 40 00:03:08,687 --> 00:03:11,516 being lost in ancient landscapes. 41 00:03:15,825 --> 00:03:20,786 - [Howard] The Devil having a cup of tea with you. 42 00:03:20,830 --> 00:03:22,962 - [Expert Interviewee] The power of ritual and the power 43 00:03:23,006 --> 00:03:25,269 of collective storytelling. 44 00:03:26,705 --> 00:03:28,794 - [Jonathan] Ancient wisdoms, if you like, 45 00:03:28,838 --> 00:03:33,712 that have been long repressed and forgotten rise up again, 46 00:03:33,756 --> 00:03:38,369 very often to the consternation of a complacent modern man. 47 00:03:38,412 --> 00:03:41,502 - [Howard] Someone heading to a village 48 00:03:41,546 --> 00:03:46,159 just outside of town and discovering a pagan conspiracy. 49 00:03:46,203 --> 00:03:48,248 - [Expert Interviewee] Something like pre-Christian, 50 00:03:48,292 --> 00:03:52,688 something surviving in spite of the dominant culture. 51 00:03:54,124 --> 00:03:57,170 - [Kat] Rural locations, insular communities. 52 00:03:57,214 --> 00:03:59,999 These old superstitious beliefs that tend to breed 53 00:04:00,043 --> 00:04:02,175 around these communities, 54 00:04:02,219 --> 00:04:06,615 which are seen as being backward and in the past. 55 00:04:06,658 --> 00:04:09,008 - [Jasper] You're outside of modernity, isn't it? 56 00:04:09,052 --> 00:04:10,706 It's really all about outsiders being outside 57 00:04:10,749 --> 00:04:13,404 of civilization and realizing that you're really 58 00:04:13,447 --> 00:04:16,537 a smaller part of this wider cosmos. 59 00:04:16,581 --> 00:04:18,017 - [Alice] That old Freudian chestnut, 60 00:04:18,061 --> 00:04:20,367 the return of the repressed. 61 00:04:20,411 --> 00:04:23,457 - [Gail-Nina] It's a way of accessing all those layers 62 00:04:23,501 --> 00:04:26,069 of meaning, the buildup in a landscape, 63 00:04:26,112 --> 00:04:30,421 the buildup in a culture, and often buildup unofficially. 64 00:04:30,464 --> 00:04:32,684 - [Expert Interviewee] It's a sort of illegitimate culture 65 00:04:32,728 --> 00:04:35,687 that has sustained historically and culturally 66 00:04:35,731 --> 00:04:39,430 just through sheer force of will of the people, 67 00:04:39,473 --> 00:04:41,127 you know, the folk. 68 00:04:41,171 --> 00:04:44,043 - [Maisha] Folk horror ultimately asks 69 00:04:44,087 --> 00:04:46,742 what if the old ways were right? 70 00:04:48,265 --> 00:04:50,963 [dramatic music] 71 00:04:52,443 --> 00:04:55,489 [soft ominous music] 72 00:05:00,452 --> 00:05:01,888 - [Narrator] I gained the hilltop, 73 00:05:01,932 --> 00:05:04,586 saw its boulders bare, some worn by time, 74 00:05:04,630 --> 00:05:07,241 some carved by Druid art. 75 00:05:07,285 --> 00:05:09,591 Where oft perhaps the pated Briton prayed 76 00:05:09,635 --> 00:05:12,812 to Thor and Woden, offering human blood 77 00:05:14,292 --> 00:05:17,512 when moral darkness filled our blessed isle. 78 00:05:19,514 --> 00:05:21,255 - When I first used the term folk horror, 79 00:05:21,299 --> 00:05:23,127 I had no particular notion that phrase 80 00:05:23,170 --> 00:05:26,260 had ever been used before, though of course it had. 81 00:05:26,304 --> 00:05:28,741 The first usage of it that we know of 82 00:05:28,785 --> 00:05:33,050 is in the April 1936 issue of "The English Journal," 83 00:05:34,529 --> 00:05:37,184 and it was the American Shakespearian scholar 84 00:05:37,228 --> 00:05:40,100 Oscar James Campbell writing a piece called 85 00:05:40,144 --> 00:05:42,668 "The Biographical Approach to Literature." 86 00:05:42,712 --> 00:05:44,539 And he was discussing Wordsworth, 87 00:05:44,583 --> 00:05:47,194 and he was discussing the influence on Wordsworth 88 00:05:47,238 --> 00:05:51,721 of Burger's German ballads with their freightage 89 00:05:51,764 --> 00:05:54,288 of superstition and folk horror. 90 00:05:54,332 --> 00:05:56,377 So, he's relating folk horror right back 91 00:05:56,421 --> 00:05:58,771 to the origins really of Gothic literature, though. 92 00:05:58,815 --> 00:06:01,339 Having used the term folk horror in 2006, 93 00:06:01,382 --> 00:06:04,951 it seemed natural to reuse it a few years later 94 00:06:04,995 --> 00:06:06,953 when Mark Gatiss and I were working 95 00:06:06,997 --> 00:06:09,826 on his documentary series with BBC Four, 96 00:06:09,869 --> 00:06:11,523 "A History of Horror." 97 00:06:11,566 --> 00:06:13,133 In that, there was a second episode 98 00:06:13,177 --> 00:06:14,656 called "Home Counties Horror," 99 00:06:14,700 --> 00:06:17,529 focusing specifically on British horror films, 100 00:06:17,572 --> 00:06:21,141 and folk horror seemed a natural name, if you like, 101 00:06:21,185 --> 00:06:24,841 for a body of films that had a very strong presence 102 00:06:24,884 --> 00:06:27,669 in the British horror filmography, if you like. 103 00:06:27,713 --> 00:06:31,238 We specifically applied it to what has since been called 104 00:06:31,282 --> 00:06:33,806 the unholy trinity of folk horror. 105 00:06:33,850 --> 00:06:35,808 Three films, "Witchfinder General," 106 00:06:35,852 --> 00:06:38,680 "Blood on Satan's Claw," and the "The Wicker Man." 107 00:06:38,724 --> 00:06:41,379 [ominous music] 108 00:06:56,655 --> 00:07:00,572 - In terms of the trinity, what groups them together 109 00:07:00,615 --> 00:07:05,273 in some respects is that they're all about belief. 110 00:07:05,317 --> 00:07:08,450 "Witchfinder General" is non-supernaturl, 111 00:07:08,494 --> 00:07:11,758 but is obviously about a clash of belief systems 112 00:07:11,802 --> 00:07:14,239 and the corruption of the establishment. 113 00:07:14,282 --> 00:07:16,023 [dramatic music] [woman gasps] 114 00:07:16,067 --> 00:07:19,244 - I am Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder. 115 00:07:19,287 --> 00:07:20,941 - "Witchfinder General" is a true story. 116 00:07:20,985 --> 00:07:22,725 There was this character, Matthew Hopkins, 117 00:07:22,769 --> 00:07:24,205 who was a psychopath really, 118 00:07:24,249 --> 00:07:27,252 and he just, he said, "I can detect witches," 119 00:07:27,295 --> 00:07:30,255 and he just loved to burn people. 120 00:07:30,298 --> 00:07:32,387 - Bring forth Elizabeth Clark. 121 00:07:32,431 --> 00:07:37,479 [Elizabeth screaming] [flames crackling] 122 00:07:41,266 --> 00:07:43,268 - It's more or less an inquisition story. 123 00:07:43,311 --> 00:07:45,792 So it's not dealing with this sort of idea 124 00:07:45,836 --> 00:07:49,404 of Catholic Inquisition as in some of the sort of Spanish 125 00:07:49,448 --> 00:07:52,451 or Italian films, but you have this inquisitor 126 00:07:52,494 --> 00:07:57,412 who is just sort of let loose in the midst of a civil war 127 00:07:57,456 --> 00:07:59,762 and has completely unchecked power. 128 00:07:59,806 --> 00:08:02,461 [man screaming] 129 00:08:03,897 --> 00:08:06,595 - This man went round 17th century England 130 00:08:06,639 --> 00:08:10,077 burning and hanging innocent women 131 00:08:10,121 --> 00:08:11,862 in order to make money. 132 00:08:11,905 --> 00:08:13,951 And whether he was a religious fanatic or not, 133 00:08:13,994 --> 00:08:15,778 nobody really knows. 134 00:08:15,822 --> 00:08:18,607 I mean, he was certainly a nasty piece of work at the time. 135 00:08:18,651 --> 00:08:21,480 [women screaming] 136 00:08:23,221 --> 00:08:25,310 - So to me, Michael Reeves is one of those figures 137 00:08:25,353 --> 00:08:28,313 who could be viewed as a new wave 138 00:08:28,356 --> 00:08:30,315 of British horror director. 139 00:08:30,358 --> 00:08:33,100 These are people who were responding to things 140 00:08:33,144 --> 00:08:36,843 like Hammer Horror and the films released by Amicus, 141 00:08:36,887 --> 00:08:40,803 and really wanted to push back against this idea 142 00:08:40,847 --> 00:08:43,502 of tightly laced period piece horror 143 00:08:43,545 --> 00:08:45,939 that follows these Gothic tropes. 144 00:08:45,983 --> 00:08:48,899 And so you have these younger directors 145 00:08:48,942 --> 00:08:50,988 who really pushed back against that, 146 00:08:51,031 --> 00:08:53,120 and I think no one pushed back against it 147 00:08:53,164 --> 00:08:55,862 as violently as Michael Reeves. 148 00:08:55,906 --> 00:08:58,343 - It's also worth noting that "Whichfinder General" 149 00:08:58,386 --> 00:09:01,694 is the only one of these films that takes place 150 00:09:01,737 --> 00:09:05,220 during an act of war, the English Civil War, 151 00:09:05,264 --> 00:09:09,181 much as the Vietnam War was going on as well. 152 00:09:09,224 --> 00:09:11,835 - Obviously, all period films are about the time 153 00:09:11,879 --> 00:09:14,490 they're made as well as the time they're set. 154 00:09:14,534 --> 00:09:19,452 The way that that injects Vietnam into a period film 155 00:09:21,236 --> 00:09:22,411 is there in "Witchfinder," and it became kind of de rigueur 156 00:09:22,455 --> 00:09:23,978 later on in the '60s. 157 00:09:24,022 --> 00:09:25,849 If you look at something like "The Dirty Dozen" 158 00:09:25,893 --> 00:09:27,764 or "The Wild Bunch," you know, there's this kind of 159 00:09:27,808 --> 00:09:31,333 Vietnam-inflicted quality to a lot of the violence. 160 00:09:31,377 --> 00:09:33,901 - [Mikel] "Witchfinder General" works almost 161 00:09:33,945 --> 00:09:36,948 within the context of nihilistic westerns 162 00:09:36,991 --> 00:09:39,863 that begin to emerge in the 1960s. 163 00:09:39,907 --> 00:09:41,561 - We discovered this halfway through filming 164 00:09:41,604 --> 00:09:43,171 as Mike Reeves suddenly said, 165 00:09:43,215 --> 00:09:45,043 "Oh my God, we're making a western." 166 00:09:45,086 --> 00:09:47,393 And if you look at it, it's sort of is. 167 00:09:47,436 --> 00:09:49,699 It's horses, it's riding across countryside 168 00:09:49,743 --> 00:09:51,353 in search of the bad guy, 169 00:09:51,397 --> 00:09:53,399 it's a lot of galloping and things. 170 00:09:53,442 --> 00:09:54,574 - He anticipates the westerns 171 00:09:54,617 --> 00:09:57,011 of the late '60s and early '70s, 172 00:09:57,055 --> 00:09:59,187 particularly in terms of the female characters, 173 00:09:59,231 --> 00:10:03,539 that women are there as a sort of pretext for violence. 174 00:10:03,583 --> 00:10:05,541 Women are there to be fought over. 175 00:10:05,585 --> 00:10:07,979 So many of the things that we think of as associated 176 00:10:08,022 --> 00:10:09,415 with Peckinpah, you know, 177 00:10:09,458 --> 00:10:10,982 the dubious attitude towards women, 178 00:10:11,025 --> 00:10:13,288 the peculiar notion that children are kind of, 179 00:10:13,332 --> 00:10:15,421 you know, inherently unpleasant. 180 00:10:15,464 --> 00:10:16,944 There's a brief scene in "Witchfinder" 181 00:10:16,988 --> 00:10:19,033 where you see children roasting potatoes 182 00:10:19,077 --> 00:10:21,644 in the ashes of a fire where a witch has been burned. 183 00:10:21,688 --> 00:10:23,472 And that comes before the opening of "The Wild Bunch" 184 00:10:23,516 --> 00:10:26,258 where the kids put the scorpion in with the ants. 185 00:10:26,301 --> 00:10:28,129 [dramatic music] 186 00:10:28,173 --> 00:10:30,044 So I think the darkness, particularly the misogyny 187 00:10:30,088 --> 00:10:34,527 of "Witchfinder" finds its way into a lot of later westerns. 188 00:10:36,268 --> 00:10:37,399 - I think the theme of "Witchfinder" is revenge, 189 00:10:37,443 --> 00:10:40,054 it's charlatanism, it's cruelty. 190 00:10:40,098 --> 00:10:42,839 [woman screams] 191 00:10:42,883 --> 00:10:46,539 - But it also has a sense of nihilism to it, 192 00:10:48,454 --> 00:10:51,457 this bleakness of existence. 193 00:10:51,500 --> 00:10:54,764 It's what really fuels not just Reeves' 194 00:10:54,808 --> 00:10:57,245 "Witchfinder General," but I think it's also there 195 00:10:57,289 --> 00:10:59,769 in Michael Armstrong's "Mark of the Devil," 196 00:10:59,813 --> 00:11:04,427 and it's certainly there in "Witchhammer," the Czech film. 197 00:11:04,471 --> 00:11:05,950 - It sort of takes Nietzsche's aphorism 198 00:11:05,994 --> 00:11:07,778 he who fights monsters must take care 199 00:11:07,822 --> 00:11:09,606 not to become a monster. 200 00:11:09,650 --> 00:11:11,782 The idea that violence infects everything. 201 00:11:11,826 --> 00:11:14,350 [man crying out] 202 00:11:14,394 --> 00:11:16,744 [gun fires] 203 00:11:18,528 --> 00:11:20,965 - You took him away from me. 204 00:11:21,009 --> 00:11:23,055 You took him from me. 205 00:11:23,098 --> 00:11:24,795 You took him from me. 206 00:11:24,839 --> 00:11:26,580 You took him from me! 207 00:11:28,930 --> 00:11:31,846 [mysterious music] 208 00:11:44,119 --> 00:11:47,862 - In April 1970, when Piers Haggard's film 209 00:11:47,905 --> 00:11:50,995 "Blood on Satan's Claw" was in production, 210 00:11:51,039 --> 00:11:53,824 a piece appeared in "Kinematograph Weekly," 211 00:11:53,868 --> 00:11:56,088 one of Britain's trade papers of the day, 212 00:11:56,131 --> 00:11:59,178 in which Rod Cooper referred to the film 213 00:11:59,221 --> 00:12:01,397 as a study in folk horror. 214 00:12:02,529 --> 00:12:05,532 [suspenseful music] 215 00:12:18,588 --> 00:12:22,157 - I grew up in the countryside, grew up on a farm, 216 00:12:22,201 --> 00:12:25,508 the countryside and the meaning of the countryside 217 00:12:25,552 --> 00:12:30,252 and the mysterious power or possible danger or threat 218 00:12:30,296 --> 00:12:33,037 of the countryside which I experienced as a child. 219 00:12:33,081 --> 00:12:34,517 - Human remains. 220 00:12:34,561 --> 00:12:37,955 - No sir, a sort of head, a face. 221 00:12:37,999 --> 00:12:39,261 - Of a fiend? 222 00:12:39,305 --> 00:12:42,003 [group humming] 223 00:12:43,396 --> 00:12:45,137 - [Piers] To me, that tries to express, 224 00:12:45,180 --> 00:12:49,706 that it connects with traditions, poetic traditions, 225 00:12:49,750 --> 00:12:52,448 and historical, semi-historical. 226 00:12:52,492 --> 00:12:54,755 - Holy bear moth father of my life, 227 00:12:54,798 --> 00:12:57,714 speak now, come now, rise now from the forest, 228 00:12:57,758 --> 00:13:00,152 from the furrows, from the fields and live. 229 00:13:00,195 --> 00:13:03,938 - Folklore, which is rich and scarier, folk tales, 230 00:13:03,981 --> 00:13:07,551 has wonderful, wonderful strange, eerie stories 231 00:13:07,595 --> 00:13:08,987 of good and evil. 232 00:13:10,467 --> 00:13:12,252 And I was then told a few years later that, 233 00:13:12,295 --> 00:13:14,732 "Oh, you're the man who invented film folk horror." 234 00:13:14,776 --> 00:13:17,561 [gentle music] 235 00:13:17,605 --> 00:13:19,084 - Shame on you, child. 236 00:13:19,128 --> 00:13:21,391 - "Blood on Satan's Claw" seems to be more 237 00:13:21,435 --> 00:13:25,743 about this sort of terror of female sexuality 238 00:13:25,787 --> 00:13:28,572 and this terror of kind of a youth population 239 00:13:28,616 --> 00:13:31,619 coming up against the establishment. 240 00:13:33,664 --> 00:13:37,407 - I never want to see you in this school again. 241 00:13:37,451 --> 00:13:41,977 - Chaos or violence or lack of discipline in the young 242 00:13:43,500 --> 00:13:46,938 is a perennial concern, and at the time 243 00:13:46,982 --> 00:13:48,418 when that was written, you know, 244 00:13:48,462 --> 00:13:50,638 there was worry about gangs and so on. 245 00:13:50,681 --> 00:13:52,335 So, it tucks into that. 246 00:13:52,379 --> 00:13:53,380 - Hey! - Hey! 247 00:13:54,816 --> 00:13:57,297 [eerie music] 248 00:14:02,302 --> 00:14:05,000 [ominous music] 249 00:14:06,871 --> 00:14:09,178 - Mary Bell was a scandalous story 250 00:14:09,222 --> 00:14:11,136 back in the '60s in England. 251 00:14:11,180 --> 00:14:13,487 A young girl, she was only 11 years old at the time, 252 00:14:13,530 --> 00:14:16,316 who strangled a three-year-old boy 253 00:14:17,839 --> 00:14:19,144 and a four-year-old boy with the help 254 00:14:19,188 --> 00:14:21,538 of another female friend. 255 00:14:21,582 --> 00:14:23,540 It was a pretty horrific story. 256 00:14:23,584 --> 00:14:25,716 But I think what made it even worse 257 00:14:25,760 --> 00:14:28,458 was that at the trial she showed no remorse 258 00:14:28,502 --> 00:14:31,331 and she just seemed to be the epitome of evil 259 00:14:31,374 --> 00:14:35,683 for whatever reason, and yet she was still a child herself. 260 00:14:35,726 --> 00:14:39,252 That whole case influenced the character of Angel Blake 261 00:14:39,295 --> 00:14:41,515 in "Blood on Satan's Claw." 262 00:14:43,299 --> 00:14:47,042 - It came out of some quite dark areas, I think, 263 00:14:47,085 --> 00:14:49,349 and that's why it gets to people. 264 00:14:49,392 --> 00:14:51,699 It gets under the skin. 265 00:14:51,742 --> 00:14:54,528 [dramatic music] 266 00:14:57,748 --> 00:14:58,880 - [Man] Come. 267 00:15:00,534 --> 00:15:03,667 It is time to keep your appointment with the Wicker Man. 268 00:15:03,711 --> 00:15:06,627 [eerie drum music] 269 00:15:08,891 --> 00:15:12,373 - I understand you're looking for a missing girl. 270 00:15:12,416 --> 00:15:14,679 You suspect foul play. 271 00:15:14,723 --> 00:15:16,290 - I suspect murder. 272 00:15:18,161 --> 00:15:20,032 - Horror films as they were being done at the time 273 00:15:20,076 --> 00:15:23,209 were missing something, and we believed 274 00:15:23,253 --> 00:15:26,038 that that was basically the old religion 275 00:15:26,082 --> 00:15:28,389 which had gone underground for many centuries 276 00:15:28,432 --> 00:15:31,087 after Christianity came, and that it would be fun 277 00:15:31,130 --> 00:15:33,219 to try and conceive of a story 278 00:15:33,263 --> 00:15:36,310 where the old religion had reappeared. 279 00:15:36,353 --> 00:15:40,662 - The fact that you have this pocket of pagan belief 280 00:15:42,446 --> 00:15:46,755 that not only persists within the environs of modern life, 281 00:15:49,192 --> 00:15:53,283 but is sustained by people who are everyday folk, 282 00:15:54,980 --> 00:15:58,854 is very exciting to me, but it does, of course, 283 00:15:59,942 --> 00:16:02,336 bring us to a very homogeneous, 284 00:16:04,207 --> 00:16:09,212 very rarefied cultural domain in which complexities 285 00:16:10,605 --> 00:16:12,955 of our migratory world are unaddressed. 286 00:16:12,998 --> 00:16:18,003 - [Samm] It looks at this idea of aristocratic corruption. 287 00:16:19,440 --> 00:16:20,789 - And what of the true God to whose glory 288 00:16:20,832 --> 00:16:22,356 churches and monasteries have been built 289 00:16:22,399 --> 00:16:24,401 on these islands for generations past? 290 00:16:24,445 --> 00:16:26,795 Now, sir, what of him? 291 00:16:26,838 --> 00:16:29,667 - Oh, he's dead. He can't complain. 292 00:16:29,711 --> 00:16:34,106 He had his chance, and in modern parlance, blew it. 293 00:16:34,150 --> 00:16:36,152 - Lord Summerisle, Christopher Lee's character, 294 00:16:36,195 --> 00:16:39,285 is trying to go back to what he sort of describes 295 00:16:39,329 --> 00:16:40,765 as the old ways, 296 00:16:40,809 --> 00:16:43,115 and I think that's something that turns up 297 00:16:43,159 --> 00:16:46,118 in a lot of British folk horror in particular, 298 00:16:46,162 --> 00:16:49,687 where you have these old money aristocratic figures 299 00:16:49,731 --> 00:16:53,517 who are often villains who are really struggling 300 00:16:53,561 --> 00:16:56,607 in the modern era, and they're trying to sort of preserve 301 00:16:56,651 --> 00:16:59,436 this old way of life that's dying out. 302 00:16:59,480 --> 00:17:01,873 - What my grandfather had started out of expediency, 303 00:17:01,917 --> 00:17:04,572 my father continued out of love. 304 00:17:06,443 --> 00:17:09,969 He brought me up the same way, to reverence the music 305 00:17:10,013 --> 00:17:14,147 and the drama and the rituals of the old gods. 306 00:17:14,191 --> 00:17:18,195 To love nature and to fear it, and to rely on it 307 00:17:20,110 --> 00:17:21,851 and to appease it when necessary. 308 00:17:21,894 --> 00:17:23,418 He brought me up- 309 00:17:23,461 --> 00:17:25,550 - He brought you up to be a pagan! 310 00:17:27,204 --> 00:17:29,685 - A heathen, conceivably, but not, I hope, 311 00:17:29,728 --> 00:17:31,164 an unenlightened one. 312 00:17:31,208 --> 00:17:32,644 - And it occurred to me 313 00:17:32,688 --> 00:17:35,168 that I had never actually seen a film 314 00:17:35,212 --> 00:17:37,432 on the nature of sacrifice. 315 00:17:39,521 --> 00:17:44,003 And so, I started with a checklist as it were 316 00:17:44,047 --> 00:17:47,398 of who would make the ideal sacrifice. 317 00:17:47,442 --> 00:17:50,009 There were obviously certain entitlements 318 00:17:50,053 --> 00:17:53,665 that emerge from the research, the king for the day, 319 00:17:53,709 --> 00:17:55,537 a man who presents the law, 320 00:17:55,580 --> 00:17:58,365 a man who is a burgeon, and so on and so forth. 321 00:17:58,409 --> 00:17:59,845 There's a number of the things. 322 00:17:59,889 --> 00:18:01,847 So, I thought if we fitted up someone 323 00:18:01,891 --> 00:18:05,242 with all those attachments and qualities, 324 00:18:05,285 --> 00:18:07,592 we had the ideal sacrifice. 325 00:18:07,636 --> 00:18:09,464 - It is very dangerous 326 00:18:10,943 --> 00:18:14,077 for people to become victims of a cult. 327 00:18:14,120 --> 00:18:16,601 They can do absolutely terrible things 328 00:18:16,645 --> 00:18:18,690 in a nice cheerful way. 329 00:18:18,734 --> 00:18:20,562 The Christopher Lee character, Lord Summerisle, 330 00:18:20,605 --> 00:18:25,480 has in effect persuaded his fellow citizens on that island 331 00:18:27,133 --> 00:18:30,397 to give up their normal moral sense 332 00:18:30,441 --> 00:18:32,922 and believe in something quite, 333 00:18:34,750 --> 00:18:37,230 in modern terms, outlandish. 334 00:18:37,274 --> 00:18:38,928 But it happens all the time. 335 00:18:38,971 --> 00:18:40,625 [rhythmic drum music] 336 00:18:40,669 --> 00:18:44,586 ♪ Summer is a-comin' in 337 00:18:44,629 --> 00:18:48,894 ♪ Loudly sing cuckoo 338 00:18:48,938 --> 00:18:51,984 ♪ Grows the seed and blows 339 00:18:52,028 --> 00:18:55,814 - Like any decent piece of work, it survives. 340 00:18:59,601 --> 00:19:03,256 It has coiled at the heart of it a mystery. 341 00:19:03,300 --> 00:19:04,910 Peter Pan has it. 342 00:19:04,954 --> 00:19:08,087 It's overtly a very silly play. 343 00:19:08,131 --> 00:19:10,743 But it isn't because it's about something other 344 00:19:10,787 --> 00:19:14,181 than what its surface purports to be. 345 00:19:14,225 --> 00:19:18,098 ♪ Grows the seed and blows the mead ♪ 346 00:19:18,142 --> 00:19:20,753 [fire roaring] - Daniel! 347 00:19:20,797 --> 00:19:21,624 Daniel! 348 00:19:24,322 --> 00:19:25,149 Daniel! 349 00:19:26,977 --> 00:19:29,501 ♪ Sing cuckoo 350 00:19:31,547 --> 00:19:34,854 - And paganism has a habit of surviving, 351 00:19:36,639 --> 00:19:39,990 as we see, and it's that which helped this film survive, 352 00:19:40,033 --> 00:19:41,557 the subject matter. 353 00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:44,168 [fire roaring] 354 00:19:45,996 --> 00:19:48,651 [ominous music] 355 00:19:54,221 --> 00:19:57,268 [soft ominous music] 356 00:20:11,848 --> 00:20:15,025 [soft ominous music] 357 00:20:17,549 --> 00:20:20,552 - As a literary tradition and a cinematic tradition, 358 00:20:20,596 --> 00:20:23,511 there's more folk horror coming out of Britain 359 00:20:23,555 --> 00:20:25,383 than anywhere else. 360 00:20:25,426 --> 00:20:28,038 [somber music] 361 00:20:30,388 --> 00:20:32,999 - A lot of these tropes that we know from folk horror films 362 00:20:33,043 --> 00:20:35,045 actually came into existence like 50 363 00:20:35,088 --> 00:20:37,830 to a hundred years earlier just from horror fiction. 364 00:20:37,874 --> 00:20:40,441 [somber music] 365 00:20:42,966 --> 00:20:44,837 So, the story of the scholar 366 00:20:44,881 --> 00:20:47,840 or the outsider who comes to the isolated community 367 00:20:47,884 --> 00:20:51,191 and ends up experiencing some kind of old pagan ritual, 368 00:20:51,235 --> 00:20:54,107 this was in things like Eleanor Scott's story, 369 00:20:54,151 --> 00:20:58,242 "Randall's Round" and Grant Allen's "Pallinghurst Barrow." 370 00:20:58,285 --> 00:21:02,725 This is probably the most common story in folk horror. 371 00:21:02,768 --> 00:21:04,378 - An author like Arthur Machen 372 00:21:04,422 --> 00:21:07,207 is a vital contributor to folk horror. 373 00:21:07,251 --> 00:21:08,556 Indeed, one of his later stories 374 00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:10,689 was called "Out of the Earth." 375 00:21:10,733 --> 00:21:13,562 I think also Algernon Blackwood 376 00:21:13,606 --> 00:21:17,392 with his extraordinary stories about strange forces 377 00:21:17,436 --> 00:21:20,395 of nature overwhelming mere puny mankind. 378 00:21:20,439 --> 00:21:23,398 You know, stories like "The Willows" and the "The Wendigo." 379 00:21:23,442 --> 00:21:26,097 [ominous music] 380 00:21:30,275 --> 00:21:34,148 Another maybe less obvious proponent of folk horror 381 00:21:34,192 --> 00:21:38,892 was M.R. James, who wrote very precise, scholarly, 382 00:21:38,936 --> 00:21:41,242 but nevertheless extremely chilling ghost stories. 383 00:21:41,286 --> 00:21:45,594 - He was probably the most distinguished ghost story writer 384 00:21:45,638 --> 00:21:48,597 of the 20th century English cannon. 385 00:21:48,641 --> 00:21:52,253 He didn't take the work very seriously himself 386 00:21:52,297 --> 00:21:55,256 and it wasn't taken very seriously for a long time, 387 00:21:55,300 --> 00:21:58,738 but he's since become recognized as a leading influence 388 00:21:58,782 --> 00:22:01,349 on British and European horror. 389 00:22:01,393 --> 00:22:03,917 - [Jonathan] But they often deal in folk horror. 390 00:22:03,961 --> 00:22:05,745 "Casting the Runes" was made 391 00:22:05,789 --> 00:22:10,054 into a great British film called "Night of the Demon." 392 00:22:11,795 --> 00:22:13,622 - And then you sort of travel through to the adaptations 393 00:22:13,666 --> 00:22:15,973 that were done for television by Lawrence Gordon Clark 394 00:22:16,016 --> 00:22:18,845 in the "Ghost Stories for Christmas" in the '70s. 395 00:22:18,889 --> 00:22:23,894 They are key texts and incredibly effective works, you know, 396 00:22:25,547 --> 00:22:28,333 capturing that certain something that M.R. James does, 397 00:22:28,376 --> 00:22:30,465 you know, the rustle in the trees 398 00:22:30,509 --> 00:22:32,641 or the inhuman mouth under the pillow. 399 00:22:32,685 --> 00:22:35,209 I mean, all of those kinds of very peculiar 400 00:22:35,253 --> 00:22:37,124 fissures in the modern. 401 00:22:37,168 --> 00:22:39,170 - [Robert] Those M.R. James "Ghost Stories for Christmas," 402 00:22:39,213 --> 00:22:41,955 particularly "Whistle and I'll Come to You," 403 00:22:41,999 --> 00:22:44,741 is essential British folk horror. 404 00:22:46,525 --> 00:22:47,482 - [Narrator] It's a story of solitude and terror, 405 00:22:47,526 --> 00:22:49,833 and it has a moral, too. 406 00:22:49,876 --> 00:22:52,487 It hints at the dangers of intellectual pride 407 00:22:52,531 --> 00:22:55,360 and shows how a man's reason can be overthrown 408 00:22:55,403 --> 00:22:58,972 when he fails to acknowledge those forces inside himself, 409 00:22:59,016 --> 00:23:02,149 which he simply cannot understand. 410 00:23:02,193 --> 00:23:05,979 - You've got this very British bumbling old guy. 411 00:23:06,023 --> 00:23:08,329 He kinda almost represents the patriarchy. 412 00:23:08,373 --> 00:23:10,070 He's kind of, "Oh, nonsense. 413 00:23:10,114 --> 00:23:11,724 There's no such thing as ghosts." 414 00:23:11,768 --> 00:23:13,378 - Hmm, inscription. 415 00:23:14,859 --> 00:23:18,166 [soft tense music] 416 00:23:18,210 --> 00:23:19,211 Who is this? 417 00:23:20,734 --> 00:23:21,866 Who is coming? 418 00:23:26,566 --> 00:23:29,569 All right, we shall blow it and see. 419 00:23:34,748 --> 00:23:38,143 [soft pipe note whistles] 420 00:23:39,274 --> 00:23:42,277 [suspenseful music] 421 00:23:44,802 --> 00:23:46,368 - [Alice] How do you conquer something like that 422 00:23:46,412 --> 00:23:49,763 if it's not even part of your belief system? 423 00:23:55,943 --> 00:23:57,815 I think there's nothing so terrifying 424 00:23:57,858 --> 00:24:00,818 as seeing someone like that being reduced to madness, 425 00:24:00,861 --> 00:24:02,863 and like, he's literally sucking his thumb by the end of it. 426 00:24:02,907 --> 00:24:05,735 He's sort of gone back to childhood 427 00:24:05,779 --> 00:24:08,129 'cause he's so terrified. 428 00:24:08,173 --> 00:24:10,828 [man cries out] 429 00:24:12,612 --> 00:24:14,396 - Jonathan Miller's "Whistle and I'll Come To You" 430 00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:17,617 was not actually part of the "Ghost Stories for Christmas," 431 00:24:17,660 --> 00:24:21,403 but it was obviously popular enough that when 432 00:24:21,447 --> 00:24:23,405 Lawrence Gordon Clark went to the BBC 433 00:24:23,449 --> 00:24:25,494 and proposed the whole "Ghost Stories for Christmas," 434 00:24:25,538 --> 00:24:29,324 he was probably able to, you know, use that as a foundation. 435 00:24:29,368 --> 00:24:31,805 ♪ And peace will return 436 00:24:31,849 --> 00:24:34,460 - If you take a wonderful M.R. James story 437 00:24:34,503 --> 00:24:37,463 in "The Stalls of Barchester," 438 00:24:37,506 --> 00:24:40,466 the Hanging Oak as it was called, which for centuries 439 00:24:40,509 --> 00:24:43,077 had been feted with blood sacrifice, 440 00:24:43,121 --> 00:24:46,254 was cut down by Puritans in attempt 441 00:24:46,298 --> 00:24:48,256 to get rid of that custom, 442 00:24:48,300 --> 00:24:51,607 and the wood was used for carvings in the choir stalls, 443 00:24:51,651 --> 00:24:56,656 which became absolutely deadly to anybody who touched them. 444 00:24:57,657 --> 00:24:59,485 ♪ Return don't you see 445 00:24:59,528 --> 00:25:04,490 That is how James interwove historical evil and violence 446 00:25:06,318 --> 00:25:09,321 and sacrifice with so-called rational Christian beliefs. 447 00:25:10,931 --> 00:25:13,542 - One of the most influential aspects of James 448 00:25:13,586 --> 00:25:15,284 is the "Ghost Stories for Christmas" 449 00:25:15,328 --> 00:25:18,548 because they're done in such a sparse, 450 00:25:18,592 --> 00:25:21,987 suggestive, atmospheric way is that you can look at those 451 00:25:22,030 --> 00:25:25,164 and you kind of use those as a template. 452 00:25:25,207 --> 00:25:27,644 They're frightening because of what's not shown 453 00:25:27,688 --> 00:25:29,429 and what's suggested. 454 00:25:31,518 --> 00:25:33,955 [boy gasps] [children giggle] 455 00:25:33,999 --> 00:25:39,004 [soft ominous music] [man panting] 456 00:25:47,403 --> 00:25:48,839 - [Kat] Folk horror is very much 457 00:25:48,883 --> 00:25:51,538 about our connection to the land. 458 00:25:53,975 --> 00:25:55,846 - The landscape's always been a key component 459 00:25:55,890 --> 00:25:57,761 of the English ghost story, and you can really see this 460 00:25:57,805 --> 00:26:00,721 in the writings of M.R. James, in the East Anglian locations 461 00:26:00,764 --> 00:26:03,202 where he's set a lot of his stories. 462 00:26:03,245 --> 00:26:05,204 - He's intensely visual. 463 00:26:05,247 --> 00:26:08,511 He uses the English countryside, which I love, 464 00:26:08,555 --> 00:26:11,906 and English times, particularly in the shabbier ones, 465 00:26:11,950 --> 00:26:14,604 absolutely beautifully. 466 00:26:14,648 --> 00:26:17,042 - [Kier-La] His ghosts are more earthy and physical. 467 00:26:17,085 --> 00:26:21,437 He describes their texture and their smell. 468 00:26:21,481 --> 00:26:23,787 They're deeply connected to their physical surroundings 469 00:26:23,831 --> 00:26:28,183 in a lot of ways, and to this idea of a bloody history 470 00:26:28,227 --> 00:26:31,186 that's buried beneath the facade of civility. 471 00:26:31,230 --> 00:26:34,668 [soft suspenseful music] 472 00:26:38,585 --> 00:26:41,153 [man laughing] 473 00:26:45,592 --> 00:26:47,724 - [Kat] So you often find, and it's especially the case 474 00:26:47,768 --> 00:26:50,989 in "Blood on Satan's Claw," that it begins 475 00:26:51,032 --> 00:26:54,775 with the claw being brought up from the land. 476 00:26:56,516 --> 00:26:59,736 - That's why the opening scene, the plowing and the furrows, 477 00:26:59,780 --> 00:27:01,564 so a lot of camera angles are very low 478 00:27:01,608 --> 00:27:03,131 right throughout the film. 479 00:27:03,175 --> 00:27:07,440 It's supposed to suggest that whatever is coming 480 00:27:07,483 --> 00:27:09,224 is coming from below. 481 00:27:09,268 --> 00:27:11,966 [ominous music] 482 00:27:13,663 --> 00:27:16,449 - Folk horror very much channels people's relationship 483 00:27:16,492 --> 00:27:19,409 to the land, to this sort of shared consciousness, 484 00:27:19,453 --> 00:27:22,760 these traditional beliefs that are somehow in the soil, 485 00:27:22,804 --> 00:27:24,197 in the landscape. 486 00:27:25,676 --> 00:27:29,289 ♪ The land's sharp features seem to be ♪ 487 00:27:29,332 --> 00:27:32,596 ♪ The century's corpse outleant ♪ 488 00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:36,600 ♪ His crypt the cloudy canopy 489 00:27:36,644 --> 00:27:40,126 ♪ The wind his death lament 490 00:27:40,169 --> 00:27:44,260 ♪ The ancient pulse of germ and birth ♪ 491 00:27:44,304 --> 00:27:47,785 ♪ Was shrunken hard and dry 492 00:27:47,829 --> 00:27:51,485 ♪ And every spirit upon Earth 493 00:27:51,528 --> 00:27:55,271 ♪ Seemed fervourless as I 494 00:27:55,315 --> 00:27:58,970 ♪ So little cause for carolings ♪ 495 00:27:59,014 --> 00:28:02,800 ♪ Of such ecstatic sound 496 00:28:02,844 --> 00:28:06,674 ♪ Was written on terrestrial things ♪ 497 00:28:06,717 --> 00:28:10,460 ♪ Afar are nigh around 498 00:28:10,504 --> 00:28:14,029 ♪ That I could think there trembled through ♪ 499 00:28:14,073 --> 00:28:17,467 ♪ His happy good night air 500 00:28:17,511 --> 00:28:21,558 ♪ Some blessed hope whereof he knew ♪ 501 00:28:21,602 --> 00:28:24,605 ♪ And I was unaware 502 00:28:26,215 --> 00:28:30,219 - Until as late as the late 20th century, 503 00:28:30,263 --> 00:28:33,483 and we shouldn't forget how rural a lot of the culture 504 00:28:33,527 --> 00:28:36,182 in the British Isles was, and you can see that looking at, 505 00:28:36,225 --> 00:28:39,359 say, the documentary "The Moon and the Sledgehammer" 506 00:28:39,402 --> 00:28:43,841 where you're looking at a family living in the 1970s, 507 00:28:43,885 --> 00:28:45,495 but you might as well be looking 508 00:28:45,539 --> 00:28:48,411 at a family living in the 1870s. 509 00:28:48,455 --> 00:28:51,153 - I never go where the cock never crows, 510 00:28:51,197 --> 00:28:53,024 and I wouldn't advise any of you 511 00:28:53,068 --> 00:28:55,723 to go where the cock don't crow. 512 00:28:57,377 --> 00:28:59,422 [fire crackling] 513 00:28:59,466 --> 00:29:01,685 - Folk horror is more of a back-to-the-land 514 00:29:01,729 --> 00:29:04,862 kind of species of horror, if you like. 515 00:29:04,906 --> 00:29:08,214 It's more a rural thing rather than something 516 00:29:08,257 --> 00:29:10,172 to do with the aristocracy. 517 00:29:10,216 --> 00:29:11,782 It's more to do with the people 518 00:29:11,826 --> 00:29:14,263 who till the land, if you like. 519 00:29:14,307 --> 00:29:16,135 Maybe that's one reason why in the late '60s, 520 00:29:16,178 --> 00:29:18,747 the sort of back-to-the-land movement in that period, 521 00:29:18,790 --> 00:29:22,577 it suddenly gained currency, was very, very important. 522 00:29:22,620 --> 00:29:25,188 - We were the first people with an industrial revolution, 523 00:29:25,232 --> 00:29:27,190 and that was our great break point 524 00:29:27,234 --> 00:29:29,714 between the continuity of hundreds of years, 525 00:29:29,758 --> 00:29:32,239 and suddenly people flooded into the towns, 526 00:29:32,282 --> 00:29:34,589 didn't have access to the greenery. 527 00:29:34,632 --> 00:29:36,895 They didn't have access to what they'd known before. 528 00:29:36,939 --> 00:29:40,943 And we're constantly trying to get back to that. 529 00:29:41,987 --> 00:29:43,554 - You come from the city, 530 00:29:43,598 --> 00:29:46,166 cannot not know the ways of the country. 531 00:29:46,209 --> 00:29:47,732 - I think this is why we see a lot of films 532 00:29:47,776 --> 00:29:49,995 around the late '60s and the early '70s 533 00:29:50,039 --> 00:29:52,998 which have become known as folk horrors, 534 00:29:53,042 --> 00:29:56,088 which reflect a kind of general anxiety in society 535 00:29:56,132 --> 00:30:00,092 that the town is overtaking the countryside. 536 00:30:00,136 --> 00:30:03,270 [gentle bright music] 537 00:30:12,670 --> 00:30:14,629 [birds chirping] 538 00:30:14,672 --> 00:30:15,673 - You stuck? 539 00:30:19,677 --> 00:30:22,289 - And then it can also link up with something like 540 00:30:22,332 --> 00:30:24,856 "I Start Counting" or other films of the 1970s, 541 00:30:24,900 --> 00:30:27,337 which are very much about, I guess, like suburbia 542 00:30:27,381 --> 00:30:30,035 and changing in housing. 543 00:30:30,079 --> 00:30:31,776 New tower blocks, these kinda things, 544 00:30:31,820 --> 00:30:35,302 and the city sort of moving into the countryside 545 00:30:35,345 --> 00:30:37,521 and it's on the kinda periphery spaces 546 00:30:37,565 --> 00:30:39,523 like in "I Start Counting" with Jenny Agutter 547 00:30:39,567 --> 00:30:41,351 where there's a sort of child murderer 548 00:30:41,395 --> 00:30:44,136 who's kind of stalking the lakes on the edges of the town 549 00:30:44,180 --> 00:30:46,443 and all these kind of older houses are being knocked down. 550 00:30:46,487 --> 00:30:47,966 We think about it as linking to the past, 551 00:30:48,010 --> 00:30:49,316 but it's very much about change 552 00:30:49,359 --> 00:30:50,969 and kind of in-between places 553 00:30:51,013 --> 00:30:53,145 and where things sort of seep into each other. 554 00:30:53,189 --> 00:30:55,278 - I would think of someone like David Gladwell, 555 00:30:55,322 --> 00:30:57,802 whose "Requiem for a Village" is in a kind 556 00:30:57,846 --> 00:31:00,457 of maybe penumbric or peripheral way, 557 00:31:00,501 --> 00:31:03,808 a kind of folk horror tale about the importance 558 00:31:03,852 --> 00:31:08,596 and unkillable nature of history and all that is natural. 559 00:31:10,337 --> 00:31:12,904 "Requiem for a Village" charts that transitional moment 560 00:31:12,948 --> 00:31:15,994 between the old ways and the coming 561 00:31:16,038 --> 00:31:20,173 of modern high-rise blocks and the bulldozing of the fields 562 00:31:20,217 --> 00:31:24,482 that had reaped the harvest that fed and nurtured us all. 563 00:31:24,526 --> 00:31:26,267 I think maybe it's a stretch to call it a horror film, 564 00:31:26,310 --> 00:31:28,051 although it does have an extraordinary sequence 565 00:31:28,094 --> 00:31:31,010 of those who have passed away in the village 566 00:31:31,054 --> 00:31:34,187 rising from their graves, which is almost Fulci-esque. 567 00:31:34,231 --> 00:31:38,061 [singing in foreign language] 568 00:31:49,246 --> 00:31:51,553 - One might say it's quite a conservative view 569 00:31:51,596 --> 00:31:55,034 of this kind of imagery, 'cause it's almost more like 570 00:31:55,078 --> 00:31:57,385 hearkening back to the pastoral age-olds. 571 00:31:57,428 --> 00:32:00,257 [dramatic music] 572 00:32:03,129 --> 00:32:05,349 - I think that there's this tendency to think 573 00:32:05,393 --> 00:32:08,396 of folk horror as something that is always set in the past, 574 00:32:08,439 --> 00:32:10,267 but often it's actually that friction 575 00:32:10,311 --> 00:32:14,053 between the present and the past that creates that tension. 576 00:32:14,097 --> 00:32:17,535 - It seems to me that you've kind of got two areas 577 00:32:17,579 --> 00:32:19,363 of folk horror. 578 00:32:19,407 --> 00:32:21,234 You've got the stuff that takes place in the past, 579 00:32:21,278 --> 00:32:22,975 and then you've got the stuff that's dealing 580 00:32:23,019 --> 00:32:25,064 with something coming out of the past. 581 00:32:25,108 --> 00:32:26,718 Well, the stuff that takes place in the past 582 00:32:26,762 --> 00:32:28,894 never really seems to me to sort of have 583 00:32:28,938 --> 00:32:30,548 a particularly rosy view of it. 584 00:32:30,592 --> 00:32:32,245 It's not like these Halcyon days 585 00:32:32,289 --> 00:32:34,291 we're desperate to get back to. 586 00:32:34,335 --> 00:32:38,382 The past is usually presented as a pretty unpleasant place. 587 00:32:38,426 --> 00:32:41,994 Similarly, when you're dealing with modern day stuff, 588 00:32:42,038 --> 00:32:45,955 the threat is usually what's coming out of the past. 589 00:32:45,998 --> 00:32:50,002 So, I don't really see this idea that it's being 590 00:32:51,613 --> 00:32:53,092 represented as anything positive. 591 00:32:53,136 --> 00:32:54,920 It seems to me that folk horror 592 00:32:54,964 --> 00:32:58,097 is more often than not quite politically radical. 593 00:32:58,141 --> 00:33:00,273 [dramatic funk music] [motorcycles rumbling] 594 00:33:00,317 --> 00:33:02,841 - [Narrator] They were just ordinary troublemakers 595 00:33:02,885 --> 00:33:05,104 as long as they lived, but they returned 596 00:33:05,148 --> 00:33:08,586 from beyond the grave with superhuman powers, 597 00:33:08,630 --> 00:33:10,632 unleashing an unholy reign of terror 598 00:33:10,675 --> 00:33:12,373 that holds an entire community 599 00:33:12,416 --> 00:33:14,940 in the grip of psychomania. 600 00:33:14,984 --> 00:33:18,161 [dramatic funk music] 601 00:33:19,467 --> 00:33:21,164 "Psychomania." 602 00:33:21,207 --> 00:33:23,994 - "Psychomania" is an absolute classic hoot 603 00:33:24,037 --> 00:33:26,300 of a movie, isn't it? [chuckles] 604 00:33:26,344 --> 00:33:28,607 - Everybody dies, don't they? 605 00:33:28,651 --> 00:33:30,261 But some come back. 606 00:33:31,523 --> 00:33:33,003 - [William] Psychomania is, you know, 607 00:33:33,046 --> 00:33:34,787 these kind of tearaways who end up 608 00:33:34,831 --> 00:33:36,789 kind of reaffirming these old folk traditions 609 00:33:36,833 --> 00:33:39,879 and once again turning into stone statues. 610 00:33:39,923 --> 00:33:42,186 [tense music] 611 00:33:42,229 --> 00:33:44,710 [woman gasps] 612 00:33:46,451 --> 00:33:48,322 But it's almost as if there's some kind of an anarchy 613 00:33:48,366 --> 00:33:50,150 going all the way through. 614 00:33:50,194 --> 00:33:52,152 It's not that there's some beautiful, astonishing past. 615 00:33:52,196 --> 00:33:53,327 - [Vic] Yeah, I think it's important 616 00:33:53,371 --> 00:33:54,981 to stress that folk horror 617 00:33:55,025 --> 00:33:56,809 shouldn't necessarily be reactionary, right? 618 00:33:56,853 --> 00:33:59,986 The actual content in there is very much a challenge 619 00:34:00,030 --> 00:34:02,815 to the kind of narrative traditions of that time, 620 00:34:02,859 --> 00:34:05,731 to the ideological traditions at that time. 621 00:34:05,775 --> 00:34:08,430 [woman screams] 622 00:34:17,482 --> 00:34:20,050 - I think the back to the land movement 623 00:34:20,093 --> 00:34:22,661 and the sort of the hold over the hippy movement 624 00:34:22,705 --> 00:34:26,230 going into ecology and stuff is part of it, 625 00:34:26,273 --> 00:34:28,537 but it's not entirely part of it. 626 00:34:28,580 --> 00:34:30,887 And it's interesting you see that actually in the pages 627 00:34:30,930 --> 00:34:33,019 of "Prediction" in the 1970s. 628 00:34:33,063 --> 00:34:36,545 You have articles about vegetarianism 629 00:34:36,588 --> 00:34:39,461 and you have articles about organic farming as well 630 00:34:39,504 --> 00:34:44,466 since back then they weren't part of the everyday discourse. 631 00:34:46,250 --> 00:34:49,296 - Certainly in the 1970s, both in Britain and in America, 632 00:34:49,340 --> 00:34:52,386 there was a kind of movement of people leaving the cities 633 00:34:52,430 --> 00:34:55,477 which had started to become polluted, overcrowded, 634 00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:58,523 sort of overheated and trying to find better lives 635 00:34:58,567 --> 00:35:00,569 out in the countryside and in doing so, 636 00:35:00,612 --> 00:35:03,876 they encounter both nature, but also the people 637 00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:06,052 who live with nature and that's very much 638 00:35:06,096 --> 00:35:08,402 a sort of class and cultural tension, 639 00:35:08,446 --> 00:35:11,449 but it's also sort of environmental tension. 640 00:35:11,493 --> 00:35:13,233 - [William] You think of in westerns in American films, 641 00:35:13,277 --> 00:35:16,062 the mythic America is the extending, expanding landscape, 642 00:35:16,106 --> 00:35:18,238 so they kind of dream of moving onto new territory 643 00:35:18,282 --> 00:35:19,762 that hasn't been picked over, 644 00:35:19,805 --> 00:35:21,503 whereas the folk horror in British tradition 645 00:35:21,546 --> 00:35:22,940 is there's all these sediments. 646 00:35:22,983 --> 00:35:24,507 It's more about like depth 647 00:35:24,550 --> 00:35:25,812 rather than kind of moving outward. 648 00:35:25,856 --> 00:35:28,946 [machinery rumbling] 649 00:35:42,612 --> 00:35:44,309 - Hildy, whoa, whoa! 650 00:35:49,053 --> 00:35:51,534 [eerie music] 651 00:35:53,666 --> 00:35:55,494 - [Howard] Nigel Kneale is best known 652 00:35:55,538 --> 00:35:58,192 for inventing "Quatermass," but he also in the 1970s 653 00:35:58,236 --> 00:36:00,020 and right up to the '80s in fact, 654 00:36:00,064 --> 00:36:02,196 wrote several of the things 655 00:36:02,240 --> 00:36:04,764 that folk horror fans particularly rate. 656 00:36:04,808 --> 00:36:08,115 - I think Nigel Kneale is the pinnacle in terms of quality. 657 00:36:08,159 --> 00:36:09,943 If he was working in a medium 658 00:36:09,987 --> 00:36:12,642 that was more respected like novels, I think he'd be 659 00:36:12,685 --> 00:36:14,208 a far more household name. 660 00:36:14,252 --> 00:36:16,036 He's very prescient like J.G. Ballard, 661 00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:17,777 but whereas J.G. Ballard wrote novels 662 00:36:17,821 --> 00:36:20,606 and became very respected, Kneale stayed 663 00:36:20,650 --> 00:36:23,478 with television largely, and some films as well. 664 00:36:23,522 --> 00:36:27,395 His work is incredibly haunting, incredibly prescient. 665 00:36:27,439 --> 00:36:30,529 He virtually predicted the rise of reality television 666 00:36:30,573 --> 00:36:32,487 amongst other things. 667 00:36:32,531 --> 00:36:35,142 The strongest elements of folk horror in television 668 00:36:35,186 --> 00:36:37,797 and film, I think, are largely indebted to him. 669 00:36:37,841 --> 00:36:39,799 So, Nigel Kneale, I think, 670 00:36:39,843 --> 00:36:44,412 is the epitome of the great writer of folk horror. 671 00:36:44,456 --> 00:36:47,459 [suspenseful music] 672 00:36:57,948 --> 00:37:00,341 - I would say that something like Nigel Kneale's 673 00:37:00,385 --> 00:37:03,431 "The Stone Tape" is a kind of uber text when we're talking 674 00:37:03,475 --> 00:37:07,914 about folk horror because it encapsulates so many ideas. 675 00:37:07,958 --> 00:37:10,830 The haunting part, but also the idea of the recording 676 00:37:10,874 --> 00:37:14,878 of the past and the very analog version of that. 677 00:37:16,270 --> 00:37:18,446 - It's your code number! You fed it in. 678 00:37:18,490 --> 00:37:20,448 - I didn't. - You must have done! 679 00:37:20,492 --> 00:37:24,235 - There are words. Well, they might be words. 680 00:37:24,278 --> 00:37:25,585 See, "pray." 681 00:37:25,629 --> 00:37:27,456 - "So," that's "so" there. 682 00:37:27,500 --> 00:37:28,893 - "Pray, prayer." 683 00:37:33,419 --> 00:37:35,682 - It's in the computer! 684 00:37:35,726 --> 00:37:38,772 - "The Stone Tape" deals with a haunting 685 00:37:38,816 --> 00:37:41,906 and trying to apply science to a haunting. 686 00:37:41,949 --> 00:37:45,213 But you soon find out that there's only so far 687 00:37:45,257 --> 00:37:47,955 science can go and there's something much older underneath 688 00:37:47,999 --> 00:37:51,176 that science can't actually cope with. 689 00:37:53,265 --> 00:37:55,876 - We have a deeply historical landscape 690 00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:59,924 which has been subject to human intervention and design 691 00:37:59,967 --> 00:38:03,057 over centuries and centuries, so again, 692 00:38:03,101 --> 00:38:07,105 we're looking at layers of occupation and usage, 693 00:38:07,148 --> 00:38:10,891 but we also like to think that there is a genius loci, 694 00:38:10,935 --> 00:38:12,893 a spirit of place. 695 00:38:12,937 --> 00:38:16,810 So anywhere where you feel that, is liable to lead 696 00:38:16,854 --> 00:38:21,075 to a folk horror inspiration or experience. 697 00:38:21,119 --> 00:38:25,079 ♪ For the praties they are small ♪ 698 00:38:25,123 --> 00:38:29,431 ♪ Over hill, over hill 699 00:38:29,475 --> 00:38:34,480 ♪ Oh, the praties they are small over hill ♪ 700 00:38:36,177 --> 00:38:37,701 - [Kier-La] This is where folk horror intersects 701 00:38:37,744 --> 00:38:39,528 with psychogeography, which is essentially 702 00:38:39,572 --> 00:38:40,704 the psychological relationship between people in a place 703 00:38:40,747 --> 00:38:42,270 and the kind of psychic imprints 704 00:38:42,314 --> 00:38:43,750 that people leave on a place and vice versa. 705 00:38:43,794 --> 00:38:45,970 - In folk horror, we're very much talking 706 00:38:46,013 --> 00:38:48,189 about the effect of the environment on people, 707 00:38:48,233 --> 00:38:50,452 on people's psyche, on their behavior, 708 00:38:50,496 --> 00:38:53,325 and I think the conflicts between different behaviors 709 00:38:53,368 --> 00:38:55,762 is very much at the heart of folk horror, right? 710 00:38:55,806 --> 00:38:57,285 - Yeah, and I guess with psychogeography, 711 00:38:57,329 --> 00:39:00,114 and it's partly about previous psyches 712 00:39:00,158 --> 00:39:01,942 kind of pressing themselves into the landscape 713 00:39:01,986 --> 00:39:04,118 and then a contemporary person walking around 714 00:39:04,162 --> 00:39:06,773 and kind of picking up on the resonance 715 00:39:06,817 --> 00:39:08,557 of those psyches in the past. 716 00:39:08,601 --> 00:39:10,951 - [Andy] Whether it goes back to Alfred Watkins 717 00:39:10,995 --> 00:39:14,346 looking for ley lines or somebody like Peter Ackroyd 718 00:39:14,389 --> 00:39:16,957 looking for secret history of London. 719 00:39:17,001 --> 00:39:18,480 - That would sort of draw you onto something 720 00:39:18,524 --> 00:39:19,960 like "Quatermass and the Pit," right? 721 00:39:20,004 --> 00:39:21,832 Where there's this sense that Nigel Kneale, 722 00:39:21,875 --> 00:39:24,835 who's this writer primarily associated with science fiction, 723 00:39:24,878 --> 00:39:27,534 then fusing science fiction with folk horror, 724 00:39:27,577 --> 00:39:30,406 talking about this hidden menace deep within the earth, 725 00:39:30,450 --> 00:39:33,366 which is only dug out when people start to burrow down 726 00:39:33,409 --> 00:39:35,411 into the center of the Earth, which is very much 727 00:39:35,455 --> 00:39:38,240 one of these key concepts behind folk horror, I think. 728 00:39:38,284 --> 00:39:42,201 [mysterious synthesizer music] 729 00:39:57,477 --> 00:40:00,045 - It was one of Nigel Kneale's recurring ideas. 730 00:40:00,088 --> 00:40:03,048 He would make reference to mythology and folklore 731 00:40:03,091 --> 00:40:05,528 and yolk it to science fiction, 732 00:40:05,572 --> 00:40:08,357 and "Doctor Who" picked up on that. 733 00:40:08,401 --> 00:40:11,273 - Devil's End is part of the dark mythology 734 00:40:11,317 --> 00:40:14,363 of our childhood days, and now for the first time, 735 00:40:14,407 --> 00:40:17,105 the cameras of the BBC have been allowed 736 00:40:17,149 --> 00:40:19,804 inside the cabin itself. 737 00:40:19,847 --> 00:40:22,197 - You think of the classic John Pertwee storyline, 738 00:40:22,241 --> 00:40:25,418 "The Daemons, which has all of the key themes 739 00:40:25,461 --> 00:40:27,376 of folk horror within it. 740 00:40:27,420 --> 00:40:29,857 You have unearthing ancient burial mounds, 741 00:40:29,901 --> 00:40:34,079 disturbing long-buried forces in the English countryside. 742 00:40:34,122 --> 00:40:36,255 You have evil Morris dancers. 743 00:40:36,298 --> 00:40:40,389 - You're being invited to join our May Day revels, Doctor. 744 00:40:40,433 --> 00:40:41,651 - It's all in there. 745 00:40:41,695 --> 00:40:44,437 [birds chirping] 746 00:40:46,178 --> 00:40:49,964 Nigel Kneale's final storyline in the "Quatermass" series 747 00:40:50,008 --> 00:40:53,620 broadcast in 1979 is set in a post-apocalyptic world 748 00:40:53,663 --> 00:40:56,797 after what we assume is a nuclear war. 749 00:40:56,841 --> 00:41:01,846 [bells dinging] [soft tense music] 750 00:41:03,195 --> 00:41:04,239 - [Man With Glasses] Who are they? 751 00:41:04,283 --> 00:41:05,632 - Planet people. 752 00:41:08,548 --> 00:41:10,637 They've got some strange belief. 753 00:41:10,680 --> 00:41:13,596 - Magic. It's always magic. 754 00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:16,512 [tense music] 755 00:41:16,556 --> 00:41:19,602 - [Mark] And you have bands of hippie travelers marching 756 00:41:19,646 --> 00:41:23,258 across the land being drawn mysteriously to stone circles. 757 00:41:23,302 --> 00:41:25,086 - [Narrator] Many of these groups of stones, 758 00:41:25,130 --> 00:41:28,874 like Stonehenge, were complex observatories, 759 00:41:28,917 --> 00:41:30,919 predicting what once were thought 760 00:41:30,963 --> 00:41:35,184 to be unpredictable fickle wandering of their gods. 761 00:41:39,667 --> 00:41:41,799 - They were just a kind of normal part 762 00:41:41,843 --> 00:41:43,932 of the landscape for many people. 763 00:41:43,976 --> 00:41:46,456 Certainly Avebury, where we are now, 764 00:41:46,500 --> 00:41:50,112 has had a village within it for over a thousand years. 765 00:41:50,156 --> 00:41:53,246 [soft ominous music] 766 00:41:57,511 --> 00:41:59,730 - And you just want me to touch it? 767 00:41:59,774 --> 00:42:04,779 [eerie music] [mysterious voices chattering] 768 00:42:05,519 --> 00:42:06,476 - Yes, please. 769 00:42:06,520 --> 00:42:09,479 [eerie music continues] 770 00:42:09,523 --> 00:42:13,396 [mysterious voices crying out] 771 00:42:22,797 --> 00:42:25,931 [dramatic music] 772 00:42:25,974 --> 00:42:27,541 - Surprisingly, it hasn't featured 773 00:42:27,584 --> 00:42:31,153 in that many films and television. 774 00:42:31,197 --> 00:42:34,330 Most famously "Children of the Stones," 775 00:42:34,374 --> 00:42:37,725 the children's TV series from the mid-1970s, 776 00:42:37,768 --> 00:42:40,075 that was set and filmed here. 777 00:42:40,119 --> 00:42:41,903 And it also appears 778 00:42:41,947 --> 00:42:45,167 in a "Ghost Story for Christmas" called "Stigma." 779 00:42:45,211 --> 00:42:48,388 - [Kier-La] In "Stigma," the malevolence or blight occurs 780 00:42:48,431 --> 00:42:51,217 because someone has disturbed the standing stones, 781 00:42:51,260 --> 00:42:53,393 and people have come from the city to settle in the country 782 00:42:53,436 --> 00:42:55,612 and have no sense of what the standing stones mean. 783 00:42:55,656 --> 00:42:57,353 They've no connection to that history. 784 00:42:57,397 --> 00:42:59,921 [tense music] 785 00:43:08,930 --> 00:43:10,279 - So the standing stone, 786 00:43:10,323 --> 00:43:11,889 they are these monuments of great mystery. 787 00:43:11,933 --> 00:43:14,631 They kind of hark back to this pre-Christian 788 00:43:14,675 --> 00:43:17,591 and pagan past to this whole idea that the past and history 789 00:43:17,634 --> 00:43:20,202 are threatening to kind of re-emerge 790 00:43:20,246 --> 00:43:23,945 and kind of reclaim ownership over the land. 791 00:43:25,425 --> 00:43:27,253 With "Rawhead Rex," in the original short story 792 00:43:27,296 --> 00:43:31,562 you have this clash between these ancient customs 793 00:43:31,606 --> 00:43:33,086 and ancient way of life 794 00:43:33,129 --> 00:43:35,479 and these new forces of gentrification. 795 00:43:35,523 --> 00:43:38,569 This idea that getting back to these old ways, 796 00:43:38,613 --> 00:43:42,225 getting away from the rat race and getting back to nature 797 00:43:42,269 --> 00:43:43,835 is really, it's just another form 798 00:43:43,879 --> 00:43:46,229 of kind of colonization and invasion. 799 00:43:46,273 --> 00:43:49,624 [soft mysterious music] 800 00:43:53,106 --> 00:43:55,673 - Your hands. They're bleeding. 801 00:43:57,110 --> 00:43:59,068 - I actually think that there's a good trilogy 802 00:43:59,112 --> 00:44:04,117 of old "Play For Today" episodes that define the form 803 00:44:05,553 --> 00:44:06,684 of folk horror with a bit more nuance. 804 00:44:06,728 --> 00:44:08,251 John Bowen's "Robin Redbreast," 805 00:44:08,295 --> 00:44:10,079 David Rudkin's "Panda's Fen," 806 00:44:10,123 --> 00:44:11,863 and Alan Garner's "Red Shift." 807 00:44:11,907 --> 00:44:13,778 Now all three of those, I think, 808 00:44:13,822 --> 00:44:18,827 deal with the sort of temporal qualities within place, 809 00:44:20,481 --> 00:44:21,960 which is for me, essential to folk horror. 810 00:44:22,004 --> 00:44:25,355 [gentle guitar music] 811 00:44:25,399 --> 00:44:29,446 ♪ Baloo, my boy, lie still and sleep ♪ 812 00:44:29,490 --> 00:44:34,016 ♪ It grieves me sore to hear thee weep ♪ 813 00:44:34,060 --> 00:44:38,107 ♪ If thou'lt be silent, I'll be glad ♪ 814 00:44:38,151 --> 00:44:42,894 ♪ Thy moaning makes my heart full sad ♪ 815 00:44:42,938 --> 00:44:45,114 - [Howard] David Rudkin, the playwright, 816 00:44:45,158 --> 00:44:47,377 particularly wrote "Panda's Fen," 817 00:44:47,421 --> 00:44:50,685 which is a beautiful, lyrical, very pagan piece 818 00:44:50,728 --> 00:44:53,862 about a young lad coming to terms 819 00:44:53,905 --> 00:44:56,299 with his sexuality and his identity 820 00:44:56,343 --> 00:44:59,172 and realizing that he's never really going to be part 821 00:44:59,215 --> 00:45:02,653 of the culture that he thought he was part of. 822 00:45:02,697 --> 00:45:06,657 ♪ O'er thee I'll keep my lonely watch ♪ 823 00:45:06,701 --> 00:45:11,401 ♪ Intent thy lightest breath to catch ♪ 824 00:45:11,445 --> 00:45:15,275 It deals with issues of geography of the land, 825 00:45:16,363 --> 00:45:18,408 of how we relate to the land. 826 00:45:18,452 --> 00:45:20,323 I would consider the land, 827 00:45:20,367 --> 00:45:22,369 but it also talks about the idea of television itself. 828 00:45:22,412 --> 00:45:24,675 The lead character, the young boy is haunted 829 00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:26,503 by a number of figures. 830 00:45:26,547 --> 00:45:29,854 He's haunted by a figure who's basically Mary Whitehouse, 831 00:45:29,898 --> 00:45:32,206 who is presented in the play as essentially being 832 00:45:32,249 --> 00:45:36,079 an avatar of a kind of Manichaean witchcraft. 833 00:45:37,559 --> 00:45:39,343 The idea that there is a sort of battle 834 00:45:39,387 --> 00:45:41,693 between good and evil and there's two opposing forces. 835 00:45:41,737 --> 00:45:44,435 This idea that there's good and evil, 836 00:45:44,479 --> 00:45:49,048 purity and impurity, is something that Rudkin reject. 837 00:45:49,092 --> 00:45:49,919 - Panda! 838 00:45:52,008 --> 00:45:54,663 [flames whoosh] 839 00:45:57,318 --> 00:46:01,235 - There you have seen your true dark enemies of England, 840 00:46:01,278 --> 00:46:06,153 sick father and mother who would have us children forever. 841 00:46:07,589 --> 00:46:09,068 - The questions around national identity, 842 00:46:09,112 --> 00:46:10,200 which are often embedded especially 843 00:46:10,244 --> 00:46:11,723 into British folk horror. 844 00:46:11,767 --> 00:46:14,204 It's there if you want to read it there, 845 00:46:14,248 --> 00:46:17,990 and the paranoias that we have around national identity 846 00:46:18,034 --> 00:46:21,429 are there, for better or for worse. 847 00:46:21,472 --> 00:46:23,257 - You know, thinking about something like 848 00:46:23,300 --> 00:46:27,478 the play "Panda's Fen," the pace stays slow. 849 00:46:27,522 --> 00:46:30,394 It has genre elements, but would not have been seen 850 00:46:30,438 --> 00:46:31,743 connecting with the other things 851 00:46:31,787 --> 00:46:33,223 that we've been talking about. 852 00:46:33,267 --> 00:46:35,486 But something like folk horror allows that 853 00:46:35,530 --> 00:46:36,661 to have a relationship. 854 00:46:36,705 --> 00:46:38,359 - [Man] Who are you? 855 00:46:39,795 --> 00:46:40,970 Bring me here? 856 00:46:42,450 --> 00:46:45,627 Slip of a girl, such short time living, 857 00:46:47,150 --> 00:46:50,458 dead now so long, still bring me, day after day, 858 00:46:53,461 --> 00:46:55,985 bring me to this uneasy place. 859 00:46:58,161 --> 00:47:03,166 [leaves rustling] [soft suspenseful music] 860 00:47:06,300 --> 00:47:10,652 - David Rudkin's later piece, "The Living Grave," 861 00:47:10,695 --> 00:47:12,958 which is all about this woman Kitty 862 00:47:13,002 --> 00:47:16,135 who is buried in Dartmore in Devon and- 863 00:47:16,179 --> 00:47:17,963 - [Vic] In an unmarked grave. 864 00:47:18,007 --> 00:47:19,487 - [William] In an unmarked grave, and so he sort of looks 865 00:47:19,530 --> 00:47:21,358 into the history of her and who she was, 866 00:47:21,402 --> 00:47:23,142 but he does it in this very curious way 867 00:47:23,186 --> 00:47:26,320 in which he has a woman, and this is all based 868 00:47:26,363 --> 00:47:29,279 on a true account of a woman being put under hypnosis, 869 00:47:29,323 --> 00:47:32,195 and then she kind of embodies and remembers Kitty's past 870 00:47:32,239 --> 00:47:34,503 and kind of recounts her story through hypnosis. 871 00:47:34,546 --> 00:47:36,287 - [Vic] And part of the fascination in that 872 00:47:36,331 --> 00:47:38,811 is kind of the use, again, of new technology. 873 00:47:38,855 --> 00:47:40,030 - [William] Yeah, and seeing the past 874 00:47:40,073 --> 00:47:41,814 with these kind of filters. 875 00:47:41,858 --> 00:47:45,514 - [Vic] And multiple layers of history and myth. 876 00:47:45,557 --> 00:47:49,518 - Such bounty there was, such fruitfulness, Miss Palmer, 877 00:47:49,561 --> 00:47:51,824 from the blood that drained from Robin Hood, 878 00:47:51,868 --> 00:47:53,565 so the old stories say. 879 00:47:53,609 --> 00:47:55,698 - [Howard] John Bowen wrote "Robin Redbreast" 880 00:47:55,741 --> 00:47:59,397 about a woman who winds up trapped in a village 881 00:47:59,441 --> 00:48:02,313 and trapped by a pagan conspiracy. 882 00:48:02,357 --> 00:48:05,273 - [Woman] I'm sorry if I sound hysterical. 883 00:48:05,316 --> 00:48:06,535 I'm alone here. 884 00:48:08,058 --> 00:48:10,539 I keep telling myself it's only imagination, 885 00:48:10,582 --> 00:48:12,541 but I've had proof now. 886 00:48:14,630 --> 00:48:17,589 There's something wrong, Jake. 887 00:48:17,633 --> 00:48:19,591 I don't know what it is. 888 00:48:19,635 --> 00:48:21,114 They're keeping me here for something, 889 00:48:21,158 --> 00:48:24,466 making sure I can't get away before Easter. 890 00:48:25,467 --> 00:48:28,078 [woman gasps] 891 00:48:28,121 --> 00:48:30,863 - Another aspect of English culture that lends itself 892 00:48:30,907 --> 00:48:34,737 very well to folk horror is, of course, the class system. 893 00:48:34,780 --> 00:48:37,609 - Four miles to the village, and a mile from the road. 894 00:48:37,653 --> 00:48:39,394 I'm going to live in it for awhile. 895 00:48:39,437 --> 00:48:43,398 I've got to get used to living on my own as it seems. 896 00:48:43,441 --> 00:48:46,879 It's clearly a good place to start. 897 00:48:46,923 --> 00:48:48,707 - [Mark] You're looking at middle class 898 00:48:48,751 --> 00:48:52,058 or upper middle class people essentially fearing 899 00:48:52,102 --> 00:48:54,931 what lower class people or poor people 900 00:48:54,974 --> 00:48:56,324 do in the countryside. 901 00:48:56,367 --> 00:48:57,890 - As far as I can see, 902 00:48:57,934 --> 00:48:59,718 there's no privacy at all in the country. 903 00:48:59,762 --> 00:49:01,546 Whatever you do, wherever you go, everybody knows. 904 00:49:01,590 --> 00:49:03,287 - If you're going to go around like Lady Chatterley, 905 00:49:03,331 --> 00:49:05,550 the woods are traditional, some mossy glade 906 00:49:05,594 --> 00:49:06,725 where you can feel the rough touch 907 00:49:06,769 --> 00:49:08,336 of the earth on your backside. 908 00:49:08,379 --> 00:49:11,121 - Rough touch of the nettles more likely. 909 00:49:12,427 --> 00:49:15,125 - Far too many people in the woods. 910 00:49:15,168 --> 00:49:16,996 - [Brunette Woman] People? 911 00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:18,998 - [Blonde Woman] One gets that feeling, like being watched. 912 00:49:19,042 --> 00:49:21,697 [ominous music] 913 00:49:36,974 --> 00:49:38,628 - [Howard] Children's TV as well, 914 00:49:38,671 --> 00:49:40,107 has a lot of folk horror in it, 915 00:49:40,151 --> 00:49:42,414 things like "Children of the Stones," 916 00:49:42,458 --> 00:49:45,983 later on "Moondial," "Century Falls." 917 00:49:46,026 --> 00:49:48,638 - Things like "Bagpuss" switches, 918 00:49:48,681 --> 00:49:51,380 enduringly popular over many generations, 919 00:49:51,423 --> 00:49:55,862 but is I find deeply sinister with clockwork mice, 920 00:49:55,906 --> 00:49:59,823 talking toys, Victorian parlor maids all coming to life 921 00:49:59,866 --> 00:50:03,522 inside a dusty, spooky, dimly lit junk shop. 922 00:50:05,002 --> 00:50:07,396 What could be more eerie than that? 923 00:50:07,439 --> 00:50:09,310 - There were sort of really creepy children's shows. 924 00:50:09,354 --> 00:50:12,792 And I don't know why, but that was kind of a trend 925 00:50:12,836 --> 00:50:14,446 at that particular point. 926 00:50:14,490 --> 00:50:17,057 [gentle music] 927 00:50:19,364 --> 00:50:21,845 [saw buzzing] 928 00:50:25,109 --> 00:50:27,677 [gentle music] 929 00:50:31,071 --> 00:50:33,857 [wings flapping] 930 00:50:39,297 --> 00:50:41,473 [gentle music] 931 00:50:41,517 --> 00:50:43,344 - And they were all things that were drawing 932 00:50:43,388 --> 00:50:47,827 on British mythology, on pagan mythology, folklore. 933 00:50:47,871 --> 00:50:50,656 - I think it was authors probably tapping into 934 00:50:50,700 --> 00:50:53,006 this mystery that you feel as a child 935 00:50:53,050 --> 00:50:57,054 when you hear these fairytales and it represents danger 936 00:50:57,097 --> 00:50:59,491 as well as magic and mystery. 937 00:50:59,535 --> 00:51:01,928 I think children are much more intelligent 938 00:51:01,972 --> 00:51:06,019 about understanding symbolism and metaphor. 939 00:51:06,063 --> 00:51:08,848 They just have an inherent understanding of it. 940 00:51:08,892 --> 00:51:11,372 - Look at that part. 941 00:51:11,416 --> 00:51:13,505 It's an owl's head, see? 942 00:51:13,549 --> 00:51:14,419 - Yes. 943 00:51:16,247 --> 00:51:18,379 Well, I suppose it is if you want it to be. 944 00:51:18,423 --> 00:51:19,772 - I think that in itself 945 00:51:19,816 --> 00:51:21,295 is kind of interesting and subversive 946 00:51:21,339 --> 00:51:23,210 because you have this kind of generation 947 00:51:23,254 --> 00:51:26,779 who'd grown out of the '60s, suddenly adults, teachers, 948 00:51:26,823 --> 00:51:30,957 infiltrating the theoretically conservative systems 949 00:51:31,001 --> 00:51:33,917 of education with their kinda hippie ideas, 950 00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:35,702 their magical ideas. 951 00:51:35,746 --> 00:51:38,270 [eerie music] 952 00:51:40,577 --> 00:51:42,143 - With "The Company of Wolves," 953 00:51:42,187 --> 00:51:44,537 there's a shift from the children-focused stories 954 00:51:44,581 --> 00:51:47,453 that you get in 1970s television series 955 00:51:47,497 --> 00:51:51,588 such as "Escape into Night" or "The Owl Service." 956 00:51:52,937 --> 00:51:54,591 This narrative structure of having stories 957 00:51:54,634 --> 00:51:56,418 within stories within dreams, 958 00:51:56,462 --> 00:51:59,073 to me seems to be very much in keeping 959 00:51:59,117 --> 00:52:02,816 with the 1980s trend of kind of postmodernism, 960 00:52:02,860 --> 00:52:05,253 this use of bricolage and pastiche 961 00:52:05,297 --> 00:52:07,821 to kind of interweave all these different elements 962 00:52:07,865 --> 00:52:10,520 and intertextural references together. 963 00:52:10,563 --> 00:52:14,567 This, I think, relates to all the kind of numerous mutations 964 00:52:14,611 --> 00:52:18,919 and reiterations and retellings of "Little Red Riding Hood." 965 00:52:18,963 --> 00:52:23,097 You have also the fact that in Angela Carter's source book, 966 00:52:23,141 --> 00:52:27,188 she is kind of taking these stories and re-imagining them 967 00:52:27,232 --> 00:52:30,670 in a way where they kind of subvert the original stories 968 00:52:30,714 --> 00:52:33,630 and become, you know, tools of liberation. 969 00:52:33,673 --> 00:52:36,589 [gentle music] 970 00:52:36,633 --> 00:52:38,635 And then in the film, you have Rosaleen, 971 00:52:38,678 --> 00:52:40,680 who through the course of the film, 972 00:52:40,724 --> 00:52:42,290 she becomes the storyteller, 973 00:52:42,334 --> 00:52:45,119 but she becomes a very transgressive one. 974 00:52:45,163 --> 00:52:46,599 - [Rosaleen] And after that, the woman made the wolves 975 00:52:46,643 --> 00:52:48,601 come to sing to her and the baby at night, 976 00:52:48,645 --> 00:52:50,560 made them come and serenade her. 977 00:52:50,603 --> 00:52:52,562 - [Woman] But what pleasure would there be in that, 978 00:52:52,605 --> 00:52:54,476 listening to a lot of wolves? 979 00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:56,348 Don't we have to do it all the time? 980 00:52:56,391 --> 00:52:58,785 - The pleasure would come from knowing 981 00:52:58,829 --> 00:53:00,613 the power that she had. 982 00:53:00,657 --> 00:53:02,397 ♪ On the treetop 983 00:53:02,441 --> 00:53:03,964 - [Lindsay] So she's taking on stories as a way 984 00:53:04,008 --> 00:53:07,359 to kind of exploring her own power and agency. 985 00:53:07,402 --> 00:53:11,537 - [Rosaleen] She crept inside to the world below. 986 00:53:13,844 --> 00:53:16,934 [soft ominous music] 987 00:53:20,546 --> 00:53:22,853 And that's all I'll tell you 988 00:53:24,028 --> 00:53:26,204 because that's all I know. 989 00:53:27,771 --> 00:53:30,295 [tense music] 990 00:53:43,570 --> 00:53:47,356 - The "Lair of the White Worm" was based on a story 991 00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:50,664 by Bram Stoker, who of course wrote "Dracula." 992 00:53:50,708 --> 00:53:54,015 It's kind of set in contemporary times, the 1980s, 993 00:53:54,059 --> 00:53:58,541 and at that time you had this trend for heritage films 994 00:53:58,585 --> 00:54:01,370 looking at Britain's imperialist history 995 00:54:01,414 --> 00:54:03,590 with a sense of nostalgia. 996 00:54:03,634 --> 00:54:05,853 And that was very much in keeping with, you know, 997 00:54:05,897 --> 00:54:07,855 this heritage industry that was being fueled 998 00:54:07,899 --> 00:54:09,422 by this nostalgia. 999 00:54:09,465 --> 00:54:11,380 So I think one of the ways that both 1000 00:54:11,424 --> 00:54:14,775 "The Lair of the White Worm" and "The Company of Wolves" 1001 00:54:14,819 --> 00:54:17,691 reject the heritage film is the upper classes 1002 00:54:17,735 --> 00:54:22,043 become completely monstrous and completely inhuman. 1003 00:54:22,087 --> 00:54:23,871 [man screams] 1004 00:54:23,915 --> 00:54:26,047 In the heritage film, you have landscape 1005 00:54:26,091 --> 00:54:28,310 which becomes scenery, and that's very different 1006 00:54:28,354 --> 00:54:30,573 to the kind of darker way that the landscape 1007 00:54:30,617 --> 00:54:32,793 is used in "Lair of the White Worm." 1008 00:54:32,837 --> 00:54:35,448 It really emphasizes the kind of the phallic 1009 00:54:35,491 --> 00:54:38,277 and the yonic forms, and you have these underground caves 1010 00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:41,236 where the snake god resides. 1011 00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:43,282 [snake roars] 1012 00:54:43,325 --> 00:54:46,067 - It's something about Britishness 1013 00:54:46,111 --> 00:54:48,896 that we think of as very much to do with order. 1014 00:54:48,940 --> 00:54:51,420 There's a kind of stereotypical impression 1015 00:54:51,464 --> 00:54:53,901 of a British person is quite uptight, 1016 00:54:53,945 --> 00:54:57,775 quite repressed, manners, rules, all of this kind of thing. 1017 00:54:57,818 --> 00:54:59,602 And when you uncover that, 1018 00:54:59,646 --> 00:55:01,256 it's this sort of idea that there's something 1019 00:55:01,300 --> 00:55:03,128 much wilder underneath. 1020 00:55:03,171 --> 00:55:05,957 [dramatic music] 1021 00:55:07,828 --> 00:55:10,613 For my film "Prevenge," I did quite a lot of research 1022 00:55:10,657 --> 00:55:13,747 about human sacrifice because there are remains of bodies 1023 00:55:13,791 --> 00:55:16,184 that have been dug up in the UK 1024 00:55:16,228 --> 00:55:18,621 that they think were possibly human sacrifices, 1025 00:55:18,665 --> 00:55:22,451 and when you contrast that with what our idea 1026 00:55:22,495 --> 00:55:25,672 of Britishness is, it makes you feel like 1027 00:55:25,716 --> 00:55:28,196 our ancestors are alien to us. 1028 00:55:31,809 --> 00:55:34,725 [soft tense music] 1029 00:55:39,165 --> 00:55:41,123 - [Kier-La] But this idea of what's in the ground 1030 00:55:41,167 --> 00:55:43,822 and this attempt to bury the old traditions, 1031 00:55:43,865 --> 00:55:45,998 trying to hide or dismiss where we come from, 1032 00:55:46,041 --> 00:55:48,304 is still the key idea of British folk horror 1033 00:55:48,348 --> 00:55:49,958 right up to today. 1034 00:55:50,002 --> 00:55:52,526 [tense music] 1035 00:56:01,535 --> 00:56:03,015 - [Man] Am I dead? 1036 00:56:04,059 --> 00:56:05,191 - Come, friend, I'll protect you 1037 00:56:05,234 --> 00:56:07,715 from yourself as best I can. 1038 00:56:07,759 --> 00:56:10,370 [gentle music] 1039 00:56:33,262 --> 00:56:36,004 - [Andy] In a way, it's a historical drama, 1040 00:56:36,048 --> 00:56:38,224 but there's a sense of uncanny, 1041 00:56:38,267 --> 00:56:42,010 there's a sense of the history of the nation. 1042 00:56:42,054 --> 00:56:44,099 - What do you see friend? 1043 00:56:46,623 --> 00:56:49,278 - Nothing. Perhaps only shadows. 1044 00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:54,457 [dramatic drum music] 1045 00:56:59,071 --> 00:57:01,900 - [Andy] The blood flows into the soil. 1046 00:57:01,943 --> 00:57:04,903 It's still there, it's still resonant. 1047 00:57:04,946 --> 00:57:08,950 [dramatic drum music continues] 1048 00:57:13,085 --> 00:57:16,218 - Generally speaking, we wanna believe that the thoughts 1049 00:57:16,262 --> 00:57:20,440 and fears and beliefs of a past generation, 1050 00:57:20,483 --> 00:57:23,573 we've sort of transcended them, we've grown out of them., 1051 00:57:23,617 --> 00:57:25,053 we're above them. 1052 00:57:25,097 --> 00:57:26,576 Horror films always pose this problem 1053 00:57:26,620 --> 00:57:29,928 that in fact, it's not as simple as that. 1054 00:57:38,850 --> 00:57:41,592 - So ya have a short TV play called "Murrain," 1055 00:57:41,636 --> 00:57:45,509 which is about a vet who discovers that a group 1056 00:57:46,946 --> 00:57:48,773 of local farmers and farm laborers 1057 00:57:48,817 --> 00:57:50,471 have turned against an old woman because they're convinced 1058 00:57:50,514 --> 00:57:52,255 that she's a witch who's cursed them, 1059 00:57:52,299 --> 00:57:55,171 and it's a lovely little character piece. 1060 00:57:55,215 --> 00:57:59,219 It has a moment in the middle where he discovers 1061 00:58:01,569 --> 00:58:04,789 that these farmers believe that they're cursed. 1062 00:58:04,833 --> 00:58:07,705 And he says, "But what about a science?" 1063 00:58:07,749 --> 00:58:09,925 - They've got you trained to thinking 1064 00:58:09,969 --> 00:58:11,840 nothing's true if it's not in books 1065 00:58:11,884 --> 00:58:14,103 or you can't shove it in a bottle and analyze it. 1066 00:58:14,147 --> 00:58:15,626 - That's called knowledge. - Work out the rules, 1067 00:58:15,670 --> 00:58:17,106 and what the rules don't fit, don't happen. 1068 00:58:17,150 --> 00:58:18,934 - The purpose of science- 1069 00:58:18,978 --> 00:58:20,457 - [Man] Tellin' you, friend, you got the rules wrong! 1070 00:58:20,501 --> 00:58:21,632 - And the vet says... 1071 00:58:21,676 --> 00:58:23,112 - Then we change the rules. 1072 00:58:23,156 --> 00:58:24,287 - Oh! 1073 00:58:24,331 --> 00:58:25,854 - "When the rules don't work, 1074 00:58:25,898 --> 00:58:26,942 we make new rules, we work it out." 1075 00:58:26,986 --> 00:58:28,901 - But we don't go back. 1076 00:58:31,512 --> 00:58:33,514 - And "we don't go back" 1077 00:58:35,864 --> 00:58:39,346 is the fundamental tension of folk horror. 1078 00:58:39,389 --> 00:58:42,001 [gentle music] 1079 00:58:44,003 --> 00:58:47,267 We don't go back because if we go back, 1080 00:58:49,356 --> 00:58:53,055 we enter a realm of superstition and madness. 1081 00:58:56,406 --> 00:58:58,669 [women screaming] 1082 00:58:58,713 --> 00:59:01,194 [man screams] 1083 00:59:07,287 --> 00:59:11,160 - [Man] Wouldst thou like to live deliciously? 1084 00:59:11,204 --> 00:59:14,642 [disjointed eerie music] 1085 00:59:16,296 --> 00:59:18,341 - [Witch] By the pricking of my thumbs, 1086 00:59:18,385 --> 00:59:21,344 something wicked this way comes. 1087 00:59:21,388 --> 00:59:23,868 [group laughs] 1088 00:59:23,912 --> 00:59:25,261 - [Man] Till the time comes 1089 00:59:25,305 --> 00:59:27,698 dark days and nights [indistinct]. 1090 00:59:27,742 --> 00:59:32,660 [group chanting] [eerie movie music] 1091 00:59:38,753 --> 00:59:41,756 - There were lots of things that were in the air, 1092 00:59:41,800 --> 00:59:44,281 and I think that in the 1970s, 1093 00:59:45,804 --> 00:59:48,807 you had one of the very first periods 1094 00:59:48,851 --> 00:59:51,723 in the 20th century British history 1095 00:59:51,767 --> 00:59:53,595 where people, for a long time anyway, 1096 00:59:53,638 --> 00:59:55,727 where people became convinced that actually Britain 1097 00:59:55,771 --> 00:59:57,555 wasn't kind of great. 1098 00:59:57,599 --> 01:00:00,384 You come out of the '60s, which is a very celebratory era, 1099 01:00:00,428 --> 01:00:03,953 and suddenly you have a period of austerity. 1100 01:00:03,997 --> 01:00:06,303 You have a government that calls an election 1101 01:00:06,347 --> 01:00:08,088 thinking they're gonna smash it, 1102 01:00:08,131 --> 01:00:09,915 and then it goes a bit wrong. 1103 01:00:09,959 --> 01:00:13,397 You have a big divisive referendum about Europe. 1104 01:00:13,441 --> 01:00:15,443 Over the pond you have an American president 1105 01:00:15,486 --> 01:00:17,923 who's going through like a two-year-long scandal 1106 01:00:17,967 --> 01:00:20,752 about things he did wrong in his reelection campaign. 1107 01:00:20,796 --> 01:00:24,800 None of these things sort of exist in isolation, 1108 01:00:26,193 --> 01:00:27,324 so you also have like this big rise 1109 01:00:27,368 --> 01:00:29,413 in interest in the occult. 1110 01:00:29,457 --> 01:00:32,416 ♪ Jet white dove, snow black snake ♪ 1111 01:00:32,460 --> 01:00:35,680 ♪ Time has turned his face 1112 01:00:35,724 --> 01:00:38,466 ♪ From the edge of mystery 1113 01:00:38,509 --> 01:00:41,947 ♪ Where running is no race 1114 01:00:41,991 --> 01:00:44,689 ♪ Ageless night, careless day 1115 01:00:44,733 --> 01:00:47,779 ♪ Fate reaches out a hand 1116 01:00:47,823 --> 01:00:50,608 ♪ To touch the edge of destiny 1117 01:00:50,652 --> 01:00:53,829 ♪ A story with no end 1118 01:00:58,747 --> 01:01:01,097 - A lot of witchcraft going on in the late '60s, 1119 01:01:01,141 --> 01:01:04,361 which is becoming a more prevalent idea 1120 01:01:06,189 --> 01:01:09,323 amongst young educated intellectuals. 1121 01:01:09,366 --> 01:01:11,455 It's no longer just a thing that the country folk do. 1122 01:01:11,499 --> 01:01:13,544 When you have like the films kind of Kenneth Anger, 1123 01:01:13,588 --> 01:01:16,678 there's this kind of sense that witchcraft is becoming- 1124 01:01:16,721 --> 01:01:18,375 - [William] This is a modern thing. 1125 01:01:18,419 --> 01:01:19,811 - A modern thing. - That magic can be modern. 1126 01:01:19,855 --> 01:01:20,986 It's not just something in the past. 1127 01:01:21,030 --> 01:01:22,118 - The factories were closing, 1128 01:01:22,162 --> 01:01:23,902 so the kids went off traveling. 1129 01:01:23,946 --> 01:01:26,340 They followed The Beatles, really, to India. 1130 01:01:26,383 --> 01:01:27,906 - [Newsreel Narrator] Far from the noise and pace 1131 01:01:27,950 --> 01:01:29,691 of city life in the cool, clear air 1132 01:01:29,734 --> 01:01:32,911 of Rishikesh, North India, Pathe News reports 1133 01:01:32,955 --> 01:01:36,567 from the meditation retreat of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. 1134 01:01:36,611 --> 01:01:38,134 - They discovered cheap drugs, 1135 01:01:38,178 --> 01:01:39,831 they discovered different ways of life. 1136 01:01:39,875 --> 01:01:43,139 They discovered entire ways of being 1137 01:01:43,183 --> 01:01:45,360 that were intact for thousands of years 1138 01:01:45,403 --> 01:01:46,883 and that intrigued them. 1139 01:01:46,926 --> 01:01:49,538 And they came back here and wanted to know, 1140 01:01:49,581 --> 01:01:52,323 well, where's, England's one? 1141 01:01:52,367 --> 01:01:53,846 How do we do it? 1142 01:01:53,890 --> 01:01:55,718 Witchcraft is the only religion that the UK 1143 01:01:55,761 --> 01:01:57,502 has ever given to the world. 1144 01:01:57,546 --> 01:02:01,158 And it was so popular amongst musicians and people, 1145 01:02:01,202 --> 01:02:03,508 and so because famous people were, 1146 01:02:03,552 --> 01:02:05,336 the rest of people followed. 1147 01:02:05,380 --> 01:02:07,947 And it just grew and grew and grew from there. 1148 01:02:07,991 --> 01:02:10,776 - And it's not like everybody knew 1149 01:02:10,820 --> 01:02:14,519 a spiritualist medium or knew a pagan, 1150 01:02:14,563 --> 01:02:16,913 but everybody knew someone who knew a pagan. 1151 01:02:16,956 --> 01:02:20,569 - [Narrator] Lonely, Diana desired a lover. 1152 01:02:21,613 --> 01:02:23,746 That desire became the dawn, 1153 01:02:25,487 --> 01:02:29,752 and from the dawn came the son Lucifer, the God of light. 1154 01:02:30,666 --> 01:02:33,843 [twangy string music] 1155 01:02:35,105 --> 01:02:38,195 - Pagan and sort of folk culture 1156 01:02:38,239 --> 01:02:40,154 is very much part of where I'm from. 1157 01:02:40,197 --> 01:02:43,200 Like when I was at school, we'd do quote unquote 1158 01:02:43,244 --> 01:02:45,159 country dancing, which was the sort of thing 1159 01:02:45,202 --> 01:02:47,465 you see in "The Wicker Man" where we'd go out 1160 01:02:47,509 --> 01:02:49,250 and we'd dance round the May Pole. 1161 01:02:49,293 --> 01:02:52,731 Christian festivals like Candlemas and Harvest Festival 1162 01:02:52,775 --> 01:02:55,908 were intertwined with these sort of folk customs. 1163 01:02:55,952 --> 01:02:59,564 So it was very much part of the local culture 1164 01:02:59,608 --> 01:03:01,566 to integrate these two things, 1165 01:03:01,610 --> 01:03:04,090 because traditionally Christianity and paganism 1166 01:03:04,134 --> 01:03:06,267 have always been sort of mashed. 1167 01:03:06,310 --> 01:03:09,183 [church bells ringing] 1168 01:03:09,226 --> 01:03:12,577 - [Priest] And so, at this time of fulfillment 1169 01:03:12,621 --> 01:03:16,102 of the country year, let our thoughts return 1170 01:03:16,146 --> 01:03:20,672 to that one source from which all good gifts come from, 1171 01:03:22,674 --> 01:03:26,156 to bring it forth once more in the spring 1172 01:03:26,200 --> 01:03:30,204 when the green shoots pierce the earth in praise 1173 01:03:31,683 --> 01:03:34,991 of the only begetter of all our goodness. 1174 01:03:37,385 --> 01:03:41,127 - This cup is the new covenant in my blood. 1175 01:03:41,171 --> 01:03:44,218 This oft as you drink it in remembrance of me, 1176 01:03:44,261 --> 01:03:48,832 for as often as you eat this bread and drink this wine, 1177 01:03:50,573 --> 01:03:54,011 you do show the Lord's death till He comes again. 1178 01:03:56,231 --> 01:03:59,669 - For the 1973 film, "The Wicker Man" 1179 01:03:59,712 --> 01:04:03,803 director, Robin Hardy and scriptwriter Anthony Shaffer 1180 01:04:03,847 --> 01:04:06,502 researched with books such as "The White Goddess" 1181 01:04:06,545 --> 01:04:11,028 by Robert Graves and "The Golden Bough" by James Frazer. 1182 01:04:11,071 --> 01:04:15,250 Now, these books have since been questioned 1183 01:04:15,293 --> 01:04:18,731 by academics and scholars as to the authenticity 1184 01:04:18,775 --> 01:04:22,126 of the folk customs and religious rights 1185 01:04:23,562 --> 01:04:25,347 which are contained within the books, 1186 01:04:25,390 --> 01:04:28,001 yet have certain things such as the mummies parade. 1187 01:04:28,045 --> 01:04:30,395 You have the Hand of Glory. 1188 01:04:30,439 --> 01:04:32,919 You have the Wicker Man itself, 1189 01:04:32,963 --> 01:04:36,053 the existence of which was quoted 1190 01:04:36,096 --> 01:04:39,186 in Roman times by Roman invaders, 1191 01:04:39,230 --> 01:04:41,188 and it still isn't known whether 1192 01:04:41,232 --> 01:04:43,016 it was a clever piece of propaganda 1193 01:04:43,060 --> 01:04:47,586 or whether people in the Celtic and Gaulish countries 1194 01:04:47,630 --> 01:04:51,024 did actually burn animals and possibly other people 1195 01:04:51,068 --> 01:04:55,551 as sacrifices within giant humanoid wicker structures. 1196 01:04:58,249 --> 01:05:00,860 - Of course the difficulty is there's no bible 1197 01:05:00,904 --> 01:05:02,862 of what these customs were. 1198 01:05:02,906 --> 01:05:05,909 So, often you're connecting it with revived 1199 01:05:05,952 --> 01:05:09,478 or reinvented customs via modern witchcraft 1200 01:05:11,262 --> 01:05:13,699 and people like Doreen Valiente who was the doyenne 1201 01:05:13,743 --> 01:05:16,746 of what we think of as traditional things that, 1202 01:05:16,789 --> 01:05:18,922 well, they have their roots in tradition, 1203 01:05:18,965 --> 01:05:20,445 but they were invented, 1204 01:05:20,489 --> 01:05:22,795 but movies will always need to go 1205 01:05:22,839 --> 01:05:24,884 for what looks good on screen, 1206 01:05:24,928 --> 01:05:27,278 so they may well play their own game. 1207 01:05:27,322 --> 01:05:29,541 And sometimes it's frustrating for a folklorist 1208 01:05:29,585 --> 01:05:34,067 because what it says in the movie becomes the folklore. 1209 01:05:34,111 --> 01:05:35,591 - [Boy] What's this? 1210 01:05:35,634 --> 01:05:38,202 - Tell me, do you believe in magic? 1211 01:05:39,986 --> 01:05:43,120 [soft ominous music] 1212 01:05:50,041 --> 01:05:53,566 - You also have a film such as Robert Eggers' "The Witch," 1213 01:05:53,610 --> 01:05:57,440 which I love for the elements of witchcraft 1214 01:05:57,483 --> 01:06:01,400 that have not appeared in film beforehand, 1215 01:06:01,444 --> 01:06:05,622 the things such as the transformation into a hare. 1216 01:06:09,234 --> 01:06:13,891 - The hare is a huge part of folklore in Western Europe, 1217 01:06:15,501 --> 01:06:16,981 particularly the British Isles, 1218 01:06:17,024 --> 01:06:19,505 but we don't really have hares. 1219 01:06:19,549 --> 01:06:21,420 You know, there's jackrabbits out West 1220 01:06:21,464 --> 01:06:23,683 in American mythology, but in New England 1221 01:06:23,727 --> 01:06:24,858 we didn't really have that, 1222 01:06:24,902 --> 01:06:26,904 so that whole line was lost. 1223 01:06:28,645 --> 01:06:31,212 - [Andy] The pulverizing of the baby's body 1224 01:06:31,256 --> 01:06:35,521 to make flying ointment, reciting the Book of Shadows, 1225 01:06:35,565 --> 01:06:38,611 things like this relate to stuff such as 1226 01:06:38,655 --> 01:06:43,399 the "Malleus Maleficarum" and "The Discovery of Witches." 1227 01:06:45,705 --> 01:06:48,491 - Witches is one area where we do have 1228 01:06:48,534 --> 01:06:51,319 more of a folk horror tradition in the United States 1229 01:06:51,363 --> 01:06:52,843 because of the Salem Witch Trials, 1230 01:06:52,886 --> 01:06:56,977 and because the Puritans wrote everything down. 1231 01:06:57,021 --> 01:06:59,415 New England was the most literate place 1232 01:06:59,458 --> 01:07:01,808 in the Western World in the 17th century. 1233 01:07:01,852 --> 01:07:06,857 Ya know, Cotton Mather being one of tons and tons and tons 1234 01:07:08,598 --> 01:07:10,164 of Puritans who were obsessive about writing things down. 1235 01:07:10,208 --> 01:07:12,689 - Memorable providences relating to witchcraft 1236 01:07:12,732 --> 01:07:15,213 and possession by Cotton Mather. 1237 01:07:15,256 --> 01:07:17,084 I read from it all the time. 1238 01:07:17,128 --> 01:07:20,566 - The witch is a source of persistent fascination 1239 01:07:20,610 --> 01:07:23,395 and consternation throughout the world. 1240 01:07:23,439 --> 01:07:26,485 This is true in Africa, this is true in Europe, 1241 01:07:26,529 --> 01:07:28,444 this is true in the South Pacific, 1242 01:07:28,487 --> 01:07:30,663 and this is true in the United States. 1243 01:07:30,707 --> 01:07:35,059 And it really begs questions about how uncomfortable 1244 01:07:36,887 --> 01:07:40,281 humanity as a whole has been with feminine power. 1245 01:07:42,066 --> 01:07:44,111 - I think as well because of the sort of feminist readings 1246 01:07:44,155 --> 01:07:46,853 you can make of folk horror specifically 1247 01:07:46,897 --> 01:07:50,075 because of the witch figure and goddesses 1248 01:07:50,118 --> 01:07:52,120 and this connection to femininity. 1249 01:07:52,164 --> 01:07:55,123 - And I think that's reflected also in "Night of the Eagle," 1250 01:07:55,167 --> 01:07:57,212 which is a film with Peter Wyngarde, 1251 01:07:57,256 --> 01:07:59,214 also about a sort of very rational guy 1252 01:07:59,258 --> 01:08:01,390 who's a college lecturer, but his wife 1253 01:08:01,434 --> 01:08:04,437 has been doing witchcraft to sort of protect his position 1254 01:08:04,481 --> 01:08:06,526 at the school, and he says, "That's stupid. 1255 01:08:06,570 --> 01:08:08,049 We shouldn't use witchcraft anymore, 1256 01:08:08,093 --> 01:08:09,877 we're modern, we're rational." 1257 01:08:09,921 --> 01:08:12,227 And she is stopped from doing this witchcraft stuff 1258 01:08:12,271 --> 01:08:14,273 and then bad stuff starts to happen to him. 1259 01:08:14,316 --> 01:08:16,405 So there's a sense that even though he's rational, 1260 01:08:16,449 --> 01:08:18,973 even though he chooses not to believe in it, 1261 01:08:19,017 --> 01:08:21,280 maybe the old forces still have power. 1262 01:08:21,323 --> 01:08:24,109 - I want some kind of explanation. 1263 01:08:24,152 --> 01:08:25,806 - But is it obvious? 1264 01:08:26,764 --> 01:08:27,591 I'm a witch. 1265 01:08:27,634 --> 01:08:30,463 [dramatic music] 1266 01:08:30,507 --> 01:08:33,248 - When we think of horror cinematically, 1267 01:08:33,292 --> 01:08:36,121 we're looking at a male-dominated genre. 1268 01:08:36,164 --> 01:08:38,515 We're looking at the Draculas, the Frankensteins, 1269 01:08:38,558 --> 01:08:40,081 you know, and that sort of thing. 1270 01:08:40,125 --> 01:08:42,431 And then by the time it gets to the '60s, 1271 01:08:42,475 --> 01:08:45,739 we start to see more powerful female characters, 1272 01:08:45,783 --> 01:08:47,959 things in like Hammer's "The Witches." 1273 01:08:48,002 --> 01:08:50,483 - We have all these different figures 1274 01:08:50,527 --> 01:08:53,181 that we're fascinated with, the zombie, 1275 01:08:53,225 --> 01:08:55,836 the vampire, the werewolf. 1276 01:08:55,880 --> 01:08:57,838 We're fascinated with issues of reincarnation, 1277 01:08:57,882 --> 01:08:59,971 all these things that touch upon the supernatural, 1278 01:09:00,014 --> 01:09:02,539 but none like the witch, 1279 01:09:02,582 --> 01:09:05,542 and that puts us in front of a huge question. 1280 01:09:05,585 --> 01:09:08,109 - When you look at traditionally witches, 1281 01:09:08,153 --> 01:09:11,330 we have this idea of the hag, this old woman, 1282 01:09:11,373 --> 01:09:13,288 the medicine bringer. 1283 01:09:13,332 --> 01:09:15,116 Traditionally, she would have been the midwife, the doctor, 1284 01:09:15,160 --> 01:09:17,597 she would have had a purpose in the community. 1285 01:09:17,641 --> 01:09:19,468 She would have had power. 1286 01:09:19,512 --> 01:09:22,384 - It's impossible to understand the development 1287 01:09:22,428 --> 01:09:25,518 of the suffragist movement in America 1288 01:09:27,346 --> 01:09:31,568 without understanding how it was entwined in its DNA 1289 01:09:32,525 --> 01:09:35,049 with American occultism. 1290 01:09:35,093 --> 01:09:38,139 The two were absolutely joined. 1291 01:09:38,183 --> 01:09:41,795 - In the 1800s, when you had occult belief 1292 01:09:41,839 --> 01:09:44,058 and occult activity become more prominent, 1293 01:09:44,102 --> 01:09:48,019 you saw prominent female figures holding high ranking, 1294 01:09:48,062 --> 01:09:50,196 look at Madame Blavatsky. 1295 01:09:50,239 --> 01:09:52,981 She founded the Theosophical Society. 1296 01:09:53,025 --> 01:09:55,505 You know, high priestesses like Moina Mathers 1297 01:09:55,549 --> 01:09:58,160 who came out of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. 1298 01:09:58,204 --> 01:10:00,902 - The earliest spirit mediums when the movement 1299 01:10:00,946 --> 01:10:04,384 of spiritualism swept the country, were women. 1300 01:10:04,427 --> 01:10:08,214 And this became the first time in modern life 1301 01:10:09,737 --> 01:10:13,349 that women could serve as religious leaders 1302 01:10:13,393 --> 01:10:14,873 of a certain sort. 1303 01:10:15,961 --> 01:10:17,527 - And I think it's this thing 1304 01:10:17,571 --> 01:10:19,878 of women having power that makes it so scary. 1305 01:10:19,921 --> 01:10:24,099 - "The Witch" represents men's fears and fantasies 1306 01:10:25,927 --> 01:10:29,757 and ambivalences about women and female power 1307 01:10:29,801 --> 01:10:31,716 and female sexuality. 1308 01:10:31,759 --> 01:10:34,632 You know, she also embodies women's own fears and anxieties 1309 01:10:34,675 --> 01:10:36,851 about their power in themselves 1310 01:10:36,895 --> 01:10:39,680 in a male-dominated society to some extent. 1311 01:10:39,724 --> 01:10:43,553 Certainly that's what the evil fairytale witch is. 1312 01:10:43,597 --> 01:10:46,644 [soft ominous music] 1313 01:10:51,910 --> 01:10:53,694 - Even if you look at something 1314 01:10:53,738 --> 01:10:57,132 like Benjamin Christensen's silent film "Haxan," 1315 01:10:57,176 --> 01:10:59,918 there's this connection between mental illness 1316 01:10:59,961 --> 01:11:02,964 and witchcraft, and he sort of points out this idea 1317 01:11:03,008 --> 01:11:06,054 that maybe these figures aren't evil, 1318 01:11:06,098 --> 01:11:07,926 maybe they're not supernatural. 1319 01:11:07,969 --> 01:11:11,233 Maybe they're just different for a wide variety of reasons. 1320 01:11:11,277 --> 01:11:13,671 And I think to me, that's the common thread, 1321 01:11:13,714 --> 01:11:17,109 is this female type that's existing outside 1322 01:11:17,152 --> 01:11:20,590 of what is expected of her and what she's supposed to be. 1323 01:11:20,634 --> 01:11:24,594 - We all have things that have become our folk traditions. 1324 01:11:24,638 --> 01:11:26,596 - When we get to the '80s and '90s, 1325 01:11:26,640 --> 01:11:28,729 the witch has become girl power, 1326 01:11:28,773 --> 01:11:30,905 it's become "The Witches of Eastwick," 1327 01:11:30,949 --> 01:11:32,733 it's become "The Craft." 1328 01:11:32,777 --> 01:11:35,649 It's become cool to be this powerful witchy figure. 1329 01:11:35,693 --> 01:11:38,260 - You know, 'cause we are marvelous, 1330 01:11:38,304 --> 01:11:40,741 because we are still the renegades. 1331 01:11:40,785 --> 01:11:42,830 And we're happy to be the renegades. 1332 01:11:42,874 --> 01:11:44,614 I don't wanna be respectful, thank you very much. 1333 01:11:44,658 --> 01:11:47,139 - You girls watch out for those weirdos. 1334 01:11:47,182 --> 01:11:51,492 - [chuckles] We are the weirdos, mister. 1335 01:11:51,535 --> 01:11:53,320 [door thuds] 1336 01:11:53,363 --> 01:11:56,932 - So I think that's why the witch, of all monsters, 1337 01:11:56,976 --> 01:11:59,761 is the most dangerous because she represents 1338 01:11:59,805 --> 01:12:03,983 feminine world takeover. [laughs] 1339 01:12:05,158 --> 01:12:09,902 [dramatic music] [witch laughing] 1340 01:12:18,258 --> 01:12:20,913 [ominous music] 1341 01:12:23,742 --> 01:12:26,527 [fire crackling] 1342 01:12:31,184 --> 01:12:33,795 - It's impossible to really understand the history 1343 01:12:33,839 --> 01:12:35,797 of this country unless one understands 1344 01:12:35,841 --> 01:12:37,973 that religious experimentation, 1345 01:12:38,017 --> 01:12:42,543 religious radicalism was there at its very, very root. 1346 01:12:44,284 --> 01:12:49,115 Going back to the 1600s, the U.S. Colonies were considered 1347 01:12:50,856 --> 01:12:54,076 a safe harbor for people with radical religious beliefs, 1348 01:12:54,120 --> 01:12:58,080 all kinds of different little mystical Christian grouplets 1349 01:12:58,124 --> 01:13:02,171 from throughout Europe, and that inspired people 1350 01:13:02,215 --> 01:13:03,694 to found their own colonies. 1351 01:13:03,738 --> 01:13:06,262 And very early on, very early on, 1352 01:13:06,306 --> 01:13:08,917 in American colonial history, 1353 01:13:08,961 --> 01:13:12,181 you start to hear about things that we later came to call 1354 01:13:12,225 --> 01:13:15,054 seances and channeling and mediums 1355 01:13:16,490 --> 01:13:19,014 and people were sort of branching off 1356 01:13:19,058 --> 01:13:20,799 into these little grouplets. 1357 01:13:20,842 --> 01:13:23,366 It was a very, very rural country. 1358 01:13:23,410 --> 01:13:26,543 You really had very little social life 1359 01:13:26,587 --> 01:13:29,416 outside of farm, trade, and church, 1360 01:13:30,852 --> 01:13:33,724 and people would experiment. 1361 01:13:33,768 --> 01:13:36,249 [tense music] 1362 01:13:42,255 --> 01:13:45,214 They would form either into preexisting fraternal orders, 1363 01:13:45,258 --> 01:13:47,782 like Freemasonry, or they would form 1364 01:13:47,826 --> 01:13:49,436 their own little colonies. 1365 01:13:49,479 --> 01:13:51,568 [gentle music] 1366 01:13:51,612 --> 01:13:54,921 - [Girl] Mr. Will said we'd start our own settlement 1367 01:13:54,964 --> 01:13:56,792 in the promised land. 1368 01:13:58,489 --> 01:14:02,537 He said if we just floated down the river it would find us. 1369 01:14:04,495 --> 01:14:07,629 - I first used the term folk horror in 2006 1370 01:14:07,672 --> 01:14:10,153 when I was writing a book called "American Gothic," 1371 01:14:10,197 --> 01:14:14,592 and on that occasion, I referred to a 1923 silent film 1372 01:14:14,636 --> 01:14:17,769 called "Puritan Passions" as folk horror. 1373 01:14:17,813 --> 01:14:21,251 And that film is now lost, but it was based on stories 1374 01:14:21,295 --> 01:14:24,776 by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was a 19th century 1375 01:14:24,820 --> 01:14:26,517 contemporary of Edgar Allen Poe's, 1376 01:14:26,561 --> 01:14:28,345 and he had a very personal stake 1377 01:14:28,389 --> 01:14:31,087 in America's ancestral folk horror, if you like, 1378 01:14:31,131 --> 01:14:33,002 in that one of his ancestors had been a judge 1379 01:14:33,046 --> 01:14:35,091 at the Salem Witch Trials. 1380 01:14:35,135 --> 01:14:37,093 - Fasten your seatbelts, everybody. 1381 01:14:37,137 --> 01:14:39,835 Harold is about to conduct another one of his tours 1382 01:14:39,879 --> 01:14:41,619 to the 17th century. 1383 01:14:41,663 --> 01:14:43,099 - 17th century? 1384 01:14:43,143 --> 01:14:45,449 That was in the Puritan times, wasn't it? 1385 01:14:45,493 --> 01:14:48,191 [group cackling] 1386 01:14:53,240 --> 01:14:55,720 - The horror trope of the small town hiding 1387 01:14:55,764 --> 01:14:58,288 a terrible secret is influenced very much 1388 01:14:58,332 --> 01:15:00,682 by the Puritan legacy and by the legacy 1389 01:15:00,725 --> 01:15:03,467 of the Salem Witch Trials in particular. 1390 01:15:03,511 --> 01:15:05,730 And I think that perhaps the deepest disquiet of all 1391 01:15:05,774 --> 01:15:08,733 comes from the recognition that the community 1392 01:15:08,777 --> 01:15:11,301 and the wilderness could turn against itself 1393 01:15:11,345 --> 01:15:13,303 with really frightening speed. 1394 01:15:13,347 --> 01:15:15,827 - [Group] Kill, kill, kill, kill! 1395 01:15:15,871 --> 01:15:17,568 - [Bernice] The specter of the colony that fails 1396 01:15:17,612 --> 01:15:19,353 is one of the most powerful anxieties 1397 01:15:19,396 --> 01:15:22,573 in the American psyche, and it manifests itself 1398 01:15:22,617 --> 01:15:27,317 time and time again in the rural gothic and in folk horror. 1399 01:15:27,361 --> 01:15:29,493 - Most American horror, "American Gothic," 1400 01:15:29,537 --> 01:15:32,192 like Stephen King, has its roots 1401 01:15:32,235 --> 01:15:35,543 in the same European witchcraft anxiety. 1402 01:15:35,586 --> 01:15:39,025 So "Salem's Lot," you know, "Pet Sematary," 1403 01:15:39,068 --> 01:15:40,722 although "Pet Sematary" has this First Nations, 1404 01:15:40,765 --> 01:15:43,377 Native American narrative, too. 1405 01:15:44,813 --> 01:15:47,163 - Yeah, so the Puritans are weird. [chuckles] 1406 01:15:47,207 --> 01:15:49,861 They believed a lotta weird stuff. 1407 01:15:49,905 --> 01:15:52,386 When they arrived to the Americas, they thought 1408 01:15:52,429 --> 01:15:55,607 the New England colonies would be like paradise. 1409 01:15:55,651 --> 01:15:57,958 And so, when they realized that there were other people here 1410 01:15:58,001 --> 01:16:00,438 that had been here for many, many years before, 1411 01:16:00,482 --> 01:16:04,965 they basically read them as like manifestations of Satan. 1412 01:16:05,008 --> 01:16:07,968 And so, Native Americans, according to Puritans, 1413 01:16:08,011 --> 01:16:12,189 were put on this Earth to basically test them. 1414 01:16:12,233 --> 01:16:15,366 As we get into the development of like 1415 01:16:15,410 --> 01:16:19,196 an American literary tradition, we get indigenous ghosts. 1416 01:16:19,240 --> 01:16:22,199 It renders indigenous people as sort of inevitably 1417 01:16:22,243 --> 01:16:25,246 going to disappear, as like a sort of ontological status 1418 01:16:25,289 --> 01:16:27,552 of indigenous people, just like something that is part 1419 01:16:27,596 --> 01:16:29,990 of their being that's inevitably going to happen. 1420 01:16:30,033 --> 01:16:31,904 - No! 1421 01:16:31,948 --> 01:16:33,732 - And not that indigenous people are disappearing 1422 01:16:33,776 --> 01:16:38,041 because of intentional actions by white settlers 1423 01:16:38,085 --> 01:16:40,652 that destroyed their cities and their lands 1424 01:16:40,696 --> 01:16:42,915 and their languages and disrupted families. 1425 01:16:42,959 --> 01:16:47,311 So, it sort of takes some of the guilt off of settlers. 1426 01:16:47,355 --> 01:16:50,314 It sort of obviously others indigenous people, 1427 01:16:50,358 --> 01:16:53,752 and they're so other that they're like other worldly. 1428 01:16:53,796 --> 01:16:55,145 We're all ghosts. 1429 01:16:55,189 --> 01:16:57,060 We have these mystical magical powers, 1430 01:16:57,104 --> 01:17:02,109 we can return and give you our knowledge or haunt you. 1431 01:17:03,545 --> 01:17:05,416 You know, indigenous stories matter, 1432 01:17:05,460 --> 01:17:08,506 but indigenous people don't matter in this framework. 1433 01:17:08,550 --> 01:17:11,074 It's that, you know, we want all of the good stuff 1434 01:17:11,118 --> 01:17:13,511 that your cultures have, like your knowledge 1435 01:17:13,555 --> 01:17:16,688 and your practices and your sort of ability 1436 01:17:16,732 --> 01:17:18,951 to navigate the environment and be good caretakers 1437 01:17:18,995 --> 01:17:22,520 of the environment, but we don't want you. 1438 01:17:22,564 --> 01:17:27,438 - A few years ago when there was millions of Indians, see, 1439 01:17:27,482 --> 01:17:31,268 they covered this land like buffaloes, 1440 01:17:31,312 --> 01:17:32,835 livin' their Indian ways 1441 01:17:32,878 --> 01:17:36,621 and practicin' their strange tribal rights. 1442 01:17:36,665 --> 01:17:38,667 Tribes varied as they will do, 1443 01:17:38,710 --> 01:17:41,800 but one hard and fast rule known to near every white man 1444 01:17:41,844 --> 01:17:45,326 was that you don't go kickin' around their cemeteries 1445 01:17:45,369 --> 01:17:47,632 because that's sacred ground. 1446 01:17:47,676 --> 01:17:52,681 - Look, there's no such thing as an Indian burial ground. 1447 01:17:54,117 --> 01:17:56,338 So, full stop. Let's start with that. 1448 01:17:58,079 --> 01:18:00,472 So, when I think of the Indian burial ground in movies, 1449 01:18:00,516 --> 01:18:03,171 I think of a plot device, I think of something, 1450 01:18:03,214 --> 01:18:06,870 a figment of the Western imagination. 1451 01:18:06,913 --> 01:18:11,744 - Construction started in 1907, was finished in 1909. 1452 01:18:11,788 --> 01:18:13,094 The site is supposed to be located 1453 01:18:13,137 --> 01:18:14,660 on an Indian burial ground, 1454 01:18:14,704 --> 01:18:16,314 and I believe they actually had to repel 1455 01:18:16,358 --> 01:18:19,317 a few Indian attacks as they were building it. 1456 01:18:19,361 --> 01:18:21,928 - Well, there's Ojibwe burial grounds, 1457 01:18:21,972 --> 01:18:25,018 there's Mohawk burial grounds, there's Cree burial ground. 1458 01:18:25,062 --> 01:18:27,020 These are not Indian burial grounds. 1459 01:18:27,064 --> 01:18:31,242 When you reduce a multinational people into "Indian," 1460 01:18:31,286 --> 01:18:36,291 which is what Hollywood has done pretty effectively 1461 01:18:37,770 --> 01:18:39,511 for, you know, its entire history, 1462 01:18:39,555 --> 01:18:41,339 you know, you're working in fiction. 1463 01:18:41,383 --> 01:18:44,125 [creature howls] 1464 01:18:46,562 --> 01:18:49,652 - [Jud] This was their burial ground. 1465 01:18:51,567 --> 01:18:53,395 - [Louis] Whose burial ground? 1466 01:18:53,438 --> 01:18:55,701 - [Jud] Micmac Indians. 1467 01:18:55,745 --> 01:18:57,529 - [Kier-La] The Indian burial ground trope in fiction 1468 01:18:57,573 --> 01:18:59,531 goes back to the 18th century, 1469 01:18:59,575 --> 01:19:01,533 but when Stephen King was writing "Pet Sematary," 1470 01:19:01,577 --> 01:19:03,056 Jimmy Carter had just signed 1471 01:19:03,100 --> 01:19:05,058 the main Indian Claims Settlement Act 1472 01:19:05,102 --> 01:19:08,888 after a decade-long, highly publicized legal battle. 1473 01:19:08,932 --> 01:19:12,631 And controversy over the ownership of indigenous land, 1474 01:19:12,675 --> 01:19:14,938 artifacts and remains, was a focal point 1475 01:19:14,981 --> 01:19:17,593 in 1970s indigenous activism. 1476 01:19:17,636 --> 01:19:20,857 - We don't wanna be a Canadian citizen. 1477 01:19:22,598 --> 01:19:25,427 We don't wanna be American citizen. 1478 01:19:25,470 --> 01:19:27,472 We feel this way because we think 1479 01:19:27,516 --> 01:19:29,648 that this reservation is ours, 1480 01:19:29,692 --> 01:19:33,086 and it does not belong to the white man. 1481 01:19:33,130 --> 01:19:34,914 It's the only part we still have left. 1482 01:19:34,958 --> 01:19:38,179 - They got no right here on our reservation. 1483 01:19:38,222 --> 01:19:40,268 - Both America and Canada, you know, 1484 01:19:40,311 --> 01:19:43,096 are functionally illegal nation states 1485 01:19:43,140 --> 01:19:46,012 that exist through broken treaties between other nations 1486 01:19:46,056 --> 01:19:48,450 that predate them by millennia. 1487 01:19:48,493 --> 01:19:53,498 So, there's always gonna be an anxiety in those places. 1488 01:19:55,283 --> 01:19:56,849 Whether they actually would recognize it consciously, 1489 01:19:56,893 --> 01:19:58,939 they're are actually deeply, deeply aware 1490 01:19:58,983 --> 01:20:01,420 of the violence and oppression 1491 01:20:01,464 --> 01:20:04,510 that was necessary for them to exist. 1492 01:20:08,906 --> 01:20:12,344 You know, I think a lot of American horror movies 1493 01:20:12,388 --> 01:20:16,609 are actually informed by the colonial history of America 1494 01:20:16,653 --> 01:20:20,918 in that the thing that colonial states fear the most 1495 01:20:22,485 --> 01:20:24,356 is to be colonized. 1496 01:20:24,400 --> 01:20:28,491 When we talk about that, the fear that it generates 1497 01:20:28,534 --> 01:20:31,320 in non-indigenous people boils down 1498 01:20:31,363 --> 01:20:33,887 to this sort of innate feeling 1499 01:20:33,931 --> 01:20:36,368 that someone is gonna come and take your home from you. 1500 01:20:36,412 --> 01:20:39,458 And what do most Indian burial ground movies involve? 1501 01:20:39,502 --> 01:20:40,981 Someone building their house 1502 01:20:41,025 --> 01:20:42,809 on top of an Indian burial ground. 1503 01:20:42,853 --> 01:20:46,378 - You're living on some sort of special ground, 1504 01:20:46,422 --> 01:20:49,120 devil worship, death, sacrifice. 1505 01:20:54,256 --> 01:20:56,867 George, there's one simple rule. 1506 01:20:58,912 --> 01:21:01,306 Energy cannot be created or destroyed. 1507 01:21:01,350 --> 01:21:02,307 It can only change forms. 1508 01:21:02,351 --> 01:21:05,876 [soft tense music] 1509 01:21:05,919 --> 01:21:09,401 - [Jesse] As more indigenous people start to make movies, 1510 01:21:09,445 --> 01:21:14,232 I think then we'll start to see a greater representation. 1511 01:21:16,103 --> 01:21:20,543 [woman speaking in foreign language] 1512 01:21:41,825 --> 01:21:44,523 [soft ominous music] 1513 01:21:44,567 --> 01:21:45,959 - I'll tell you one other thing 1514 01:21:46,003 --> 01:21:47,787 about the Indian burial ground, though, 1515 01:21:47,831 --> 01:21:52,052 that I sorta like it because if non-indigenous people 1516 01:21:52,096 --> 01:21:54,359 are gonna be afraid of the Indian burial ground, 1517 01:21:54,403 --> 01:21:56,796 then I got some news for ya. 1518 01:21:56,840 --> 01:22:00,235 It's all an Indian burial ground. 1519 01:22:00,279 --> 01:22:03,021 [dramatic music] 1520 01:22:04,849 --> 01:22:06,894 - As the site of the white settlers ancestral horror, 1521 01:22:06,938 --> 01:22:09,070 we return to New England again and again 1522 01:22:09,114 --> 01:22:13,988 throughout the history of American horror fiction. 1523 01:22:14,032 --> 01:22:15,903 Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," 1524 01:22:15,947 --> 01:22:17,731 I mean, there's film adaptations of that 1525 01:22:17,775 --> 01:22:19,820 going back as far as 1922. 1526 01:22:19,864 --> 01:22:22,867 [suspenseful music] 1527 01:22:29,177 --> 01:22:31,789 [wind howling] 1528 01:22:34,661 --> 01:22:37,316 There's definitely a tradition of folk horror in America, 1529 01:22:37,360 --> 01:22:40,406 also in things that utilize stories of shipwrecks 1530 01:22:40,450 --> 01:22:42,103 and mariners' ghosts. 1531 01:22:42,147 --> 01:22:43,931 [waves crashing] [lightning cracks] 1532 01:22:43,975 --> 01:22:46,978 [suspenseful music] 1533 01:22:48,327 --> 01:22:50,590 - I would have to include remarkable films 1534 01:22:50,634 --> 01:22:52,418 like "All That Money Can Buy" as well, 1535 01:22:52,462 --> 01:22:55,508 which was made by RKO in 1941, known under various titles, 1536 01:22:55,552 --> 01:22:58,772 "The Devil and Daniel Webster," or "Daniel and the Devil," 1537 01:22:58,816 --> 01:23:02,385 in which an impecunious rural farmer 1538 01:23:02,428 --> 01:23:05,475 is given the opportunity to improve his station in life 1539 01:23:05,518 --> 01:23:08,129 by a character called Mr. Scratch, 1540 01:23:08,173 --> 01:23:09,957 and it's not very difficult to work out 1541 01:23:10,001 --> 01:23:11,959 who Mr. Scratch is. 1542 01:23:12,003 --> 01:23:14,527 [dramatic music] 1543 01:23:14,571 --> 01:23:15,746 - God! Suffer! 1544 01:23:17,748 --> 01:23:21,447 - I mean, like even Lovecraft flirts with folk horror, 1545 01:23:21,491 --> 01:23:25,016 but with his own mythos, it becomes like bogged down 1546 01:23:25,059 --> 01:23:28,715 in a lot of occulty specificity that I think 1547 01:23:29,847 --> 01:23:31,675 makes it no longer folk horror. 1548 01:23:31,718 --> 01:23:36,593 - Obviously in Lovecraft, in a way it was much more ascetic, 1549 01:23:38,421 --> 01:23:39,900 as a religious discourse, if you want to call it that, 1550 01:23:39,944 --> 01:23:41,989 but ultimately the old gods, you know, 1551 01:23:42,033 --> 01:23:45,166 there were old gods of some other tradition. 1552 01:23:45,210 --> 01:23:47,691 [eerie music] 1553 01:24:00,748 --> 01:24:03,882 - [Jesse] Lovecraft's genius was his capacity to create 1554 01:24:03,925 --> 01:24:07,929 this internally consistent self-sustaining world 1555 01:24:09,540 --> 01:24:14,066 in which the gaslit certainties of the Victorian age 1556 01:24:15,502 --> 01:24:16,851 were being challenged by the re-emergence 1557 01:24:16,895 --> 01:24:18,984 of these primordial gods. 1558 01:24:19,811 --> 01:24:21,290 [woman gasps] 1559 01:24:21,334 --> 01:24:24,163 [woman screaming] 1560 01:24:33,912 --> 01:24:36,784 - [Bernice] So, the writing of H.P. Lovecraft in particular 1561 01:24:36,828 --> 01:24:39,221 often featured these very fraught encounters 1562 01:24:39,265 --> 01:24:43,095 between unwary travelers and degenerate country folk. 1563 01:24:43,138 --> 01:24:45,793 [ominous music] 1564 01:24:51,756 --> 01:24:53,584 In his tremendously creepy, 1565 01:24:53,627 --> 01:24:56,108 another story of his called "The Picture of the House," 1566 01:24:56,151 --> 01:24:59,067 then the reader even urges, I think he used the phrase, 1567 01:24:59,111 --> 01:25:02,984 "the true epicure in the terrible to esteem," as he puts it 1568 01:25:03,028 --> 01:25:06,640 "the ancient lonely farmhouses of New England." 1569 01:25:06,684 --> 01:25:08,555 And this is a story that concludes 1570 01:25:08,599 --> 01:25:11,471 with this incredibly tense and sort of horrific revelation 1571 01:25:11,515 --> 01:25:14,953 of pagan ritual and cannibalistic practices, 1572 01:25:14,996 --> 01:25:17,433 which have been, of course this is Lovecraft, 1573 01:25:17,477 --> 01:25:21,525 imported overseas to a New England rural setting. 1574 01:25:29,620 --> 01:25:31,143 - Alright, fellas. 1575 01:25:34,146 --> 01:25:35,930 - [Mariano] To me the real sort of like 1576 01:25:35,974 --> 01:25:40,979 proto folk horror tale is Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." 1577 01:25:42,502 --> 01:25:43,590 - [Bernice] Acts of communal togetherness 1578 01:25:43,634 --> 01:25:45,374 in Shirley Jackson's work 1579 01:25:45,418 --> 01:25:47,289 actually relatively often involve mob violence 1580 01:25:47,333 --> 01:25:49,857 or the fear of mob violence. 1581 01:25:49,901 --> 01:25:51,772 - It's Tessie. 1582 01:25:51,816 --> 01:25:54,166 - I think it could be argued that her close-knit, 1583 01:25:54,209 --> 01:25:56,472 rural communities are never more united 1584 01:25:56,516 --> 01:25:59,954 than when they close ranks against an outsider. 1585 01:25:59,998 --> 01:26:01,869 This is very much the case, of course, 1586 01:26:01,913 --> 01:26:04,003 in her final novel, "We Have Always Lived in the Castle," 1587 01:26:04,046 --> 01:26:06,396 but you know, most famously of all in "The Lottery," 1588 01:26:06,440 --> 01:26:09,312 where the ultimately sort of sacrificial victim, 1589 01:26:09,356 --> 01:26:11,880 Tessie Hutchinson, becomes a symbolic outsider 1590 01:26:11,924 --> 01:26:14,883 through this random act of selection. 1591 01:26:14,927 --> 01:26:16,972 But as critics such as, for instance, 1592 01:26:17,016 --> 01:26:19,801 a guy called Fritz Oehlschlaeger who was writing in 1988 1593 01:26:19,845 --> 01:26:22,978 have pointed out, Tessie's fate is actually 1594 01:26:23,022 --> 01:26:26,068 potentially telegraphed by her name. 1595 01:26:26,112 --> 01:26:30,856 In 1637, a woman named Anne Hutchinson was forcibly expelled 1596 01:26:30,899 --> 01:26:34,990 from the Massachusetts colony for her antinomian beliefs. 1597 01:26:35,034 --> 01:26:37,863 And so Hutchinson is a name associated 1598 01:26:37,906 --> 01:26:39,821 with female rebellion and punishment 1599 01:26:39,865 --> 01:26:42,824 within the wider context of New England history. 1600 01:26:42,868 --> 01:26:45,522 So, whilst the ritual carried out at the climax 1601 01:26:45,566 --> 01:26:47,568 of "The Lottery" might seem to have little 1602 01:26:47,612 --> 01:26:49,657 initial connection to Christianity, 1603 01:26:49,701 --> 01:26:53,356 both the method of execution, which is of course stoning, 1604 01:26:53,400 --> 01:26:56,098 and the name of the scapegoat, Hutchinson, 1605 01:26:56,142 --> 01:26:58,579 suggests this link between pagan ritual 1606 01:26:58,623 --> 01:27:02,365 and the Christian appropriation of such rights. 1607 01:27:02,409 --> 01:27:03,932 - There's always been a lottery. 1608 01:27:03,976 --> 01:27:06,892 [mysterious music] 1609 01:27:13,463 --> 01:27:14,551 - Is this your land? 1610 01:27:14,595 --> 01:27:15,944 - Yeah. 1611 01:27:15,988 --> 01:27:17,380 - How come you don't use machinery? 1612 01:27:17,424 --> 01:27:18,773 - Against the ways. 1613 01:27:18,817 --> 01:27:19,948 - Religious ways? 1614 01:27:19,992 --> 01:27:22,211 - Nah, just tradition. 1615 01:27:22,255 --> 01:27:26,041 - [Andy] There would be films such as the television serial 1616 01:27:26,085 --> 01:27:30,132 of Thomas Tryon's "Harvest Home," which was given the name 1617 01:27:30,176 --> 01:27:34,397 of "The Dark Secret of Harvest Home," featuring Bette Davis. 1618 01:27:34,441 --> 01:27:36,225 ♪ Glory 1619 01:27:36,269 --> 01:27:37,966 - [Bernice] Thomas Tryon's novel "Harvest Home" 1620 01:27:38,010 --> 01:27:40,708 is set in an ancient New English village, 1621 01:27:40,752 --> 01:27:42,797 as it's called in the novel, whose residents, 1622 01:27:42,841 --> 01:27:45,408 like Shirley Jackson's timefolk in "The Lottery," 1623 01:27:45,452 --> 01:27:48,890 have a very unusual way of ensuring a good harvest. 1624 01:27:48,934 --> 01:27:53,590 - And so it will continue forever, the eternal return. 1625 01:27:53,634 --> 01:27:55,984 [bells ringing] [ominous music] 1626 01:27:56,028 --> 01:27:58,073 - [Bernice] I would argue that Tryon's novel can be read 1627 01:27:58,117 --> 01:27:59,945 in part as a kind of reflection 1628 01:27:59,988 --> 01:28:03,731 of contemporary male anxiety about the rise of feminism. 1629 01:28:03,775 --> 01:28:06,604 We're talkin' about the early 1970s here, after all. 1630 01:28:06,648 --> 01:28:08,476 At the climax of the novel, 1631 01:28:08,519 --> 01:28:11,000 the family breadwinner ends up thoroughly emasculated 1632 01:28:11,044 --> 01:28:13,089 both literally and thematically. 1633 01:28:13,133 --> 01:28:14,656 And of course the women in his life, 1634 01:28:14,700 --> 01:28:16,789 his wife and his daughter, both end up 1635 01:28:16,832 --> 01:28:20,444 very happily embracing the old matriarchal ways. 1636 01:28:20,488 --> 01:28:23,186 [group chanting] 1637 01:28:23,230 --> 01:28:26,407 [dramatic rock music] 1638 01:28:28,191 --> 01:28:31,107 - The time when folk horror was having its first wave 1639 01:28:31,151 --> 01:28:33,719 in the '70s, also coincided with a time when a lot 1640 01:28:33,762 --> 01:28:36,286 of alternative religions were forming communities. 1641 01:28:36,330 --> 01:28:39,028 - [Religious Leader] If what I have to say to you is true, 1642 01:28:39,072 --> 01:28:43,250 you see where being in such a family benefits you. 1643 01:28:45,034 --> 01:28:46,949 - [Bernice] Utopianism is embedded in the very fabric 1644 01:28:46,993 --> 01:28:49,386 of the American dream, and these kinds 1645 01:28:49,430 --> 01:28:51,998 of commune experiments flourished in the United States 1646 01:28:52,041 --> 01:28:53,390 as they did nowhere else. 1647 01:28:53,434 --> 01:28:56,350 [women crying out] 1648 01:29:08,928 --> 01:29:10,799 - "Midsommar" is set in Scandinavia, 1649 01:29:10,843 --> 01:29:13,236 but it's an American film and it's deeply informed 1650 01:29:13,280 --> 01:29:17,197 by the anxiety around cults in America. 1651 01:29:17,240 --> 01:29:18,807 The conflict isn't really between 1652 01:29:18,851 --> 01:29:20,983 like a new religion and an old religion 1653 01:29:21,027 --> 01:29:23,507 as much as it's about societal norms, 1654 01:29:23,551 --> 01:29:26,510 about intimacy and support and grieving, 1655 01:29:26,554 --> 01:29:30,688 and the way that modern society does not really 1656 01:29:30,732 --> 01:29:34,214 leave space and time for people to grieve properly. 1657 01:29:34,257 --> 01:29:38,218 [singing in foreign language] 1658 01:29:38,261 --> 01:29:40,350 You have this older community 1659 01:29:40,394 --> 01:29:42,048 that is a more nurturing community 1660 01:29:42,091 --> 01:29:44,702 and a more welcoming and supportive community, 1661 01:29:44,746 --> 01:29:48,010 and I think that's still the reason why people join cults, 1662 01:29:48,054 --> 01:29:50,839 you know, is because the modern world 1663 01:29:50,883 --> 01:29:52,710 does not really leave enough space 1664 01:29:52,754 --> 01:29:55,452 for us to experience a connection. 1665 01:29:55,496 --> 01:29:59,326 [singing in foreign language] 1666 01:30:04,113 --> 01:30:06,247 - And I dedicated my life to God. 1667 01:30:06,290 --> 01:30:08,031 Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. 1668 01:30:08,075 --> 01:30:10,468 Only because she believed! 1669 01:30:10,512 --> 01:30:13,036 - The interesting thing about cults in North America 1670 01:30:13,080 --> 01:30:15,952 is that most of them are actually different iterations 1671 01:30:15,996 --> 01:30:18,955 of Christianity, so it's not like with British folk horror 1672 01:30:18,999 --> 01:30:21,131 where you have Christian religions, 1673 01:30:21,175 --> 01:30:23,873 which are considered the more contemporary modern religions, 1674 01:30:23,917 --> 01:30:26,441 and the older pagan religions. 1675 01:30:26,484 --> 01:30:28,486 In a lot of the American folk horror films, 1676 01:30:28,530 --> 01:30:30,924 it's actually weird Christians. 1677 01:30:30,967 --> 01:30:33,883 [gentle folk rock music] 1678 01:30:33,927 --> 01:30:37,408 ♪ It's been written in the Book of Revelation ♪ 1679 01:30:37,452 --> 01:30:41,238 ♪ You can hear it if you open your ears ♪ 1680 01:30:41,282 --> 01:30:42,892 ♪ He's gonna tell you all 1681 01:30:42,936 --> 01:30:44,894 ♪ Just what you are 1682 01:30:44,938 --> 01:30:48,767 ♪ Gonna get you in your hidden fears ♪ 1683 01:30:48,811 --> 01:30:52,423 ♪ Oh the cycles of the end are showin' ♪ 1684 01:30:52,467 --> 01:30:56,253 ♪ As was written years ago 1685 01:30:56,297 --> 01:30:59,778 ♪ And you know your lives are gettin' harder ♪ 1686 01:30:59,822 --> 01:31:03,870 ♪ Without Christ you don't know where to go ♪ 1687 01:31:03,913 --> 01:31:06,568 [ominous music] 1688 01:31:08,396 --> 01:31:09,963 - So this archaic way of life, 1689 01:31:10,006 --> 01:31:12,095 this devotion to the old ways, 1690 01:31:12,139 --> 01:31:15,098 I think evokes very strongly parallels with religious sects 1691 01:31:15,142 --> 01:31:17,622 such as the Amish and the Mennonites. 1692 01:31:17,666 --> 01:31:19,973 I think there's definitely a sort of a conflation 1693 01:31:20,016 --> 01:31:22,627 and a correlation happening here between fears 1694 01:31:22,671 --> 01:31:25,456 of dangerous sort of rogue cults, 1695 01:31:25,500 --> 01:31:27,458 an uncertainty about isolated 1696 01:31:27,502 --> 01:31:30,940 but obviously pacifist communities like the Amish. 1697 01:31:30,984 --> 01:31:33,029 I think there's a real anxiety here about what happens 1698 01:31:33,073 --> 01:31:35,292 when those kinds of people being kind of rural, 1699 01:31:35,336 --> 01:31:38,513 religious fundamentalists are left to their own devices, 1700 01:31:38,556 --> 01:31:41,385 a suspicion about, you know, what will they get up to 1701 01:31:41,429 --> 01:31:45,520 when they're left on their own with no external oversight? 1702 01:31:45,563 --> 01:31:48,479 - It inevitably made its way into these films. 1703 01:31:48,523 --> 01:31:50,351 You know, especially when you've got 1704 01:31:50,394 --> 01:31:52,831 a lot of these communities moving into rural areas, 1705 01:31:52,875 --> 01:31:56,835 it becomes very tied in with the tropes and imagery 1706 01:31:56,879 --> 01:31:59,316 that we associate with folk horror. 1707 01:31:59,360 --> 01:32:03,190 - Behold, a dream did come to me in the night, 1708 01:32:05,105 --> 01:32:07,978 and the Lord did show all this to me. 1709 01:32:08,022 --> 01:32:11,155 - [Group] Praise God! Praise the Lord! 1710 01:32:11,199 --> 01:32:12,678 - [Kevin] Also, in "Children of the Corn," 1711 01:32:12,722 --> 01:32:14,550 the fact that they are a Christian religion 1712 01:32:14,593 --> 01:32:17,988 with Isaac altering the Bible based on dreams he had 1713 01:32:18,032 --> 01:32:19,772 is very reminiscent of Mormonism, 1714 01:32:19,816 --> 01:32:21,992 the way that they are Christians with Joseph Smith 1715 01:32:22,036 --> 01:32:24,516 publishing the Book of Mormon as a companion piece 1716 01:32:24,560 --> 01:32:28,216 to the Bible, claiming that he was shown the location 1717 01:32:28,259 --> 01:32:31,349 of ancient writings on golden plates 1718 01:32:31,393 --> 01:32:34,874 during a visit from an angel of God named Moroni. 1719 01:32:34,918 --> 01:32:36,354 - [Dennis] I think people are also 1720 01:32:36,398 --> 01:32:37,921 frightened by fundamentalism. 1721 01:32:37,965 --> 01:32:39,531 - [Kevin] If you look at Isaac and Malachi. 1722 01:32:39,575 --> 01:32:40,706 and you look at the way they're dressed 1723 01:32:40,750 --> 01:32:41,881 and you look in the town, 1724 01:32:41,925 --> 01:32:43,753 they don't allow games anymore 1725 01:32:43,796 --> 01:32:45,407 and they don't have any televisions anymore 1726 01:32:45,450 --> 01:32:47,235 and they don't have any telephones anymore. 1727 01:32:47,278 --> 01:32:49,411 It's all about the crop and they don't have 1728 01:32:49,454 --> 01:32:51,021 any of these modern conveniences. 1729 01:32:51,065 --> 01:32:52,892 [ominous music] 1730 01:32:52,936 --> 01:32:55,765 - It does reflect a lot of the anxieties that people have 1731 01:32:55,808 --> 01:32:58,898 about what people do sacrifice when they go 1732 01:32:58,942 --> 01:33:00,813 into these communities. 1733 01:33:02,685 --> 01:33:04,469 - You know, that's really going on. 1734 01:33:04,513 --> 01:33:06,384 I mean, it's like, it starts with the poisoning 1735 01:33:06,428 --> 01:33:07,951 of the coffee pot. 1736 01:33:07,995 --> 01:33:09,909 Before they started shooting that, like, 1737 01:33:09,953 --> 01:33:13,087 people were dying because of poison Kool-Aid. 1738 01:33:13,130 --> 01:33:15,611 - These references to Jonestown in Stephen King's 1739 01:33:15,654 --> 01:33:18,048 "Children of the Corn" are, I think, directly tied 1740 01:33:18,092 --> 01:33:20,224 to this foundational horror of the colony 1741 01:33:20,268 --> 01:33:23,575 that sort of splits off and self-destructs. 1742 01:33:23,619 --> 01:33:26,926 So, religious migration to escape perceived persecution 1743 01:33:26,970 --> 01:33:28,102 was really nothing new at all, 1744 01:33:28,145 --> 01:33:29,625 even when the Puritans did it, 1745 01:33:29,668 --> 01:33:31,453 and it is a journey that I think 1746 01:33:31,496 --> 01:33:35,283 in many respects Jonestown replicated as well. 1747 01:33:37,024 --> 01:33:39,417 The Peoples Temple French Guiana was actually 1748 01:33:39,461 --> 01:33:42,464 one of the sites that the Puritans had initially considered 1749 01:33:42,507 --> 01:33:45,249 going to before they decided upon New England 1750 01:33:45,293 --> 01:33:46,946 as their destination. 1751 01:33:46,990 --> 01:33:48,513 So, there's actually a really fascinating 1752 01:33:48,557 --> 01:33:50,820 coincidental overlap between the Puritans 1753 01:33:50,863 --> 01:33:54,171 and the Peoples Temple in this respect. 1754 01:33:54,215 --> 01:33:57,131 [insects chirping] 1755 01:34:05,139 --> 01:34:08,142 [women cooing] 1756 01:34:08,185 --> 01:34:12,190 - American prairie horror. You don't see it a lot. 1757 01:34:12,234 --> 01:34:16,107 When we're in a horror movie, it's usually that the walls 1758 01:34:16,151 --> 01:34:18,979 are coming in on us and that we're in this space 1759 01:34:19,023 --> 01:34:22,113 and we are so closed in and it's claustrophobic, 1760 01:34:22,157 --> 01:34:23,941 but with the prairie, 1761 01:34:25,334 --> 01:34:28,554 you can strangely have the same feeling 1762 01:34:29,903 --> 01:34:32,036 of this claustrophobia in this place 1763 01:34:32,080 --> 01:34:33,646 where you can see everything. 1764 01:34:33,690 --> 01:34:38,695 [wind howling] [eerie music] 1765 01:34:45,354 --> 01:34:47,486 [ominous music] 1766 01:34:47,530 --> 01:34:50,228 - [Kier-La] In 1973, Michael Lesy published the book 1767 01:34:50,272 --> 01:34:53,101 "Wisconsin Death Trip" fashioned entirely 1768 01:34:53,144 --> 01:34:56,016 out of 19th century photographs and newspaper reports 1769 01:34:56,060 --> 01:34:58,541 from the isolated community surrounding 1770 01:34:58,584 --> 01:35:01,500 a place called Black River Falls, Wisconsin. 1771 01:35:01,544 --> 01:35:04,155 And collectively they tell a story of crime, 1772 01:35:04,199 --> 01:35:07,245 death, and insanity that fuels this narrative 1773 01:35:07,289 --> 01:35:10,030 that isolation breeds sickness. 1774 01:35:10,074 --> 01:35:12,642 [somber music] 1775 01:35:16,820 --> 01:35:19,475 [ominous music] 1776 01:35:21,825 --> 01:35:24,219 - I lived in Ottawa, Kansas. 1777 01:35:24,262 --> 01:35:27,961 We joined a community supported agriculture garden. 1778 01:35:28,005 --> 01:35:32,052 I was out there one day with just a bunch of women 1779 01:35:32,096 --> 01:35:34,881 who were working in the garden and they kept talking to me 1780 01:35:34,925 --> 01:35:38,363 and asking me questions, and we're in Kansas, 1781 01:35:38,407 --> 01:35:42,062 it's very flat, and the wind is just insane that day, 1782 01:35:42,106 --> 01:35:43,977 and I couldn't hear anything. 1783 01:35:44,021 --> 01:35:45,979 One of the women like links arms with me and she's like, 1784 01:35:46,023 --> 01:35:48,199 "You know it used to drive women crazy." 1785 01:35:48,243 --> 01:35:51,071 [women howling] 1786 01:35:51,115 --> 01:35:52,595 And I asked her, "What did?" 1787 01:35:52,638 --> 01:35:54,074 And she said, "The wind, 1788 01:35:54,118 --> 01:35:55,989 it used to drive women crazy out here." 1789 01:35:56,033 --> 01:35:58,296 [Lizzy chattering] - Hey, Lizzy. English! 1790 01:35:58,340 --> 01:36:00,646 - One of the things that Teresa was referencing 1791 01:36:00,690 --> 01:36:04,084 when she wrote the script is a book called "Pioneer Women," 1792 01:36:04,128 --> 01:36:07,740 and a lot of those women were coming from other countries. 1793 01:36:07,784 --> 01:36:10,396 A lot of people settling at that time were immigrants, 1794 01:36:10,440 --> 01:36:13,182 in this case from Germany. 1795 01:36:13,225 --> 01:36:15,140 There would have been a whole other like batch 1796 01:36:15,184 --> 01:36:18,230 of both spirituality and religious beliefs 1797 01:36:18,274 --> 01:36:20,624 that she was coming with in prayers as well 1798 01:36:20,667 --> 01:36:23,279 as maybe some folklore as well. 1799 01:36:25,019 --> 01:36:27,500 - [Woman] This land there's something wrong with it. 1800 01:36:27,544 --> 01:36:28,327 [wind howls] [door bangs] 1801 01:36:28,371 --> 01:36:31,069 [woman screams] 1802 01:36:38,337 --> 01:36:42,123 ♪ There's blood in the kitchen 1803 01:36:42,167 --> 01:36:47,172 ♪ And there's blood in the hall ♪ 1804 01:36:48,913 --> 01:36:52,438 ♪ And there's blood in the parlor ♪ 1805 01:36:52,482 --> 01:36:57,487 ♪ Where the lady did fall 1806 01:36:59,358 --> 01:37:03,493 ♪ And lambkin is a-hangin' on the high gallows tree ♪ 1807 01:37:08,541 --> 01:37:13,546 ♪ And the nurse is a-burnin' in the fire close by ♪ 1808 01:37:18,595 --> 01:37:23,600 ♪ Oh the death bell is a-knelling for lady and baby ♪ 1809 01:37:28,518 --> 01:37:33,523 ♪ And the green grass is a-growin' all over they ♪ 1810 01:37:37,875 --> 01:37:40,530 [ominous music] 1811 01:37:42,532 --> 01:37:44,882 - [Bernice] Many of the settlers who came to Appalachia 1812 01:37:44,925 --> 01:37:49,016 and associated frontier regions during this fourth big wave 1813 01:37:49,060 --> 01:37:51,541 of British migration came from areas 1814 01:37:51,584 --> 01:37:54,587 like the Scottish borders, or they were descendants 1815 01:37:54,631 --> 01:37:58,504 of Scottish Presbyterian planters whose family 1816 01:37:58,548 --> 01:38:00,724 had originally several generations back settled 1817 01:38:00,767 --> 01:38:04,510 in the east or the north of Ireland. 1818 01:38:04,554 --> 01:38:07,078 They tended to be independently minded. 1819 01:38:07,121 --> 01:38:08,601 They tended to be very resilient. 1820 01:38:08,645 --> 01:38:10,429 They tended to be very adaptable. 1821 01:38:10,473 --> 01:38:14,129 - These people were wanting to pull themselves away 1822 01:38:14,173 --> 01:38:16,784 from the mainstream of what had become 1823 01:38:16,828 --> 01:38:19,047 of their culture at the time. 1824 01:38:19,091 --> 01:38:22,312 - Low income is not what we are. We're poor people. 1825 01:38:22,355 --> 01:38:26,228 I think low income is people that maybe has a way 1826 01:38:26,272 --> 01:38:29,449 of just gettin' by, but poor people is the ones 1827 01:38:29,493 --> 01:38:34,411 that don't know where the next dollar's comin' from. 1828 01:38:34,454 --> 01:38:36,587 - Some of the ways in which these Appalachian communities 1829 01:38:36,630 --> 01:38:38,806 differed from the dominant settler culture 1830 01:38:38,850 --> 01:38:43,594 was because they were an essentially classless society. 1831 01:38:43,637 --> 01:38:45,944 They had a lack of respect or interest 1832 01:38:45,987 --> 01:38:48,555 in centralized authority, and they tended to live 1833 01:38:48,599 --> 01:38:51,079 in insular close-knit family groups 1834 01:38:51,123 --> 01:38:53,734 rather than in these larger settlements. 1835 01:38:53,778 --> 01:38:56,607 There sort of arose this perception that they clung 1836 01:38:56,650 --> 01:38:59,305 to what you might call the old ways, 1837 01:38:59,349 --> 01:39:01,438 that they were intensely superstitious, 1838 01:39:01,481 --> 01:39:03,744 that they preferred the sort out blood feuds 1839 01:39:03,788 --> 01:39:07,139 between themselves without recourse to the law. 1840 01:39:07,182 --> 01:39:09,097 And this is of course a perception 1841 01:39:09,141 --> 01:39:12,187 that really lingers to this day. 1842 01:39:12,231 --> 01:39:15,669 ♪ While the women plows and makes the corn ♪ 1843 01:39:15,713 --> 01:39:18,629 ♪ And the man shoots turkey and deer ♪ 1844 01:39:18,672 --> 01:39:21,153 - Look upon the face of Death, 1845 01:39:22,546 --> 01:39:24,809 never feel your baby's breath. 1846 01:39:24,852 --> 01:39:26,288 - Cassie, stop it. 1847 01:39:26,332 --> 01:39:28,769 - Look upon the face of Death, 1848 01:39:28,813 --> 01:39:31,381 never feel your baby's breath. 1849 01:39:31,424 --> 01:39:33,687 - [Kier-La] Earl Hammer, Jr. who created "The Waltons" 1850 01:39:33,731 --> 01:39:36,386 was a great proponent of putting Appalachian culture 1851 01:39:36,429 --> 01:39:39,040 and folklore on screen, and in addition to a couple 1852 01:39:39,084 --> 01:39:40,868 of "Waltons" episodes that get into the realm 1853 01:39:40,912 --> 01:39:43,044 of folk horror, he also wrote a beloved 1854 01:39:43,088 --> 01:39:45,307 "Twilight Zone" episode called "Jess-Belle" 1855 01:39:45,351 --> 01:39:47,614 about a woman who makes a deal with the local witch 1856 01:39:47,658 --> 01:39:50,443 to ensnare the man who rejected her. 1857 01:39:50,487 --> 01:39:51,966 [mysterious music] 1858 01:39:52,010 --> 01:39:55,970 - My mama says that when you see a fallin' star 1859 01:39:56,014 --> 01:39:58,973 it means a witch has just died. 1860 01:39:59,017 --> 01:40:01,323 [eerie music] 1861 01:40:01,367 --> 01:40:04,370 - There's a really great use of those kinds 1862 01:40:04,414 --> 01:40:06,981 of rural folk legends that you get in Appalachia 1863 01:40:07,025 --> 01:40:09,810 and more distant parts of America. 1864 01:40:09,854 --> 01:40:11,682 There's a writer called Manly Wade Welllman 1865 01:40:11,725 --> 01:40:14,512 who wrote a whole series of stories and books 1866 01:40:14,555 --> 01:40:16,644 about this guy called Silver John, 1867 01:40:16,688 --> 01:40:19,473 and he had a guitar with strings made of silver. 1868 01:40:19,517 --> 01:40:21,257 There was a guy wanderin' around the countryside 1869 01:40:21,301 --> 01:40:23,085 getting involved in various adventures that always 1870 01:40:23,129 --> 01:40:25,653 seemed to involve local folk legends and things. 1871 01:40:25,697 --> 01:40:28,351 [bird squawking] 1872 01:40:28,395 --> 01:40:33,400 [mysterious music] [bird squawking] 1873 01:40:36,577 --> 01:40:39,537 [suspenseful music] 1874 01:40:41,321 --> 01:40:43,192 - [Jonathan] The American film "The Fool Killer" 1875 01:40:43,236 --> 01:40:47,458 was referred to in 1965 as an "offbeat folk-horror film." 1876 01:40:48,894 --> 01:40:50,678 - Almost think you believe that story. 1877 01:40:50,722 --> 01:40:51,897 - Ain't you never felt like there was some sort of somethin' 1878 01:40:51,940 --> 01:40:53,855 like the Fool Killer? 1879 01:40:53,899 --> 01:40:55,291 Ain't you never done things you knowed 1880 01:40:55,335 --> 01:40:56,858 was just plain foolish and felt like 1881 01:40:56,902 --> 01:40:58,860 you was gonna have to pay the price? 1882 01:40:58,904 --> 01:41:01,210 - [Kier-La] "The Fool Killer" movie was directly based 1883 01:41:01,254 --> 01:41:04,736 on a novel by Helen Eustis, but its central character, 1884 01:41:04,779 --> 01:41:08,870 a roving philosophical murderer who rids the world of fools, 1885 01:41:08,914 --> 01:41:11,699 he had become a fixture of Appalachian and Southern folklore 1886 01:41:11,743 --> 01:41:14,963 in the late 19th century, and his enduring appeal 1887 01:41:15,007 --> 01:41:19,446 possibly due to the fact that he's an outcast from society 1888 01:41:19,490 --> 01:41:21,317 and considered a fool himself, 1889 01:41:21,361 --> 01:41:23,929 but he turns the tables on the dominant culture 1890 01:41:23,972 --> 01:41:27,454 that rejects him and so he becomes kind of an antihero. 1891 01:41:27,498 --> 01:41:29,543 - I'm a man who's got no history. 1892 01:41:29,587 --> 01:41:31,893 I like to eat when I'm hungry, 1893 01:41:31,937 --> 01:41:35,244 talk to folks when I want to and not when I don't. 1894 01:41:35,288 --> 01:41:36,768 And see the world. 1895 01:41:38,160 --> 01:41:39,640 Strange cities and strange houses 1896 01:41:39,684 --> 01:41:41,250 is the place of my enemies, George. 1897 01:41:41,294 --> 01:41:43,296 [soft ominous music] 1898 01:41:43,339 --> 01:41:45,559 - [Kier-La] Folk horror expresses an ambivalence 1899 01:41:45,603 --> 01:41:48,344 about progress, and so often in these films, 1900 01:41:48,388 --> 01:41:49,824 through the production design, 1901 01:41:49,868 --> 01:41:52,261 the old dialects and stuff, you get the idea 1902 01:41:52,305 --> 01:41:55,177 that this culture is just holding on for dear life. 1903 01:41:55,221 --> 01:41:56,048 - No. 1904 01:41:57,528 --> 01:41:59,965 - I know who the next jug face is. 1905 01:42:03,316 --> 01:42:04,970 And it's me. 1906 01:42:05,013 --> 01:42:06,841 [woman cries out] 1907 01:42:06,885 --> 01:42:08,626 - [Kier-La] And so, so many of these stories 1908 01:42:08,669 --> 01:42:12,760 are about sacrifice and protagonists who are resistant 1909 01:42:12,804 --> 01:42:16,765 to the sacrifice necessary to keep the culture alive. 1910 01:42:16,809 --> 01:42:19,507 [ominous music] 1911 01:42:21,204 --> 01:42:23,293 - I think of things like "Pumpkinhead" where, you know, 1912 01:42:23,337 --> 01:42:25,382 it's very specific to that region. 1913 01:42:25,426 --> 01:42:27,297 So I think that also plays a big part in it, 1914 01:42:27,341 --> 01:42:28,821 is kind of where it's set and the method of the people 1915 01:42:28,864 --> 01:42:31,693 that live in that community. 1916 01:42:31,737 --> 01:42:32,868 - What killed him? 1917 01:42:32,912 --> 01:42:35,001 - City folks. Run him over. 1918 01:42:35,044 --> 01:42:37,177 Lookin' for an old woman. 1919 01:42:38,874 --> 01:42:40,354 She lives somewhere in the mountains here abouts. 1920 01:42:40,397 --> 01:42:43,705 [suspenseful music] 1921 01:42:43,749 --> 01:42:45,968 - "Deliverance" probably brought that in 1922 01:42:46,012 --> 01:42:48,623 actually the sort of idea of the stereotype 1923 01:42:48,667 --> 01:42:50,494 of the hillbilly. 1924 01:42:50,538 --> 01:42:52,496 And so, we started to see this sort of different idea 1925 01:42:52,540 --> 01:42:55,195 of what the South was like. 1926 01:42:55,238 --> 01:42:57,632 - [Bernice] So the early 1970s was very much a period, 1927 01:42:57,676 --> 01:42:59,982 particularly on the American cinema screen, 1928 01:43:00,026 --> 01:43:02,985 where you had these kinds of backwoods anxieties 1929 01:43:03,029 --> 01:43:05,553 manifesting themself very openly on screen, 1930 01:43:05,597 --> 01:43:07,337 but really these films were tapping in 1931 01:43:07,381 --> 01:43:11,385 to very long established stereotypes about degeneracy, 1932 01:43:11,428 --> 01:43:14,170 particularly amongst Southern hill folk. 1933 01:43:14,214 --> 01:43:16,738 Between 1880 and around 1820, 1934 01:43:16,782 --> 01:43:19,698 the so-called Eugenics Record Office, the ERO, 1935 01:43:19,741 --> 01:43:22,744 produced a series of eugenic family studies. 1936 01:43:22,788 --> 01:43:24,877 And what they wanted to do here was demonstrate 1937 01:43:24,920 --> 01:43:27,923 that large numbers of particularly poverty-stricken 1938 01:43:27,967 --> 01:43:31,710 rural whites were so-called genetic defectives. 1939 01:43:31,753 --> 01:43:33,363 And according to this logic, 1940 01:43:33,407 --> 01:43:35,365 the stagnation, the decrepitude, 1941 01:43:35,409 --> 01:43:37,193 the poverty of their surroundings 1942 01:43:37,237 --> 01:43:40,240 and the proximity of the wilderness had bred in them 1943 01:43:40,283 --> 01:43:42,721 this kind of dangerous primitivism 1944 01:43:42,764 --> 01:43:45,680 which could erupt into violence at any time. 1945 01:43:45,724 --> 01:43:47,377 [man squealing] 1946 01:43:47,421 --> 01:43:51,120 - All the salt marshes around here are rotten 1947 01:43:51,164 --> 01:43:55,124 and it gets worse the further down you go. 1948 01:43:55,168 --> 01:43:59,738 - The film is basically set in sort of a backwater town 1949 01:44:01,435 --> 01:44:04,568 that's almost impossible to get to 1950 01:44:04,612 --> 01:44:06,658 except by this old rickety bus. 1951 01:44:06,701 --> 01:44:09,748 - Those people, oh God, those people. 1952 01:44:10,923 --> 01:44:12,968 Nobody like those people. 1953 01:44:13,012 --> 01:44:14,927 It's the way they look. 1954 01:44:16,015 --> 01:44:18,366 They call it the Astaroth look. 1955 01:44:19,802 --> 01:44:21,630 - H.P. Lovecraft of course was huge 1956 01:44:21,674 --> 01:44:25,242 and "Shadow Over Innsmouth" was a big, big influence 1957 01:44:25,286 --> 01:44:28,681 not only because of the remote small town 1958 01:44:30,117 --> 01:44:31,901 that it takes place in, 1959 01:44:31,945 --> 01:44:35,600 but the whole idea of people going under a transformation. 1960 01:44:35,644 --> 01:44:38,299 [ominous music] 1961 01:44:39,779 --> 01:44:42,303 - Just the idea of these poor backwoods people 1962 01:44:42,346 --> 01:44:45,828 cut off from the rest of the world is I think an example 1963 01:44:45,872 --> 01:44:50,093 of kind of what happened after the Civil War 1964 01:44:50,137 --> 01:44:53,749 with, you know, just how it was devastated financially. 1965 01:44:53,793 --> 01:44:57,100 ♪ There's a story you should know from a hundred years ago ♪ 1966 01:44:57,144 --> 01:45:00,321 ♪ And a hundred years we've waited now to tell ♪ 1967 01:45:00,364 --> 01:45:03,454 ♪ Now the Yankees come along and they'll listen to this song ♪ 1968 01:45:03,498 --> 01:45:06,675 ♪ And they'll quake in fear to hear this rebel yell ♪ 1969 01:45:06,719 --> 01:45:10,287 ♪ And they'll quake in fear to hear this rebel yell ♪ 1970 01:45:10,331 --> 01:45:13,203 ♪ Yeehaw 1971 01:45:13,247 --> 01:45:16,163 ♪ Oh, the South's gonna rise again ♪ 1972 01:45:16,206 --> 01:45:18,208 You can't really talk about the South 1973 01:45:18,252 --> 01:45:20,820 without having a little bit of a trickle in 1974 01:45:20,863 --> 01:45:23,561 of the effects of the Civil War. 1975 01:45:25,738 --> 01:45:27,304 - [Bernice] This perception that the South 1976 01:45:27,348 --> 01:45:30,525 had been left behind was exacerbated by the fact 1977 01:45:30,568 --> 01:45:34,964 that it actually had a very considerable basis in reality. 1978 01:45:35,008 --> 01:45:37,140 The poverty of the rural South, 1979 01:45:37,184 --> 01:45:40,143 it wasn't just some kind of theoretical abstraction. 1980 01:45:40,187 --> 01:45:42,798 It was something that affected the lives of ordinary people 1981 01:45:42,842 --> 01:45:46,019 in a myriad of ways, every single day of their lives. 1982 01:45:46,062 --> 01:45:49,065 [bucket clattering] 1983 01:45:50,850 --> 01:45:52,677 - Even things like, I think, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" 1984 01:45:52,721 --> 01:45:56,377 can certainly be placed within the realms of folk horror. 1985 01:45:56,420 --> 01:45:57,900 - You like this face? 1986 01:45:57,944 --> 01:46:00,511 [woman screams] 1987 01:46:00,555 --> 01:46:03,253 - You get this idea that people are on the land 1988 01:46:03,297 --> 01:46:07,823 for so long that something happens to the family unit 1989 01:46:07,867 --> 01:46:12,045 where there's this idea of corruption and cruelty, 1990 01:46:12,088 --> 01:46:14,264 where there's this sense that family 1991 01:46:14,308 --> 01:46:17,833 is not a place of love and warmth, 1992 01:46:17,877 --> 01:46:21,925 but a place where a lot of dark secrets are concealed 1993 01:46:21,969 --> 01:46:26,364 and people's violent natures are given free reign. 1994 01:46:26,408 --> 01:46:28,802 [door slams] 1995 01:46:30,281 --> 01:46:32,849 - [Booker T] I was born and raised here 1996 01:46:32,893 --> 01:46:35,025 and my daddy before me. 1997 01:46:35,069 --> 01:46:40,074 I seen things in these woods no man's supposed to see. 1998 01:46:41,510 --> 01:46:43,773 And I know things no man's supposed to know. 1999 01:46:45,253 --> 01:46:48,299 These woods can be a strange place. 2000 01:46:48,343 --> 01:46:50,911 [gentle music] 2001 01:46:52,434 --> 01:46:54,653 - In many ways, folk horror arises 2002 01:46:54,697 --> 01:46:57,743 out of the gothic itself and particularly Southern Gothic. 2003 01:46:57,787 --> 01:47:02,574 Southern Gothic rose out of Reconstruction anxieties, 2004 01:47:02,618 --> 01:47:06,230 the sense that the South, despite being devastated, 2005 01:47:06,274 --> 01:47:08,406 has supposedly been caught up to the rest 2006 01:47:08,450 --> 01:47:12,062 of the nation's industry through government legislation, 2007 01:47:12,106 --> 01:47:15,805 and that it's been caught up to the nation's racial ideas, 2008 01:47:15,849 --> 01:47:19,156 again through government legislation. 2009 01:47:19,200 --> 01:47:22,507 What we see in the Southern Gothic as an anxiety 2010 01:47:22,551 --> 01:47:26,947 that perhaps this progress isn't progress at all. 2011 01:47:26,990 --> 01:47:30,907 Perhaps it's as horrible as the old ways. 2012 01:47:30,951 --> 01:47:33,475 Equally problematic when we think about writers 2013 01:47:33,518 --> 01:47:37,087 such as Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner. 2014 01:47:37,131 --> 01:47:39,307 Perhaps all of it is pretension. 2015 01:47:39,350 --> 01:47:42,527 Perhaps the old genteel ways were horrible, 2016 01:47:42,571 --> 01:47:44,834 not just to people of color, 2017 01:47:44,878 --> 01:47:48,272 but to whites of lower class standing. 2018 01:47:48,316 --> 01:47:53,321 Perhaps that gentile nature merely meant hiding the horror, 2019 01:47:55,149 --> 01:47:59,022 ignoring it and masking it as something beautiful and kind. 2020 01:48:00,328 --> 01:48:02,199 But maybe modernization and industry 2021 01:48:02,243 --> 01:48:05,681 is equally horrible and alienating. 2022 01:48:05,724 --> 01:48:08,466 Maybe there's no winner on either side 2023 01:48:08,510 --> 01:48:11,861 and we're ultimately all monsters still. 2024 01:48:24,266 --> 01:48:26,877 [record crackling] 2025 01:48:26,921 --> 01:48:28,835 - [Man] It is time, Lord. 2026 01:48:28,879 --> 01:48:31,926 From the dry dust out of these chains 2027 01:48:33,057 --> 01:48:34,885 from the Devil's house. 2028 01:48:34,929 --> 01:48:39,934 [eerie voice chattering] [mysterious music] 2029 01:48:53,817 --> 01:48:56,689 When the Devil's house takes me, out of- 2030 01:48:56,733 --> 01:48:59,083 [record scratches] 2031 01:48:59,127 --> 01:48:59,954 - Hey. 2032 01:49:01,433 --> 01:49:03,174 Just a local band. 2033 01:49:03,218 --> 01:49:04,959 [upbeat music] 2034 01:49:05,002 --> 01:49:07,091 - [Jesse] If you have stories that are taking place 2035 01:49:07,135 --> 01:49:10,181 down South, very often the regional specific elements 2036 01:49:10,225 --> 01:49:12,749 are either Voodoo or Hoodoo. 2037 01:49:12,792 --> 01:49:16,013 And one of the problems that filmmakers have experienced 2038 01:49:16,057 --> 01:49:18,450 over the years is being unable to distinguish 2039 01:49:18,494 --> 01:49:22,193 between Voodoo and Hoodoo, and they are very different. 2040 01:49:22,237 --> 01:49:24,108 - Voodoo's a religion. 2041 01:49:24,152 --> 01:49:26,371 Slaves brought it to Haiti from Africa. 2042 01:49:26,415 --> 01:49:28,460 They worship God, Heaven, Hell. 2043 01:49:28,504 --> 01:49:29,940 - How's Hoodoo different? 2044 01:49:29,984 --> 01:49:31,724 - It's magic, American folk magic. 2045 01:49:31,768 --> 01:49:32,943 God doesn't have much to do with it. 2046 01:49:32,987 --> 01:49:35,728 [soft tense music] 2047 01:49:35,772 --> 01:49:37,034 - When you talk about Hoodo, 2048 01:49:37,078 --> 01:49:38,905 what you're essentially talking about 2049 01:49:38,949 --> 01:49:42,083 is a magical folk practice that is often divorced 2050 01:49:42,126 --> 01:49:45,825 from religion, and as such, is also divorced 2051 01:49:45,869 --> 01:49:48,393 from the moral and ethical codes 2052 01:49:48,437 --> 01:49:50,787 that go along with religion. 2053 01:49:52,267 --> 01:49:55,661 - Some things are better left unsaid. 2054 01:49:55,705 --> 01:49:58,664 - I paid you a dollar, old woman. 2055 01:49:58,708 --> 01:50:00,362 Now tell my fortune. 2056 01:50:01,624 --> 01:50:04,670 [soft ominous music] 2057 01:50:13,810 --> 01:50:15,290 - [John] As Michelet said, 2058 01:50:15,333 --> 01:50:18,467 Jules Michilet wrote the book on sorcery, 2059 01:50:18,510 --> 01:50:20,947 witchcraft and sorcery is always the religion 2060 01:50:20,991 --> 01:50:22,863 of an oppressed people. 2061 01:50:24,822 --> 01:50:27,868 - Also, when we talk about Voodoo's role 2062 01:50:27,912 --> 01:50:30,262 in thinking about folk horror, 2063 01:50:30,306 --> 01:50:32,438 we're also talking about the haunting, again, 2064 01:50:32,482 --> 01:50:35,833 of slave history and more particularly slave rebellion. 2065 01:50:35,876 --> 01:50:38,836 [soft tense music] 2066 01:50:40,229 --> 01:50:43,971 This rebellion starts off deep in the forests 2067 01:50:44,015 --> 01:50:49,020 of Haiti's mountains in a remote location called Bois Caiman 2068 01:50:50,413 --> 01:50:53,329 and it's led by a Maroon leader named Boukman. 2069 01:50:55,418 --> 01:50:58,508 We trace the power of this rebellion, 2070 01:51:00,162 --> 01:51:02,468 its success and essentially the rise of Haiti 2071 01:51:02,512 --> 01:51:05,297 back to a Voodoo ceremony. 2072 01:51:05,341 --> 01:51:08,692 And what you see in much of the 19th century 2073 01:51:08,735 --> 01:51:12,652 is an anxiety around Voodoo and black practitioners 2074 01:51:12,696 --> 01:51:14,741 of Voodoo and mystical religious practices. 2075 01:51:14,785 --> 01:51:16,308 [rhythmic drum music] 2076 01:51:16,352 --> 01:51:19,006 - As sure as my name is Boris Karloff, 2077 01:51:19,050 --> 01:51:23,010 you will witness fantastic events in this thriller, 2078 01:51:23,054 --> 01:51:26,318 events as dark as the jungle where the Voodoo rights 2079 01:51:26,362 --> 01:51:29,843 and Voodoo drums were first seen and heard. 2080 01:51:29,887 --> 01:51:32,716 It may even lead you to wonder what you yourself 2081 01:51:32,759 --> 01:51:36,502 could accomplish with just an ordinary pin 2082 01:51:36,546 --> 01:51:38,678 and a doll shaped like someone 2083 01:51:38,722 --> 01:51:41,594 of whom you're not particularly fond. 2084 01:51:41,638 --> 01:51:46,338 [dramatic music] [flame crackling] 2085 01:51:46,382 --> 01:51:47,861 - So when we look, for instance, 2086 01:51:47,905 --> 01:51:51,604 at films like "White Zombie," "Owanga," 2087 01:51:51,648 --> 01:51:53,911 "I Walked With a Zombie," 2088 01:51:53,954 --> 01:51:58,045 "Voodoo Black Exorcist," we see in many cases 2089 01:51:58,089 --> 01:52:02,049 Voodoo represented, but divorced of its religion. 2090 01:52:02,093 --> 01:52:05,140 Instead what Voodoo becomes is an ominous sound 2091 01:52:05,183 --> 01:52:09,492 in the distance suggesting evil is beginning to rise 2092 01:52:11,015 --> 01:52:14,627 and make incursions upon proper white authority. 2093 01:52:16,629 --> 01:52:18,892 So, when we think about particularly the films coming out 2094 01:52:18,936 --> 01:52:21,547 in the late and mid-'80s such as 2095 01:52:21,591 --> 01:52:23,071 "The Serpent and the Rainbow," 2096 01:52:23,115 --> 01:52:25,073 "The Believers," and "Angel Heart," 2097 01:52:25,117 --> 01:52:28,642 it emphasizes it as a corruptive influence. 2098 01:52:30,122 --> 01:52:31,079 - [Airport Employee] Open this, please. 2099 01:52:31,123 --> 01:52:32,690 - Just personal items. 2100 01:52:35,258 --> 01:52:37,347 No need to look in there. 2101 01:52:39,131 --> 01:52:41,655 - [Maisha] And more importantly, a corruptive force 2102 01:52:41,699 --> 01:52:46,356 which can spread to and corrupt and contaminate the U.S. 2103 01:52:48,271 --> 01:52:49,794 - "The Believers," John Slessinger, 2104 01:52:49,837 --> 01:52:52,666 which is a film about the way Santeria 2105 01:52:52,710 --> 01:52:55,756 comes into a white American community. 2106 01:52:55,800 --> 01:52:59,978 They use African magic to create power and wealth. 2107 01:53:01,719 --> 01:53:03,503 But the interesting thing about "The Believers" 2108 01:53:03,547 --> 01:53:06,854 is that it was actually used by a drug running cult 2109 01:53:06,898 --> 01:53:08,421 as a training film. 2110 01:53:08,465 --> 01:53:10,771 So, it creates this strange loop whereby, 2111 01:53:10,815 --> 01:53:12,469 and this is another thing, that the cinema becomes part 2112 01:53:12,512 --> 01:53:14,862 of the mythology, too. 2113 01:53:14,906 --> 01:53:16,951 - [Man] Come with me. 2114 01:53:16,995 --> 01:53:19,389 Come with me and be immortal. 2115 01:53:23,175 --> 01:53:25,003 - [Woman] Candyman, huh? 2116 01:53:25,046 --> 01:53:26,831 - Yes. Have you heard of him? 2117 01:53:26,874 --> 01:53:30,443 - Mm-hmm. You doin' a study on him? 2118 01:53:30,487 --> 01:53:32,445 - Yes, I am. What have you heard? 2119 01:53:32,489 --> 01:53:34,273 [camera clicks] 2120 01:53:34,317 --> 01:53:36,144 - [John] Another one that's slightly more subtle and nuanced 2121 01:53:36,188 --> 01:53:38,973 is "Candyman," which brings in the question 2122 01:53:39,017 --> 01:53:42,150 of folk legends or urban myths. 2123 01:53:42,194 --> 01:53:44,457 - [Kier-La] Typically we would reserve the term folk horror 2124 01:53:44,501 --> 01:53:47,068 for stories that take place in rural environments, 2125 01:53:47,112 --> 01:53:49,462 but I think a strong case can be made for "Candyman" 2126 01:53:49,506 --> 01:53:52,639 as a folk horror film because of its liminality, 2127 01:53:52,683 --> 01:53:54,728 the psychogeographical pull 2128 01:53:54,772 --> 01:53:57,296 of the Cabrini-Green housing project itself 2129 01:53:57,340 --> 01:53:58,906 and how that connects back 2130 01:53:58,950 --> 01:54:01,387 to the Reconstruction-era folktale. 2131 01:54:01,431 --> 01:54:05,304 - [Helen] My apartment was built as a housing project. 2132 01:54:05,348 --> 01:54:06,740 - No. - Yeah. 2133 01:54:06,784 --> 01:54:09,177 [microfiche rattling] 2134 01:54:09,221 --> 01:54:11,179 - [John] What we often find as in "The Believers," 2135 01:54:11,223 --> 01:54:12,920 the central protagonist is often someone 2136 01:54:12,964 --> 01:54:15,662 who's studying or researching or is educated, 2137 01:54:15,706 --> 01:54:17,534 and they don't really believe in it, 2138 01:54:17,577 --> 01:54:19,318 but they're deeply interested in it, 2139 01:54:19,362 --> 01:54:22,016 and their fascination becomes a part of their undoing. 2140 01:54:22,060 --> 01:54:22,930 - Candyman. 2141 01:54:24,977 --> 01:54:26,935 ♪ For the Christians it is written ♪ 2142 01:54:26,979 --> 01:54:29,851 ♪ That in the black nothin' age ♪ 2143 01:54:29,895 --> 01:54:34,900 ♪ There existed an addiction to blood among its people ♪ 2144 01:54:36,380 --> 01:54:38,904 - [John] "Ganja & Hess" is a 1970s 2145 01:54:38,947 --> 01:54:40,906 so-called Black vampire film 2146 01:54:40,949 --> 01:54:43,952 made by a great, great director and writer called Bill Gunn, 2147 01:54:43,996 --> 01:54:46,346 and it stars Dwayne Jones, who was the lead character 2148 01:54:46,390 --> 01:54:48,914 in "Night of the Living Dead." 2149 01:54:50,742 --> 01:54:52,744 - [Maisha] Ganja & Hess is a very interesting take 2150 01:54:52,787 --> 01:54:56,313 on the problem and tension between the rejection 2151 01:54:56,356 --> 01:54:58,880 of the old and the embrace of the new 2152 01:54:58,924 --> 01:55:02,319 because when we look at Hess's plight within this film, 2153 01:55:02,362 --> 01:55:06,323 what we really see is a problem of assimilation, 2154 01:55:06,366 --> 01:55:09,543 utter assimilation into modern politics 2155 01:55:09,587 --> 01:55:13,678 and ideas of race and capitalism and consumerism. 2156 01:55:15,462 --> 01:55:18,944 And what this film urges is actually a remembrance 2157 01:55:18,987 --> 01:55:20,424 of the ancestral. 2158 01:55:22,426 --> 01:55:23,905 - He was an anthropologist. 2159 01:55:23,949 --> 01:55:26,430 He had all this African art around his house 2160 01:55:26,473 --> 01:55:28,606 and all kinds of objects. 2161 01:55:30,477 --> 01:55:34,655 So he dealt with old history, he dealt with bones, 2162 01:55:36,396 --> 01:55:40,139 he dealt with messages from centuries before. 2163 01:55:41,619 --> 01:55:44,883 So, he had developed a whole communication. 2164 01:55:47,320 --> 01:55:50,279 - [Maisha] It's a misuse of the ancestral 2165 01:55:50,323 --> 01:55:54,588 that rather emphasizes disconnection rather than connection. 2166 01:55:54,632 --> 01:55:59,027 And so this curse is a curse of remembering. 2167 01:55:59,071 --> 01:56:01,943 - [John] It's also about the fact of this return to Africa 2168 01:56:01,987 --> 01:56:06,034 and Africanist sensibility in the African-American community 2169 01:56:06,078 --> 01:56:07,645 in the late '60s, early '70s. 2170 01:56:07,688 --> 01:56:09,603 And there's a deep sense of trying 2171 01:56:09,647 --> 01:56:11,605 to get back to your ancestral roots. 2172 01:56:11,649 --> 01:56:13,825 So, the film is very much about the ambivalence 2173 01:56:13,868 --> 01:56:15,609 of trying to be a modern American, 2174 01:56:15,653 --> 01:56:20,353 kind of in a post-racial society, and the impulse also, 2175 01:56:20,397 --> 01:56:22,050 or perhaps the contradictory impulse, 2176 01:56:22,094 --> 01:56:25,489 to try and reclaim your African ancestry. 2177 01:56:26,926 --> 01:56:28,449 It needs to be seen in relationship 2178 01:56:28,493 --> 01:56:30,495 to the assassination of Martin Luther King 2179 01:56:30,538 --> 01:56:32,671 and the ideological conflict in the Black community 2180 01:56:32,714 --> 01:56:34,542 in America at that time 2181 01:56:34,586 --> 01:56:37,806 between violent revolutionary militant politics 2182 01:56:37,850 --> 01:56:41,027 of the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X, 2183 01:56:41,070 --> 01:56:43,159 and the legacy of King, 2184 01:56:43,203 --> 01:56:46,685 which was a much more passive resistance, Christian 2185 01:56:46,728 --> 01:56:49,209 way of bringing about change. 2186 01:56:50,776 --> 01:56:54,388 So, it's a film very much about redemption. 2187 01:56:55,476 --> 01:56:56,999 - There's a tension at the end 2188 01:56:57,043 --> 01:57:00,263 between his acceptance in the Black church 2189 01:57:01,526 --> 01:57:04,354 and his embrace of the cross. 2190 01:57:04,398 --> 01:57:07,401 Hess dies not in the church, 2191 01:57:07,445 --> 01:57:11,231 Hess dies in the shadow of the cross. 2192 01:57:11,274 --> 01:57:13,842 And if we think about what that shadow means, 2193 01:57:13,886 --> 01:57:17,759 it's the ways in which this Christian tradition 2194 01:57:19,544 --> 01:57:23,461 has been manipulated to become a tool of warfare, 2195 01:57:23,504 --> 01:57:27,029 of racial oppression, of domination, 2196 01:57:27,073 --> 01:57:31,773 the ways in which the cross has cast a black shadow 2197 01:57:31,817 --> 01:57:34,472 across cultures that it encounters, 2198 01:57:34,515 --> 01:57:37,475 to erase the ancestral and displace it 2199 01:57:37,518 --> 01:57:39,477 with white Christianity. 2200 01:57:40,913 --> 01:57:43,045 This is what kills him. 2201 01:57:43,089 --> 01:57:45,787 [singer humming] 2202 01:57:54,622 --> 01:57:57,799 [ominous music] 2203 01:57:57,843 --> 01:57:59,235 - [Kier-La] Folk horror tends to have a lot 2204 01:57:59,279 --> 01:58:01,716 of cultural and geographic specificity, 2205 01:58:01,760 --> 01:58:04,545 but when you start to look at it from a global perspective, 2206 01:58:04,589 --> 01:58:06,547 these films are often speaking to each other 2207 01:58:06,591 --> 01:58:08,549 in really interesting ways. 2208 01:58:08,593 --> 01:58:10,638 [explosion booms] 2209 01:58:10,682 --> 01:58:13,467 [dramatic music] 2210 01:58:29,832 --> 01:58:32,618 [crowd shouting] 2211 01:58:33,793 --> 01:58:36,883 [soft ominous music] 2212 01:58:53,029 --> 01:58:55,684 - [Announcer] This man had a dream, 2213 01:58:55,728 --> 01:58:59,993 a forbidden vision that becomes a living nightmare. 2214 01:59:02,256 --> 01:59:03,736 - What are dreams? 2215 01:59:06,260 --> 01:59:08,784 - The way of knowing things. 2216 01:59:08,828 --> 01:59:11,831 Dream is a shadow of something real. 2217 01:59:15,617 --> 01:59:17,314 - When I first thought about the folk horror in Australia, 2218 01:59:17,358 --> 01:59:19,055 I thought, well, we don't have any. 2219 01:59:19,099 --> 01:59:21,492 It's this very European thing, this very British thing. 2220 01:59:21,536 --> 01:59:23,669 But when I started thinking about 2221 01:59:23,712 --> 01:59:28,238 the very complex and often quite ugly colonial history 2222 01:59:29,675 --> 01:59:32,416 of Australia, folk traditions dominate. 2223 01:59:34,418 --> 01:59:35,985 - A lot of Australian folk horror 2224 01:59:36,029 --> 01:59:39,075 deals with indigenous tradition 2225 01:59:39,119 --> 01:59:42,862 and deals with the white colonial, I suppose, 2226 01:59:44,472 --> 01:59:46,561 response to those traditions, which is often one 2227 01:59:46,605 --> 01:59:48,824 of not understanding what's happening 2228 01:59:48,868 --> 01:59:50,304 and sort of fear. 2229 01:59:53,046 --> 01:59:54,613 - [Alexandra] But when you dig a little bit more deeply, 2230 01:59:54,656 --> 01:59:56,702 I think films that feel that they don't have 2231 01:59:56,745 --> 02:00:00,270 a direct indigenous connection in fact do. 2232 02:00:02,055 --> 02:00:06,537 - [Girl] I feel like something bad is gonna happen to me. 2233 02:00:06,581 --> 02:00:09,584 I feel like something bad has happened. 2234 02:00:09,628 --> 02:00:13,457 It hasn't reached me yet, but it's on its way. 2235 02:00:14,807 --> 02:00:18,288 - Lake Mungo is a sacred indigenous site. 2236 02:00:18,332 --> 02:00:21,204 In the late 1960s they found the bodies, 2237 02:00:21,248 --> 02:00:26,166 40,000 year-old bodies, remains of three indigenous people. 2238 02:00:28,908 --> 02:00:31,085 Nothing in the film mentions this, 2239 02:00:31,128 --> 02:00:33,217 but there's something about that place 2240 02:00:33,261 --> 02:00:37,744 and indigenous cultures, they're so connected to land. 2241 02:00:39,615 --> 02:00:42,618 [soft somber music] 2242 02:00:44,751 --> 02:00:47,492 And we find this in "Wolf Creek." 2243 02:00:51,018 --> 02:00:52,759 And what I find interesting 2244 02:00:52,802 --> 02:00:54,674 about "Lake Mungo," "Picnic at Hanging Rock," 2245 02:00:54,717 --> 02:00:57,285 and "Wolf Creek" is that they may not be directly talking 2246 02:00:57,328 --> 02:01:00,636 about indigenous cultures in the same way 2247 02:01:00,680 --> 02:01:02,246 that something like "The Last Wave" 2248 02:01:02,290 --> 02:01:04,988 or "Red Billabong" or "Prey" are, 2249 02:01:06,468 --> 02:01:08,470 but they're more about the sense of place, 2250 02:01:08,513 --> 02:01:12,300 and instead of exoticizing indigenous history 2251 02:01:13,954 --> 02:01:16,957 and indigenous culture, there's a sort of acknowledgement 2252 02:01:17,000 --> 02:01:19,611 that there are things about this land that we don't know 2253 02:01:19,655 --> 02:01:23,093 and that we don't understand, and we will never understand. 2254 02:01:23,137 --> 02:01:24,704 And I think that that's perhaps one 2255 02:01:24,747 --> 02:01:27,097 of the more productive ways of engaging 2256 02:01:27,141 --> 02:01:31,362 with this folkloric background from a colonial perspective. 2257 02:01:31,406 --> 02:01:35,018 [mysterious music] 2258 02:01:35,062 --> 02:01:37,760 - A really interesting film that sort of bridges the gap 2259 02:01:37,804 --> 02:01:40,154 between folk horror in Australian cinema 2260 02:01:40,197 --> 02:01:42,765 from the white filmmaker's perspective 2261 02:01:42,809 --> 02:01:44,288 or the settler perspective 2262 02:01:44,332 --> 02:01:47,291 and folk horror from the Aboriginal perspective 2263 02:01:47,335 --> 02:01:50,251 is Tracey Moffatt's film "Bedevil." 2264 02:01:51,339 --> 02:01:52,775 That's a very unusual film. 2265 02:01:52,819 --> 02:01:55,473 It's essentially a trilogy of ghost stories 2266 02:01:55,517 --> 02:01:58,955 about a town where the main character believes 2267 02:01:58,999 --> 02:02:02,002 that an American GI from the Second World War 2268 02:02:02,045 --> 02:02:04,700 died in a swamp, and therefore, 2269 02:02:06,006 --> 02:02:08,399 the ghost of that person haunts that area, 2270 02:02:08,443 --> 02:02:12,012 and then later a cinema is built over that swamp, 2271 02:02:12,055 --> 02:02:14,536 and it is supposedly haunted. 2272 02:02:16,364 --> 02:02:19,846 - They built a poxy cinema above that stinkin' swamp. 2273 02:02:23,371 --> 02:02:25,765 Can ya believe that? 2274 02:02:25,808 --> 02:02:28,332 - And I suppose Tracey Moffatt is saying with "Bedevil" 2275 02:02:28,376 --> 02:02:30,421 that everything is mysterious to someone 2276 02:02:30,465 --> 02:02:33,774 and our past and our culture is mysterious 2277 02:02:33,817 --> 02:02:34,905 to all of us as well. 2278 02:02:34,949 --> 02:02:36,864 So, she's kind of throwing away 2279 02:02:36,907 --> 02:02:39,344 that sort of traditional folk horror paradigm 2280 02:02:39,388 --> 02:02:43,218 and mixing things up in a really interesting way. 2281 02:02:43,261 --> 02:02:46,221 [soft tense music] 2282 02:03:02,237 --> 02:03:05,718 - [Announcer] It is Tuesday the 26th of January, 1988, 2283 02:03:05,762 --> 02:03:07,372 and on behalf of the staff 2284 02:03:07,416 --> 02:03:09,113 at the Better and Broad Northwest Radio, 2285 02:03:09,157 --> 02:03:11,289 I'd just like to wish the great nation of ours 2286 02:03:11,333 --> 02:03:13,248 a happy 200th birthday. 2287 02:03:18,601 --> 02:03:21,212 - So 1988 is a hugely significant year 2288 02:03:21,256 --> 02:03:23,388 in Australian history. 2289 02:03:23,432 --> 02:03:27,262 It marked the bicentenary of white settlement. 2290 02:03:29,438 --> 02:03:30,918 It's invasion day. 2291 02:03:32,354 --> 02:03:37,098 [soft ominous music] [man chattering] 2292 02:03:38,795 --> 02:03:40,275 The Government sanctioned ads, they were huge. 2293 02:03:40,318 --> 02:03:41,450 You know, parties at the Opera House. 2294 02:03:41,493 --> 02:03:43,060 There were government-funded ads 2295 02:03:43,104 --> 02:03:46,585 that were this little celebration of a nation. 2296 02:03:46,629 --> 02:03:48,326 And these odd little horror films 2297 02:03:48,370 --> 02:03:52,417 just that seemed like nothing start to critique that. 2298 02:03:52,461 --> 02:03:55,159 Two films came out that I think 2299 02:03:55,203 --> 02:03:56,769 are really, really interesting, 2300 02:03:56,813 --> 02:03:58,249 and I don't think they mean to be. 2301 02:03:58,293 --> 02:04:00,904 And I love this about horror in that sometimes 2302 02:04:00,948 --> 02:04:04,299 they just capture a moment or articulate something 2303 02:04:04,342 --> 02:04:06,431 that they don't even know that they're articulating. 2304 02:04:06,475 --> 02:04:08,259 [soft ominous music] 2305 02:04:08,303 --> 02:04:09,695 - [Woman] Look, the stones aren't such a mystery, 2306 02:04:09,739 --> 02:04:10,871 not when you consider where you live. 2307 02:04:10,914 --> 02:04:12,002 - [Woman 2] How do you mean? 2308 02:04:12,046 --> 02:04:13,482 - Well, your street is the site 2309 02:04:13,525 --> 02:04:15,614 of an old Aboriginal burial ground. 2310 02:04:15,658 --> 02:04:17,442 There was quite a protest about it 2311 02:04:17,486 --> 02:04:19,140 a couple of years ago when the area was being developed. 2312 02:04:19,183 --> 02:04:21,446 I was involved in it myself actually. 2313 02:04:21,490 --> 02:04:23,274 I'm surprised you didn't know 2314 02:04:23,318 --> 02:04:25,537 because your father's company was the developer. 2315 02:04:25,581 --> 02:04:28,323 - That film is hugely significant because it's really 2316 02:04:28,366 --> 02:04:30,934 the closest, one of the few places 2317 02:04:30,978 --> 02:04:34,634 in the mainstream white imagination, 2318 02:04:34,678 --> 02:04:36,462 where we started getting a critique, 2319 02:04:36,506 --> 02:04:38,508 a maybe this isn't cool. 2320 02:04:39,988 --> 02:04:41,511 There was another film that came out 2321 02:04:41,554 --> 02:04:44,035 that year that I adore called "The Dreaming." 2322 02:04:44,079 --> 02:04:47,082 [suspenseful music] 2323 02:04:50,520 --> 02:04:53,262 [pen scratching] 2324 02:04:58,528 --> 02:05:00,138 The main character is a doctor, 2325 02:05:00,182 --> 02:05:03,402 and she is working in an emergency ward 2326 02:05:03,446 --> 02:05:06,492 and a young indigenous woman comes in and she dies. 2327 02:05:06,536 --> 02:05:08,016 And after her death, the doctor starts 2328 02:05:08,059 --> 02:05:11,019 having nightmares about the past. 2329 02:05:11,062 --> 02:05:13,586 [tense music] 2330 02:05:16,024 --> 02:05:17,503 It's a really interesting movie, 2331 02:05:17,547 --> 02:05:20,550 specifically, again, for 1988, 2332 02:05:20,593 --> 02:05:24,989 the year of the supposed celebrations of the bicentenary, 2333 02:05:25,033 --> 02:05:27,078 because it draws a direct parallel 2334 02:05:27,122 --> 02:05:31,169 between colonial violence and gender violence. 2335 02:05:31,213 --> 02:05:36,218 [eerie voices chattering] [ominous music] 2336 02:05:41,484 --> 02:05:43,268 - [Kier-La] The connection between invasion, 2337 02:05:43,312 --> 02:05:45,227 genocide, and gendered violence can also be seen 2338 02:05:45,270 --> 02:05:49,883 in things like Marcin Wrona's 2015 film "Demon." 2339 02:05:49,927 --> 02:05:54,279 - "Demon" is loosely based on the idea of the dybbuk. 2340 02:05:55,672 --> 02:05:57,369 The dybbuk comes from Jewish folklore. 2341 02:05:57,413 --> 02:06:00,764 It's a clinging ghost that attaches itself 2342 02:06:00,807 --> 02:06:05,203 to somebody who is living and effectively possesses them. 2343 02:06:05,247 --> 02:06:09,729 Most famously the idea of the dybbuk comes from a play 2344 02:06:09,773 --> 02:06:12,602 written by the Russian folklorist, 2345 02:06:12,645 --> 02:06:15,431 polemicist, writer S. Ansky, 2346 02:06:15,474 --> 02:06:17,607 made into a film in 1937. 2347 02:06:18,825 --> 02:06:21,828 [suspenseful music] 2348 02:06:22,786 --> 02:06:24,918 What is most significant 2349 02:06:24,962 --> 02:06:29,140 in terms of the film's relationship to the folklore 2350 02:06:31,099 --> 02:06:35,582 is that the clinging ghost is ultimately defeated 2351 02:06:35,626 --> 02:06:38,455 not through a formal exorcism process, 2352 02:06:38,498 --> 02:06:43,199 but through the great rabbi remembering his own ancestry. 2353 02:06:44,200 --> 02:06:45,679 [upbeat music] 2354 02:06:45,723 --> 02:06:48,813 Jumping ahead to 2015 and Marcin Wrona's 2355 02:06:50,815 --> 02:06:52,817 remarkable film "Demon," 2356 02:06:52,860 --> 02:06:56,168 we get another kind of dybbuk narrative. 2357 02:06:58,562 --> 02:07:00,042 [glass breaks] 2358 02:07:00,085 --> 02:07:01,956 Piotr and Zaneta are getting married 2359 02:07:02,000 --> 02:07:06,787 on the family homestead, property that Zaneta's father owns 2360 02:07:06,831 --> 02:07:10,313 and is giving as a wedding present to the young couple. 2361 02:07:10,356 --> 02:07:13,142 The vast majority of the film takes place over one night, 2362 02:07:13,185 --> 02:07:15,535 the night of the wedding itself. 2363 02:07:15,579 --> 02:07:19,931 On his first night there, Piotr uncovers some bones. 2364 02:07:21,672 --> 02:07:23,326 - [Kier-La] It turns out this land being given to them 2365 02:07:23,369 --> 02:07:25,719 as a wedding present is the site of a massacre 2366 02:07:25,763 --> 02:07:27,808 where all the Jewish inhabitants of the village 2367 02:07:27,852 --> 02:07:30,898 were killed during the Holocaust. 2368 02:07:30,942 --> 02:07:34,641 - The film positions itself as a way 2369 02:07:34,685 --> 02:07:39,690 of recounting the past of this little village in Poland 2370 02:07:41,387 --> 02:07:43,563 that has quite literally covered up what happened there 2371 02:07:43,607 --> 02:07:46,088 in terms of the Nazi genocide. 2372 02:07:47,567 --> 02:07:50,135 This is not a history which is recognized 2373 02:07:50,179 --> 02:07:52,355 within the village itself. 2374 02:07:54,574 --> 02:07:58,883 [man speaking in foreign language] 2375 02:08:37,227 --> 02:08:42,232 [ominous music] [crowd shouting] 2376 02:08:44,669 --> 02:08:47,454 - In 2019, Jayro Bustamante used the folk legend 2377 02:08:47,498 --> 02:08:49,717 of La Llorona to talk about the genocide 2378 02:08:49,761 --> 02:08:52,416 of the indigenous Mayan population in Guatemala, 2379 02:08:52,459 --> 02:08:55,549 what's known as El Holocausto Silencioso, 2380 02:08:55,593 --> 02:08:57,334 the Silent Holocaust. 2381 02:08:59,249 --> 02:09:01,120 La Llorona is this like old story, 2382 02:09:01,164 --> 02:09:03,601 depends who you ask it, but it has to do with one thing: 2383 02:09:03,644 --> 02:09:05,646 when the man Cortes was the big conquistador 2384 02:09:05,690 --> 02:09:08,214 came to Mexico, he married La Malinche 2385 02:09:08,258 --> 02:09:12,087 who was an Indian woman that was given to him as a present. 2386 02:09:12,131 --> 02:09:16,266 She was a slave, but she understood other languages 2387 02:09:16,309 --> 02:09:19,138 and she had like a ability for languages 2388 02:09:19,182 --> 02:09:20,922 and she starts learning Spanish, 2389 02:09:20,966 --> 02:09:23,925 so she became the translator for the conquistador. 2390 02:09:23,969 --> 02:09:26,580 And of course they had children together, 2391 02:09:26,624 --> 02:09:28,147 and that was like the first, you know, 2392 02:09:28,191 --> 02:09:29,757 they say that she's the mother of the Mexican, 2393 02:09:29,801 --> 02:09:31,498 the first, you know, cross-breeding. 2394 02:09:31,542 --> 02:09:34,588 And from that came the idea that eventually Cortes 2395 02:09:34,632 --> 02:09:37,417 had children with other women and she left her 2396 02:09:37,461 --> 02:09:39,245 and there was like some drama, 2397 02:09:39,289 --> 02:09:42,770 and so the idea of the rich man or the white man 2398 02:09:42,814 --> 02:09:46,209 that falls in love with the Indian and then leaves her 2399 02:09:46,252 --> 02:09:47,949 and she's scorned and she's like sad 2400 02:09:47,993 --> 02:09:50,256 then drowned the children, 2401 02:09:50,300 --> 02:09:52,606 and then when she realizes what she had done, 2402 02:09:52,650 --> 02:09:54,217 she would kill herself. 2403 02:09:54,260 --> 02:09:57,437 But of course her spirit would stay 2404 02:09:57,481 --> 02:10:00,658 and, you know, go howl at night. [speaking in Spanish] 2405 02:10:00,701 --> 02:10:04,227 [woman wailing in Spanish] 2406 02:10:05,489 --> 02:10:07,360 [dramatic music] 2407 02:10:07,404 --> 02:10:09,188 [woman gasps] 2408 02:10:09,232 --> 02:10:10,798 It's not something that's only in Mexico. 2409 02:10:10,842 --> 02:10:14,019 La Llorona takes stuff that, you know, Medea, 2410 02:10:14,062 --> 02:10:16,456 you know the mother that kills the children. 2411 02:10:16,500 --> 02:10:18,284 There's the ubume from Japan, 2412 02:10:18,328 --> 02:10:22,332 which is the yokai for the women that die in childbirth. 2413 02:10:22,375 --> 02:10:25,509 There's the banshees from Ireland, you know, the screaming? 2414 02:10:25,552 --> 02:10:27,815 [speaking in Spanish] it's the equivalent. 2415 02:10:27,859 --> 02:10:29,861 So I think it's super interesting 2416 02:10:29,904 --> 02:10:32,255 how these myths are all around the world, 2417 02:10:32,298 --> 02:10:33,299 they just have different names, 2418 02:10:33,343 --> 02:10:35,127 and we make it local. 2419 02:10:39,219 --> 02:10:43,571 [woman speaking in foreign language] 2420 02:10:56,802 --> 02:11:01,067 [man speaking in foreign language] 2421 02:11:12,078 --> 02:11:16,474 [woman speaking in foreign language] 2422 02:11:21,479 --> 02:11:25,004 [man speaking in Spanish] 2423 02:11:30,096 --> 02:11:31,924 - [Abraham] And where commonly, the La Llorona legend 2424 02:11:31,967 --> 02:11:33,969 has her drowning her own children, 2425 02:11:34,013 --> 02:11:36,320 here her children are being drowned in front of her 2426 02:11:36,363 --> 02:11:39,584 by the soldiers of a dictator who's massacring her people. 2427 02:11:39,627 --> 02:11:42,717 So it calls attention to what the story is 2428 02:11:42,761 --> 02:11:46,286 depending on who gets to be the storyteller. 2429 02:11:46,330 --> 02:11:48,462 - [Kier-La] So where water imagery's always been important 2430 02:11:48,506 --> 02:11:50,377 in the La Llorona mythology 2431 02:11:50,421 --> 02:11:52,640 because of its maternal associations, 2432 02:11:52,684 --> 02:11:56,340 here it becomes a symbol of national trauma. 2433 02:11:58,777 --> 02:12:01,519 [water splashes] 2434 02:12:03,390 --> 02:12:07,612 [man speaking in foreign language] 2435 02:12:16,882 --> 02:12:19,754 - [Kier-La] I think that drowning or being submerged 2436 02:12:19,798 --> 02:12:23,932 in a river or a lake is such a potent image for these films 2437 02:12:23,976 --> 02:12:27,588 I think because the lake is a communal place, 2438 02:12:27,632 --> 02:12:30,156 it provides sustenance to the community. 2439 02:12:30,199 --> 02:12:32,593 And so it instantly implicates the community 2440 02:12:32,637 --> 02:12:36,205 and becomes a source of collective guilt. 2441 02:12:36,249 --> 02:12:38,818 - This comes into play also in a Japanese film 2442 02:12:38,861 --> 02:12:40,602 called "Shikoku." 2443 02:12:40,646 --> 02:12:43,300 "Shikoku" is the smallest of the main islands 2444 02:12:43,344 --> 02:12:44,911 that make up Japan. 2445 02:12:46,391 --> 02:12:48,610 It means literally Fourth Kingdom. 2446 02:12:48,654 --> 02:12:52,309 This again was a hotbed for traditional Buddhism 2447 02:12:52,353 --> 02:12:54,790 and they had a very famous pilgrim tour 2448 02:12:54,834 --> 02:12:57,837 that you do from between 88 temples. 2449 02:12:59,665 --> 02:13:02,624 So the story was that a girl goes back to her countryside 2450 02:13:02,668 --> 02:13:06,062 where she grew up and her best friend from high school 2451 02:13:06,106 --> 02:13:09,631 drowned in a lake five years before, 2452 02:13:09,675 --> 02:13:11,894 and she's sort of coming back and haunting. 2453 02:13:11,938 --> 02:13:14,941 [suspenseful music] 2454 02:13:18,118 --> 02:13:20,686 We find out that the mother of the dead girl 2455 02:13:20,729 --> 02:13:25,560 is going around and doing the pilgrimage backwards. 2456 02:13:25,604 --> 02:13:28,476 And then in "Noroi," which was one of the earlier 2457 02:13:28,520 --> 02:13:30,217 Japanese found footage films, 2458 02:13:30,260 --> 02:13:32,828 the entire village itself is drowned. 2459 02:13:32,872 --> 02:13:35,918 A dam is built on the site and the folk rituals 2460 02:13:35,962 --> 02:13:37,485 that have been observed for centuries 2461 02:13:37,529 --> 02:13:39,922 to appease a local demon are disrupted, 2462 02:13:39,966 --> 02:13:42,011 with dire consequences, of course. 2463 02:13:42,055 --> 02:13:45,580 [man speaking in Japanese] 2464 02:14:15,175 --> 02:14:18,874 [soft eerie music] 2465 02:14:18,918 --> 02:14:21,224 - [Kier-La] But a lot of it is about building on top 2466 02:14:21,268 --> 02:14:24,140 of something else, so basically anywhere people have moved 2467 02:14:24,184 --> 02:14:27,579 or displace other people or other cultures 2468 02:14:27,622 --> 02:14:30,582 or where older traditions are being transported 2469 02:14:30,625 --> 02:14:33,889 to new environments, you're gonna find folk horror. 2470 02:14:33,933 --> 02:14:36,588 [ominous music] 2471 02:14:39,025 --> 02:14:42,464 - We are largely a culture of migrants. 2472 02:14:42,508 --> 02:14:46,163 So, our traditions apart from obviously 2473 02:14:46,207 --> 02:14:50,080 the indigenous traditions are imported from elsewhere. 2474 02:14:50,124 --> 02:14:52,430 There are some examples of Australian folk horror 2475 02:14:52,474 --> 02:14:54,911 that fit more within the European tradition, 2476 02:14:54,955 --> 02:14:56,783 and one of those would be 2477 02:14:56,826 --> 02:14:59,612 the early '80s film "Alison's Birthday." 2478 02:14:59,655 --> 02:15:02,571 [man speaking in foreign language] 2479 02:15:02,615 --> 02:15:04,094 [group speaking in foreign language] 2480 02:15:04,138 --> 02:15:06,488 This young girl, Alison, becomes drawn 2481 02:15:06,532 --> 02:15:10,927 into a strange Celtic cult and they have decided 2482 02:15:10,971 --> 02:15:12,625 that she's going to be the vessel 2483 02:15:12,668 --> 02:15:14,452 for their ancient goddess that they worship. 2484 02:15:14,496 --> 02:15:16,280 [thunder rumbles] 2485 02:15:16,324 --> 02:15:18,979 - [Woman] Skip, skip, skipping on the ends of their toes 2486 02:15:19,022 --> 02:15:21,808 ran the Hobyahs, and the Hobyahs cried, 2487 02:15:21,851 --> 02:15:25,202 "Pull down the hemp stalks, eat up the little old man, 2488 02:15:25,246 --> 02:15:27,335 carry off the little old woman." 2489 02:15:27,378 --> 02:15:29,598 - When we think of Australian horror movies 2490 02:15:29,642 --> 02:15:31,774 about a young child who is obsessed 2491 02:15:31,818 --> 02:15:34,951 with a haunted or a spooky storybook, 2492 02:15:34,995 --> 02:15:36,779 we of course, think of "The Babadook." 2493 02:15:36,823 --> 02:15:40,827 It's predated by "Celia," and Celia's a young schoolgirl 2494 02:15:40,870 --> 02:15:43,046 who is told a story at school. 2495 02:15:43,090 --> 02:15:45,614 There's a book at her school called "The Hobyahs." 2496 02:15:45,658 --> 02:15:47,964 It's apparently a Scottish tale, 2497 02:15:48,008 --> 02:15:51,489 but it was very much imported and reinterpreted 2498 02:15:51,533 --> 02:15:54,057 in Australia, it was put in a formal collection 2499 02:15:54,101 --> 02:15:55,668 of fairytales initially, 2500 02:15:55,711 --> 02:15:58,061 and an Australian folklorist picked it up 2501 02:15:58,105 --> 02:16:01,978 and it really became part of Australian folklore. 2502 02:16:02,022 --> 02:16:05,025 ♪ Was a wild colonial boy 2503 02:16:05,068 --> 02:16:08,419 ♪ Jack Duggan was his name 2504 02:16:08,463 --> 02:16:12,510 ♪ He was born and raised in Ireland ♪ 2505 02:16:12,554 --> 02:16:16,166 ♪ In a place called Castlemain 2506 02:16:16,210 --> 02:16:19,517 A lot of Australian folklore stems from what I guess 2507 02:16:19,561 --> 02:16:22,738 we can call the Wild Colonial Boys imagination, 2508 02:16:22,782 --> 02:16:26,176 and the origins of this lie in a ballad, 2509 02:16:26,220 --> 02:16:27,700 an Australian-Irish ballad called 2510 02:16:27,743 --> 02:16:30,093 "The Wild Colonial Boy," singular. 2511 02:16:30,137 --> 02:16:33,836 ♪ At the early age of 16 years 2512 02:16:33,880 --> 02:16:36,360 ♪ He left his native home 2513 02:16:36,404 --> 02:16:37,666 - Oh! - That's right. 2514 02:16:37,710 --> 02:16:39,233 - And it's so deep in there. 2515 02:16:39,276 --> 02:16:42,063 It's not just in film and fiction. 2516 02:16:43,760 --> 02:16:46,197 It's in the newscast, it's in football coverage, 2517 02:16:46,241 --> 02:16:48,199 this idea that, you know, we're the lads 2518 02:16:48,243 --> 02:16:50,549 and we will band together and we will fight the law. 2519 02:16:50,593 --> 02:16:52,203 The legacy of "The Wild Colonial Boy" 2520 02:16:52,247 --> 02:16:54,466 you can see in things like "Ned Kelly," 2521 02:16:54,510 --> 02:16:56,555 true crime films, obviously "Chopper," 2522 02:16:56,599 --> 02:17:00,037 things like "The Boys" and "Snowtown." 2523 02:17:00,081 --> 02:17:02,300 But "Wake In Fright" would be the obvious go-to place 2524 02:17:02,344 --> 02:17:03,954 to really feel the legacy 2525 02:17:03,998 --> 02:17:07,218 of the Wild Colonial Boys legend 2526 02:17:07,262 --> 02:17:10,265 in Australian horror film history. 2527 02:17:10,308 --> 02:17:11,570 - [Man] When you're ready. 2528 02:17:11,614 --> 02:17:13,398 - Fair go! - Fair go! 2529 02:17:13,442 --> 02:17:14,878 Fair go. 2530 02:17:14,922 --> 02:17:17,402 - I think ritual in "Wake in Fright" 2531 02:17:17,446 --> 02:17:19,274 operates on a number of levels. 2532 02:17:19,317 --> 02:17:23,408 So there's probably just a level of these are some customs 2533 02:17:23,452 --> 02:17:25,236 that are common in Australia, 2534 02:17:25,280 --> 02:17:27,891 like playing Two-up or going out and shooting kangaroos 2535 02:17:27,935 --> 02:17:31,242 to keep the kangaroo population down. 2536 02:17:31,286 --> 02:17:35,333 But in the town that we see depicted in the film, 2537 02:17:37,161 --> 02:17:40,948 these activities are sort of taken to a heightened level. 2538 02:17:40,991 --> 02:17:44,821 So, Two-up becomes a very powerful sort of game 2539 02:17:44,865 --> 02:17:46,431 of fate and destiny. 2540 02:17:46,475 --> 02:17:49,130 [ominous music] 2541 02:17:51,959 --> 02:17:54,788 [explosion booms] 2542 02:17:56,703 --> 02:17:59,706 [suspenseful music] 2543 02:18:04,188 --> 02:18:08,671 [Laura speaking in foreign language] 2544 02:18:22,816 --> 02:18:24,382 - [Kier-La] The colonial settlement of Brazil 2545 02:18:24,426 --> 02:18:26,689 brought a lot of the same fears about contact 2546 02:18:26,733 --> 02:18:28,778 between different systems of faith 2547 02:18:28,822 --> 02:18:32,042 that we see in North American folk horror. 2548 02:18:32,086 --> 02:18:36,568 [Carlos speaking in foreign language] 2549 02:18:38,353 --> 02:18:41,051 - And Candomble is the African Brazilian religion 2550 02:18:41,095 --> 02:18:44,926 which retains most of its Aboriginal elements, 2551 02:18:46,754 --> 02:18:50,801 native elements when it was celebrated back in Africa. 2552 02:18:50,845 --> 02:18:55,240 The religion was brought to Brazil by the African slaves, 2553 02:18:55,284 --> 02:18:58,026 but it was very readily repressed 2554 02:18:59,418 --> 02:19:02,987 by slave masters, authorities, the clergy, 2555 02:19:03,031 --> 02:19:06,034 and was mostly practiced in secrecy. 2556 02:19:08,863 --> 02:19:11,387 Umbanda is basically Candomble 2557 02:19:13,041 --> 02:19:16,827 mixed with a Christian element, mostly of Catholicism, 2558 02:19:16,871 --> 02:19:20,222 and some of another very famous religion 2559 02:19:22,050 --> 02:19:24,792 practiced in Brazil, which is Kardecist spiritualism. 2560 02:19:24,835 --> 02:19:28,621 It came from France from the medium Allan Kardec, 2561 02:19:28,665 --> 02:19:30,841 which created this Christian religion based 2562 02:19:30,885 --> 02:19:34,323 on spiritual communication with the dead. 2563 02:19:36,107 --> 02:19:39,894 There is a third branch of the African Brazilian religion, 2564 02:19:39,937 --> 02:19:43,767 which is something very small, very marginal, 2565 02:19:45,595 --> 02:19:49,729 and very frowned upon by the practitioners 2566 02:19:49,773 --> 02:19:51,427 of Candomble and Umbanda, 2567 02:19:51,470 --> 02:19:54,430 which is a branch called Quimbanda. 2568 02:19:55,866 --> 02:19:59,391 Quimbanda is technically what the practitioners 2569 02:19:59,435 --> 02:20:02,133 of Umbanda and Candomble would call Macumba. 2570 02:20:02,177 --> 02:20:03,787 Macumba is sorcery. 2571 02:20:05,267 --> 02:20:09,053 It's using the powers of the spiritual world 2572 02:20:09,097 --> 02:20:12,317 for your personal individual advantage. 2573 02:20:14,102 --> 02:20:18,671 This practice of calling African Brazilian religions Macumba 2574 02:20:20,499 --> 02:20:23,328 or dismissing all African Brazilian religions as witchcraft 2575 02:20:23,372 --> 02:20:25,809 or devil worship in disguise, 2576 02:20:27,289 --> 02:20:30,683 that all came from the Brazilian Christendom. 2577 02:20:32,120 --> 02:20:36,298 [Carlos speaking in foreign language] 2578 02:20:45,308 --> 02:20:47,832 [birds chirping] 2579 02:20:47,876 --> 02:20:52,315 [woman speaking in foreign language] 2580 02:21:07,243 --> 02:21:11,725 [Carlos speaking in foreign language] 2581 02:21:20,430 --> 02:21:24,869 [Laura speaking in foreign language] 2582 02:21:49,372 --> 02:21:53,811 [Carlos speaking in foreign language] 2583 02:22:18,575 --> 02:22:22,927 [Laura speaking in foreign language] 2584 02:22:38,638 --> 02:22:40,423 - [Kier-La] And I think "As Filhas do Fogo" 2585 02:22:40,466 --> 02:22:42,947 also deliberately recalls the Nazi associations 2586 02:22:42,991 --> 02:22:44,644 with folk tradition. 2587 02:22:46,473 --> 02:22:49,563 - If we go back far enough, say for example 2588 02:22:49,607 --> 02:22:53,393 to Johann Gottfried von Herder's ideas 2589 02:22:53,437 --> 02:22:56,005 of romantic nationalism, 2590 02:22:56,048 --> 02:22:59,704 Herder was a German philosopher in the 1700s 2591 02:23:01,880 --> 02:23:06,885 who recognized or who felt that the true spirit of Germany 2592 02:23:08,669 --> 02:23:12,499 lay in das volk, the folk, the people of the villages, 2593 02:23:14,284 --> 02:23:16,808 of the mountains, that this is where you would really find 2594 02:23:16,851 --> 02:23:21,421 the true spirit of Germany, had tremendous repercussions. 2595 02:23:21,465 --> 02:23:24,250 It's what sparked the Grimm Brothers, for example, 2596 02:23:24,294 --> 02:23:28,254 to start their collections and really got the whole 2597 02:23:28,298 --> 02:23:31,475 folk narrative ball rolling as it were 2598 02:23:33,216 --> 02:23:37,611 in the late 18th century and into the 19th century. 2599 02:23:37,655 --> 02:23:40,614 Now, of course, this idea of the true spirit of Germany, 2600 02:23:40,658 --> 02:23:44,705 being in the countryside, was particularly popular 2601 02:23:44,749 --> 02:23:49,754 with the Nazi period, and the whole notion of das volk 2602 02:23:51,147 --> 02:23:52,713 and creating within the Third Reich 2603 02:23:52,757 --> 02:23:55,629 a sense of the true spirit of the people 2604 02:23:55,673 --> 02:23:57,979 was of course, very important to the Nazis. 2605 02:23:58,023 --> 02:23:59,807 - [Kier-La] And this connects to what is now 2606 02:23:59,851 --> 02:24:03,072 very well documented Nazi occult research. 2607 02:24:03,115 --> 02:24:04,812 [ominous music] 2608 02:24:04,856 --> 02:24:08,207 [man speaking in German] 2609 02:24:37,889 --> 02:24:40,500 - [Kier-La] It's well-known that Nazi occultist Otto Rahn 2610 02:24:40,544 --> 02:24:42,937 was an influence on "Raiders of the lost Ark," 2611 02:24:42,981 --> 02:24:46,245 And it connects to the role of the seeker 2612 02:24:46,289 --> 02:24:48,118 or the archaeologist that became really important 2613 02:24:48,161 --> 02:24:50,076 in these films. 2614 02:24:50,120 --> 02:24:54,124 - In the late 1930s, there was this big discovery of ruins. 2615 02:24:54,167 --> 02:24:56,865 There was a very famous archaeologist, Alfonso Caso, 2616 02:24:56,909 --> 02:24:59,781 who made a discovery and wrote super-important books 2617 02:24:59,825 --> 02:25:02,523 That kind of changed the outlook of archeology at that time. 2618 02:25:02,567 --> 02:25:04,699 And a decade later, there was like a boom 2619 02:25:04,743 --> 02:25:08,616 of "The Aztec Mummy," "La Cabeza Viviente," 2620 02:25:08,660 --> 02:25:11,053 and all these different incarnations 2621 02:25:11,097 --> 02:25:15,928 of pre-Hispanic warriors that were left in the pyramids 2622 02:25:15,971 --> 02:25:18,104 and they're awakened by these archeologists 2623 02:25:18,148 --> 02:25:20,193 that come to bother their slumber, 2624 02:25:20,237 --> 02:25:23,718 and they start attacking people and killing them 2625 02:25:23,762 --> 02:25:27,809 and, you know, trying to re-enact sacrificial practices 2626 02:25:27,853 --> 02:25:29,898 tied to the old gods. 2627 02:25:29,942 --> 02:25:31,726 And I think it was very interesting 2628 02:25:31,770 --> 02:25:34,076 how that thing that actually happened, the discoveries, 2629 02:25:34,120 --> 02:25:36,166 started affecting these movies. 2630 02:25:36,209 --> 02:25:38,951 [dramatic music] 2631 02:25:42,607 --> 02:25:44,435 Those movies, those old movies, was the first time 2632 02:25:44,478 --> 02:25:47,089 that you would see talking about the pyramids 2633 02:25:47,133 --> 02:25:49,831 and the old Mexico and all the indigenous empires. 2634 02:25:49,875 --> 02:25:52,617 You would have a representation. 2635 02:25:52,660 --> 02:25:54,401 I found it super interesting that there's always 2636 02:25:54,445 --> 02:25:57,796 like a cult of people that still believe 2637 02:25:59,232 --> 02:26:00,755 in the old gods and they're like embedded 2638 02:26:00,799 --> 02:26:03,105 within the society, and even though they wear 2639 02:26:03,149 --> 02:26:04,629 a tie and suit, you know, 2640 02:26:04,672 --> 02:26:07,675 they have to do a ritual at night. 2641 02:26:07,719 --> 02:26:10,417 There's a very important movie made in '37 2642 02:26:10,461 --> 02:26:12,593 called "El Signo de la Muerte" 2643 02:26:12,637 --> 02:26:15,770 in which one of the famous archeologists who runs the museum 2644 02:26:15,814 --> 02:26:17,946 and is like the leading scientist, 2645 02:26:17,990 --> 02:26:21,123 he's also leader of a sect, a cult. 2646 02:26:21,167 --> 02:26:24,779 They're kidnapping women for human sacrifices 2647 02:26:24,823 --> 02:26:27,695 and they're doing them underneath the museum. 2648 02:26:27,739 --> 02:26:30,524 I think what's amazing about all these beliefs 2649 02:26:30,568 --> 02:26:33,353 is that they've been kept down for years, 2650 02:26:33,397 --> 02:26:34,833 they tried to erase them. 2651 02:26:34,876 --> 02:26:37,270 Like, the Mexican conquest was dark shit. 2652 02:26:37,314 --> 02:26:39,141 Like, they killed everybody. 2653 02:26:39,185 --> 02:26:40,621 They burned everything. 2654 02:26:40,665 --> 02:26:42,884 They wanted to erase the culture, 2655 02:26:42,928 --> 02:26:44,712 and it seemed like they did, 2656 02:26:44,756 --> 02:26:46,497 but it keeps coming back, it keeps coming back. 2657 02:26:46,540 --> 02:26:47,541 It's like waves. 2658 02:26:47,585 --> 02:26:50,328 [ominous music] 2659 02:26:54,506 --> 02:26:57,291 [dramatic music] 2660 02:26:57,335 --> 02:26:59,902 [man grunting] 2661 02:27:05,517 --> 02:27:08,868 - [Mariano] You get the weird fascination 2662 02:27:10,261 --> 02:27:13,002 that Catholics have with paganism, 2663 02:27:13,046 --> 02:27:14,830 at the same time as they refuse it, 2664 02:27:14,874 --> 02:27:17,006 at the same time that I think there's a certain envy 2665 02:27:17,050 --> 02:27:19,748 of what they perceive as being the freedom 2666 02:27:19,792 --> 02:27:22,447 that pagan have with everything. 2667 02:27:23,970 --> 02:27:26,494 - There's another film which I think 2668 02:27:26,538 --> 02:27:30,498 needs to be discussed in light of the whole concept 2669 02:27:30,542 --> 02:27:34,023 of folk horror and that's Brunello Rondi's 1963 film 2670 02:27:34,067 --> 02:27:37,679 "The Demon" about a young woman in a village 2671 02:27:37,723 --> 02:27:40,682 who is thought to be a witch, 2672 02:27:40,726 --> 02:27:43,424 has embraced witchcraft, and uses it to curse 2673 02:27:43,468 --> 02:27:45,383 the man who rejected her. 2674 02:27:45,426 --> 02:27:48,951 [man speaking in Italian] 2675 02:28:20,418 --> 02:28:24,639 - [Mikel] Rondi creates this ethnographic background 2676 02:28:24,683 --> 02:28:27,903 for the central narrative to play out in front of. 2677 02:28:27,947 --> 02:28:30,776 It's this Southern Italian village 2678 02:28:32,386 --> 02:28:35,781 filled with superstition and folk ritual. 2679 02:28:38,610 --> 02:28:40,394 - [Kier-La] You can see in "Il Demonio" 2680 02:28:40,438 --> 02:28:43,354 how integrated Catholicism is with the older superstitious 2681 02:28:43,397 --> 02:28:45,573 or pagan traditions, and there's a strong sense 2682 02:28:45,617 --> 02:28:48,446 of natural worship left over and adapted 2683 02:28:48,489 --> 02:28:51,319 into their brand of Christianity. 2684 02:28:55,628 --> 02:28:57,760 [dramatic music] 2685 02:28:57,804 --> 02:29:00,023 - [Mikel] You could almost see "The Demon" 2686 02:29:00,067 --> 02:29:04,201 as a kind of prequel to Fulci's "Don't Torture a Duckling," 2687 02:29:04,245 --> 02:29:07,640 specifically the character of Maciara, 2688 02:29:07,683 --> 02:29:11,600 the witch, played by Florinda Bolkan in Fulci's film, 2689 02:29:11,644 --> 02:29:15,952 how she is created as an outsider to the village, 2690 02:29:15,996 --> 02:29:20,827 how she is put upon, how she is tortured by the villagers. 2691 02:29:22,481 --> 02:29:24,526 They want her there as a wise woman, 2692 02:29:24,570 --> 02:29:29,009 but they also despise her for being outside of the norm. 2693 02:29:29,052 --> 02:29:32,055 [suspenseful music] 2694 02:29:36,364 --> 02:29:40,847 - That is very much a Southern Italian folk character. 2695 02:29:44,677 --> 02:29:45,504 [Maciara spits] 2696 02:29:45,547 --> 02:29:48,202 [ominous music] 2697 02:29:48,245 --> 02:29:51,466 "Dark Waters" in some ways was obviously born 2698 02:29:51,510 --> 02:29:53,555 from having grown up 2699 02:29:53,599 --> 02:29:56,863 with that version of Catholic religion. 2700 02:29:58,734 --> 02:30:02,651 Then the element of the Catholic religion 2701 02:30:02,695 --> 02:30:07,351 versus some older religion in a way was a consequence 2702 02:30:07,395 --> 02:30:11,268 of the story mainly was about you going back 2703 02:30:11,312 --> 02:30:13,488 to a place where you came from 2704 02:30:13,532 --> 02:30:16,273 and realizing that where you came from 2705 02:30:16,317 --> 02:30:18,493 wasn't exactly what you thought. 2706 02:30:18,537 --> 02:30:23,367 And also having to face, "Okay, where do I come from?" 2707 02:30:23,411 --> 02:30:26,675 [ominous music] 2708 02:30:26,719 --> 02:30:28,372 - [Narrator] Where it could not destroy 2709 02:30:28,416 --> 02:30:31,201 the previous beliefs, Christianity adopted 2710 02:30:31,245 --> 02:30:35,031 physically and spiritually the temples and rights 2711 02:30:35,075 --> 02:30:36,990 of the older religions. 2712 02:30:38,252 --> 02:30:41,255 Churches built on pagan mounds. 2713 02:30:41,298 --> 02:30:44,519 One of the most extraordinary of these converted stones 2714 02:30:44,563 --> 02:30:48,044 is this huge menia which has been carved 2715 02:30:48,088 --> 02:30:50,873 apparently with Christian symbols, 2716 02:30:50,917 --> 02:30:52,571 but only apparently. 2717 02:30:54,095 --> 02:30:57,968 Persecution made the disguise necessary. 2718 02:30:58,012 --> 02:31:00,231 All symbols of witchcraft. 2719 02:31:00,275 --> 02:31:02,451 [suspenseful music] 2720 02:31:02,495 --> 02:31:04,279 - This particular spot is called 2721 02:31:04,322 --> 02:31:09,327 the Morenci Cross, which originally was a stone marker 2722 02:31:11,112 --> 02:31:12,896 covered with pagan faces, possibly representing 2723 02:31:12,940 --> 02:31:16,509 the sun god of the Gauls, Belenus. 2724 02:31:16,552 --> 02:31:20,121 But in the 17th century, the original stone was destroyed 2725 02:31:20,164 --> 02:31:23,428 and the stone cross here now to the original rock 2726 02:31:23,472 --> 02:31:25,561 was put in its place to Christianize 2727 02:31:25,605 --> 02:31:28,346 what was originally a pagan site. 2728 02:31:30,218 --> 02:31:33,134 [mysterious music] 2729 02:31:35,658 --> 02:31:38,748 Russian paganism and the Orthodox church 2730 02:31:38,792 --> 02:31:40,750 had found a kind of accommodation 2731 02:31:40,794 --> 02:31:43,579 where they could accept each other's presence. 2732 02:31:43,623 --> 02:31:47,365 [mysterious music continues] 2733 02:31:48,802 --> 02:31:51,456 "Viy" is the old story of somebody having 2734 02:31:51,500 --> 02:31:54,764 to spend some time in a creepy place. 2735 02:31:54,808 --> 02:31:59,247 A woman dies and asks a seminarian, a trainee priest, 2736 02:32:01,162 --> 02:32:04,861 to come and say prayers over her body for three nights. 2737 02:32:04,905 --> 02:32:09,910 [singing in foreign language] [bell ringing] 2738 02:32:11,651 --> 02:32:14,001 One of the things it's about is about the clash 2739 02:32:14,044 --> 02:32:17,961 between the Catholic Church and paganism, 2740 02:32:18,005 --> 02:32:21,399 and that was something that had gone on 2741 02:32:21,443 --> 02:32:24,838 for quite a long time in the Soviet Union. 2742 02:32:24,881 --> 02:32:26,491 [seminarian sneezes] 2743 02:32:26,535 --> 02:32:28,319 [suspenseful music] 2744 02:32:28,363 --> 02:32:32,323 It's also about the depth of the hero's faith 2745 02:32:32,367 --> 02:32:36,763 and whether he has sufficient faith to shun paganism. 2746 02:32:37,764 --> 02:32:40,767 [suspenseful music] 2747 02:32:44,422 --> 02:32:46,686 - There are a lot of really interesting examples 2748 02:32:46,729 --> 02:32:49,210 of Eastern European films that maybe someone 2749 02:32:49,253 --> 02:32:52,387 wouldn't directly describe as horror, 2750 02:32:52,430 --> 02:32:54,520 [man screams] 2751 02:32:54,564 --> 02:32:58,002 but leave you with this just feeling of knowing 2752 02:32:58,046 --> 02:33:00,048 that violence is inevitable. 2753 02:33:00,091 --> 02:33:03,094 [suspenseful music] 2754 02:33:04,879 --> 02:33:09,100 - [Alice] So you see in the '60s and '70s a group of films 2755 02:33:09,144 --> 02:33:12,190 coming out that do fit the definition of folk horror. 2756 02:33:12,234 --> 02:33:14,671 They have ritual elements, they have the landscape, 2757 02:33:14,715 --> 02:33:18,675 they have communities, in Czech and Slovak films. 2758 02:33:18,719 --> 02:33:21,939 So, you have things like "Marketa Lazarova" 2759 02:33:21,983 --> 02:33:24,202 which is like not even really a horror film, 2760 02:33:24,246 --> 02:33:27,118 but it's a drama with horrific elements 2761 02:33:27,162 --> 02:33:31,862 set in medieval times in this very grim, brutal landscape. 2762 02:33:31,906 --> 02:33:36,519 [dramatic singing in foreign language] 2763 02:33:49,619 --> 02:33:53,057 - I think the most direct parallel that comes to mind 2764 02:33:53,101 --> 02:33:55,103 for a lot of people is something like "Witchhhammer" 2765 02:33:55,146 --> 02:33:58,323 from 1970, which is more or less 2766 02:33:58,367 --> 02:34:01,283 the Czech version of "Witchfinder General" 2767 02:34:01,326 --> 02:34:04,460 in the sense that it's a really angry film 2768 02:34:04,503 --> 02:34:06,244 and a really political film, 2769 02:34:06,288 --> 02:34:09,291 and it looks at this idea of political power 2770 02:34:09,334 --> 02:34:13,164 as something that inherently corrupts. 2771 02:34:13,208 --> 02:34:15,471 - [Alice] It's based on the "Malleus Maleficarum" 2772 02:34:15,514 --> 02:34:17,429 and witch hunting. 2773 02:34:17,473 --> 02:34:20,606 It's like another medieval drama with lots of aspects 2774 02:34:20,650 --> 02:34:24,741 of folk horror that you see in "Witchfinder General." 2775 02:34:24,785 --> 02:34:27,875 [soft ominous music] 2776 02:34:29,528 --> 02:34:31,356 - [Kier-La] And essentially it's depicting 2777 02:34:31,400 --> 02:34:33,619 how the survival of folk customs was such a threat 2778 02:34:33,663 --> 02:34:36,710 to the dominant religion, and they were seen as, you know, 2779 02:34:36,753 --> 02:34:38,755 holding people back from cultural progress, 2780 02:34:38,799 --> 02:34:41,715 and in many places, obliterated to the point 2781 02:34:41,758 --> 02:34:44,848 where it then created this whole field of ethnography, 2782 02:34:44,892 --> 02:34:47,459 people, then trying to track and document 2783 02:34:47,503 --> 02:34:50,680 what little of these beliefs remained. 2784 02:34:51,812 --> 02:34:53,291 [bell rings] 2785 02:34:53,335 --> 02:34:57,906 [woman and man speaking in foreign language] 2786 02:35:16,185 --> 02:35:18,013 - [John] The "Savage Hunt of King Stakh" 2787 02:35:18,056 --> 02:35:21,146 is about an ethnographer who goes to Belarus. 2788 02:35:21,190 --> 02:35:24,019 He stays in a big creepy castle. 2789 02:35:24,062 --> 02:35:27,413 The hostess is obviously disturbed about something, 2790 02:35:27,457 --> 02:35:31,330 but you don't really know quite what. 2791 02:35:31,374 --> 02:35:36,031 He then goes into the forest to look at ancient rituals. 2792 02:35:38,250 --> 02:35:42,733 Clearly the story is aimed at saying that science and myth, 2793 02:35:42,777 --> 02:35:46,432 science and legend are two separate worlds, 2794 02:35:46,476 --> 02:35:49,609 and that science will never really understand 2795 02:35:49,653 --> 02:35:54,092 myth or legend, and in a sense, it shouldn't even try. 2796 02:35:55,572 --> 02:35:58,270 [dramatic music] 2797 02:35:59,141 --> 02:36:01,360 [woman screams] 2798 02:36:01,404 --> 02:36:02,840 [suspenseful music] 2799 02:36:02,884 --> 02:36:04,537 - [Alice] If you look at Japanese horror film, 2800 02:36:04,581 --> 02:36:06,365 Japanese horror has always been intertwined 2801 02:36:06,409 --> 02:36:07,889 with folk customs. 2802 02:36:09,673 --> 02:36:11,893 - [John] Japan began this modernization process, 2803 02:36:11,936 --> 02:36:14,896 you know, in 1868 you had the beginning of the Meiji period, 2804 02:36:14,939 --> 02:36:17,855 and Meiji means literally enlightenment. 2805 02:36:17,899 --> 02:36:21,032 The sort of drive was all about sort of modernization, 2806 02:36:21,076 --> 02:36:24,775 urbanization, development of academic structures, 2807 02:36:24,819 --> 02:36:27,952 and really about drawing a line between the past. 2808 02:36:27,996 --> 02:36:30,737 There was a anthropologist, ethnologist 2809 02:36:30,781 --> 02:36:34,567 called Kunio Yanagita who pioneered this sort of field 2810 02:36:34,611 --> 02:36:36,874 of folk studies in Japan. 2811 02:36:36,918 --> 02:36:39,834 And he used to go around to all these sort of ancient, 2812 02:36:39,877 --> 02:36:41,879 these tiny village communities 2813 02:36:41,923 --> 02:36:44,142 and record their sort of folklore beliefs. 2814 02:36:44,186 --> 02:36:46,884 Sort of in the way, I guess someone like Cecil Sharp 2815 02:36:46,928 --> 02:36:51,236 went round and recorded all sort of Morris dancing. 2816 02:36:51,280 --> 02:36:54,283 These traditions from a pre-modern era 2817 02:36:54,326 --> 02:36:55,850 which were disappearing 2818 02:36:55,893 --> 02:36:56,851 and he was sort of codifying that. 2819 02:36:56,894 --> 02:36:58,897 [mysterious music] 2820 02:36:58,941 --> 02:37:02,422 And part of this was these phenomenon called yokai, 2821 02:37:02,466 --> 02:37:04,990 literally means a spirit or a goblin, 2822 02:37:05,034 --> 02:37:07,471 or just basically any sort of supernatural being. 2823 02:37:07,514 --> 02:37:11,127 [man speaking in Japanese] 2824 02:37:21,311 --> 02:37:22,965 [ominous music] 2825 02:37:23,008 --> 02:37:26,316 - [John] Norio Tsuruta directed a film called "Kakashi" 2826 02:37:26,359 --> 02:37:28,187 which was based on the manga 2827 02:37:28,231 --> 02:37:31,277 by a sort of famous horror manga writer, Junji Ito, 2828 02:37:31,321 --> 02:37:33,976 and this again was a girl going back 2829 02:37:34,019 --> 02:37:38,110 to her sort of rural background and small village 2830 02:37:38,154 --> 02:37:40,721 where they communicate with the sort of dead spirits 2831 02:37:40,765 --> 02:37:44,856 by burning these sort of a scarecrow-like effigies 2832 02:37:44,900 --> 02:37:48,729 which naturally enough all come to life. 2833 02:37:48,773 --> 02:37:52,037 When you're talking about a country like Japan, 2834 02:37:52,081 --> 02:37:54,910 their cinema, obviously this is not a Christian country, 2835 02:37:54,953 --> 02:37:57,303 so when we're talking about pre-modern 2836 02:37:57,347 --> 02:38:00,524 sort of the ghosts of the past manifesting themselves 2837 02:38:00,567 --> 02:38:03,744 in landscape, the sort of nativist indigenous religion 2838 02:38:03,788 --> 02:38:06,486 is Shintoism, which says that, you know, 2839 02:38:06,530 --> 02:38:09,533 their spirits and gods reside in everything, 2840 02:38:09,576 --> 02:38:13,667 in trees, in the wind, in the patterns in the clouds, 2841 02:38:13,711 --> 02:38:16,409 in absolutely everything. 2842 02:38:16,453 --> 02:38:18,194 More about flows of energy and how you're very much 2843 02:38:18,237 --> 02:38:19,978 part of this huge system. 2844 02:38:20,022 --> 02:38:22,720 [ominous music] 2845 02:38:32,295 --> 02:38:33,949 So I think if there's any sort of folk horror 2846 02:38:33,992 --> 02:38:36,734 in a Japanese context, it's more about people 2847 02:38:36,777 --> 02:38:40,390 being sort of off-kilter with these spirits 2848 02:38:40,433 --> 02:38:44,394 or with the sort of spirits of their ancestors. 2849 02:38:46,309 --> 02:38:48,876 - A lot of people to believe that besides regular spirits 2850 02:38:48,920 --> 02:38:51,618 and besides our soul, there are spirits dwelling in nature. 2851 02:38:51,662 --> 02:38:53,925 And this is actually very similar to indigenous, 2852 02:38:53,969 --> 02:38:56,972 for instance, indigenous New Zealand and Australian beliefs 2853 02:38:57,015 --> 02:38:58,582 and indigenous American beliefs, 2854 02:38:58,625 --> 02:39:00,106 where there are already nature spirits 2855 02:39:00,150 --> 02:39:01,629 residing in the land and the trees 2856 02:39:01,673 --> 02:39:03,936 that we may not know about. 2857 02:39:06,591 --> 02:39:09,898 - [Man] Desert wind, [speaking in foreign language], 2858 02:39:09,942 --> 02:39:12,945 was a man like us until a mischance. 2859 02:39:15,992 --> 02:39:18,951 He grew wings and flew like a bird. 2860 02:39:26,089 --> 02:39:28,656 [gentle music] 2861 02:39:39,276 --> 02:39:41,060 - [Kier-La] You tend to see direct adaptation 2862 02:39:41,104 --> 02:39:44,498 of folk legends and folktales more readily in cultures 2863 02:39:44,542 --> 02:39:46,761 other than Anglicized cultures 2864 02:39:46,805 --> 02:39:48,937 whose brand of folk horror has much more to do 2865 02:39:48,981 --> 02:39:51,810 with fears of the folk themselves. 2866 02:39:53,290 --> 02:39:56,032 - It seems to me that the greatest differences 2867 02:39:56,075 --> 02:39:59,296 in the distinction between us and them. 2868 02:40:00,993 --> 02:40:05,432 I think in Western folk horror, what you find most often 2869 02:40:05,476 --> 02:40:09,001 is the situation in which a regular person 2870 02:40:10,046 --> 02:40:12,613 comes across a cult or a village 2871 02:40:12,657 --> 02:40:15,529 or some isolated place or community 2872 02:40:17,009 --> 02:40:19,794 where those old beliefs are still prevalent. 2873 02:40:19,838 --> 02:40:24,147 And then there is this contrast and this struggle 2874 02:40:24,190 --> 02:40:27,280 between the value systems that they represent, 2875 02:40:27,324 --> 02:40:29,065 so there is a clash. 2876 02:40:29,108 --> 02:40:31,502 Whereas in Slavic horror, it seems to me 2877 02:40:31,545 --> 02:40:35,332 that this distinction between alleged normality 2878 02:40:35,375 --> 02:40:38,857 and alleged strangeness is not so strong. 2879 02:40:40,902 --> 02:40:45,559 They start from the position that in Western folk horror 2880 02:40:46,691 --> 02:40:48,562 someone has to arrive to. 2881 02:40:48,606 --> 02:40:50,738 So someone is already there. 2882 02:40:50,782 --> 02:40:54,090 Someone already lives in that village in this surrounding. 2883 02:40:54,133 --> 02:40:57,658 Someone is already immersed in this value system, 2884 02:40:57,702 --> 02:41:02,099 and whatever happens in this plot arises from within. 2885 02:41:03,883 --> 02:41:05,928 - [Kier-La] So in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, 2886 02:41:05,972 --> 02:41:09,149 Russia, Asia, you're much more likely to see stories 2887 02:41:09,193 --> 02:41:10,846 derived from fairytales or films 2888 02:41:10,890 --> 02:41:13,632 full of magic and shape-shifting. 2889 02:41:15,068 --> 02:41:16,852 - [Expert Interviewee] There's an amazing 2890 02:41:16,896 --> 02:41:19,855 Icelandic made for TV folk horror film called "Tilbury," 2891 02:41:19,899 --> 02:41:22,336 which is based on a folkloric monster. 2892 02:41:22,380 --> 02:41:26,601 [man speaking in foreign language] 2893 02:41:50,234 --> 02:41:51,365 - [Expert Interviewee] And it's interesting coming 2894 02:41:51,409 --> 02:41:52,932 from a colonial perspective 2895 02:41:52,975 --> 02:41:56,892 how that story plays out with an Icelandic man 2896 02:41:56,936 --> 02:41:59,417 who's worried that his girlfriend has fallen in love 2897 02:41:59,460 --> 02:42:02,942 with a British man and imagines that he is turned 2898 02:42:02,985 --> 02:42:05,292 into this sort of monstrous Tilbury figure. 2899 02:42:05,336 --> 02:42:08,339 [suspenseful music] 2900 02:42:12,604 --> 02:42:14,432 - [Kier-La] Nietzchka Keene's "The Juniper Tree" 2901 02:42:14,475 --> 02:42:17,391 is another Icelandic film based on a German folktale 2902 02:42:17,435 --> 02:42:20,133 that takes the familiar story of the wicked stepmother 2903 02:42:20,177 --> 02:42:22,222 and places it against a backdrop 2904 02:42:22,266 --> 02:42:24,964 of vaguely medieval witch hunts. 2905 02:42:26,226 --> 02:42:29,403 - It's much more a fairytale film 2906 02:42:29,447 --> 02:42:32,145 than I think a folk horror film. 2907 02:42:33,712 --> 02:42:37,629 It becomes folk horror when Keene plays closely 2908 02:42:39,674 --> 02:42:44,201 to the original Grimm tale in its Grimm qualities, 2909 02:42:44,244 --> 02:42:46,812 the murder of the son, the cannibalism, 2910 02:42:46,855 --> 02:42:49,771 and in the transformations into the bird. 2911 02:42:49,815 --> 02:42:52,818 [Margit vocalizing] 2912 02:42:57,518 --> 02:43:01,957 - [Margit] Once there was a boy whose mother was a bird. 2913 02:43:02,001 --> 02:43:03,699 She loved him very much, 2914 02:43:03,743 --> 02:43:06,311 but she could not stay among people, 2915 02:43:06,354 --> 02:43:10,532 and one day she returned to the land of the birds. 2916 02:43:12,012 --> 02:43:15,145 The boy's father grew used to her being gone, 2917 02:43:15,189 --> 02:43:18,148 but her little son wept so much 2918 02:43:18,192 --> 02:43:21,282 that finally she heard them from far away 2919 02:43:21,326 --> 02:43:23,676 and flew back to comfort him. 2920 02:43:25,112 --> 02:43:27,201 "I will take you with me," she said, 2921 02:43:27,245 --> 02:43:29,508 "And teach you what I know, 2922 02:43:29,551 --> 02:43:32,293 but you cannot stay among the birds 2923 02:43:32,337 --> 02:43:36,689 and must return to take care of your father." 2924 02:43:36,732 --> 02:43:40,170 And when the boy came back from the land of the birds, 2925 02:43:40,214 --> 02:43:42,869 his father did not know him. 2926 02:43:42,912 --> 02:43:46,264 His skin had changed and become feathers 2927 02:43:46,307 --> 02:43:49,745 and his fingers had turned into wings 2928 02:43:49,789 --> 02:43:52,444 and he knew what the birds know. 2929 02:43:53,880 --> 02:43:56,883 [suspenseful music] 2930 02:44:04,064 --> 02:44:07,589 - [John R.] Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy wrote a series 2931 02:44:07,633 --> 02:44:11,680 of vampire novels, "The Family of the Vourdalak." 2932 02:44:11,724 --> 02:44:14,335 Vourdalak was a name, a word that had been coined 2933 02:44:14,379 --> 02:44:16,424 by Pushkin in the 19th century. 2934 02:44:16,468 --> 02:44:18,992 [eerie music] 2935 02:44:22,604 --> 02:44:25,868 [woman cries out] 2936 02:44:25,912 --> 02:44:28,610 - Volkodlak, that's the existing word, 2937 02:44:28,654 --> 02:44:33,615 and volkodlak is essentially a synonym for vampire. 2938 02:44:33,659 --> 02:44:36,270 It is a man who after his death 2939 02:44:37,750 --> 02:44:41,710 comes back as a revenant and assaults his family, 2940 02:44:41,754 --> 02:44:45,279 his friends, his villagers, and among other things, 2941 02:44:45,323 --> 02:44:46,889 he can turn into a wolf. 2942 02:44:46,933 --> 02:44:48,761 He can appear in human form. 2943 02:44:48,804 --> 02:44:51,807 He can appear as a huge blob. 2944 02:44:51,851 --> 02:44:53,548 - [Kier-La] I think ironically, 2945 02:44:53,592 --> 02:44:56,551 most Westerners know wurdulacs from Italian movies, 2946 02:44:56,595 --> 02:44:58,292 from Mario Bava's "Black Sabbath," 2947 02:44:58,336 --> 02:45:00,816 and from "Night of the Devils." 2948 02:45:00,860 --> 02:45:04,908 - But vampires and the undead had already had a big part 2949 02:45:04,952 --> 02:45:09,696 to play in Russian-Slavic pagan history and folk history. 2950 02:45:11,654 --> 02:45:15,963 [men speaking in foreign language] 2951 02:45:24,841 --> 02:45:27,409 - "Leptirica" based on a story by Milovan Glisic 2952 02:45:27,453 --> 02:45:31,587 from 1883, which means 14 years before Dracula. 2953 02:45:31,631 --> 02:45:35,983 Although its plot, its story is based on a folk belief, 2954 02:45:36,026 --> 02:45:38,507 on a alleged real vampire 2955 02:45:38,551 --> 02:45:41,945 from the western part of Serbia, Sava Savanovic. 2956 02:45:41,989 --> 02:45:45,601 When Dorde Kadijevic decided to adapt this story, 2957 02:45:45,645 --> 02:45:48,822 his world view is much darker and he actually added 2958 02:45:48,865 --> 02:45:51,651 the bride transforms into a vampire 2959 02:45:51,694 --> 02:45:54,393 and rides the groom until his death. 2960 02:45:54,436 --> 02:45:57,178 [couple panting] 2961 02:45:58,658 --> 02:46:02,357 This notion of riding a man like a mare, 2962 02:46:02,401 --> 02:46:05,839 it is a very powerful image which obviously 2963 02:46:05,882 --> 02:46:08,363 was striking for Kadijevic precisely 2964 02:46:08,407 --> 02:46:11,540 because it merges eroticism and death. 2965 02:46:13,890 --> 02:46:16,415 - [Kier-La] Shape-shifting is a recurrent motif 2966 02:46:16,458 --> 02:46:19,679 in these films, which in addition to things like "Leptirica" 2967 02:46:19,722 --> 02:46:21,550 we see in films like "She-Wolf," 2968 02:46:21,594 --> 02:46:24,858 which is probably the most famous Polish werewolf film. 2969 02:46:24,901 --> 02:46:26,990 And particularly in the case of a woman, 2970 02:46:27,034 --> 02:46:28,470 the shape-shifting often signifies 2971 02:46:28,514 --> 02:46:31,517 like a liberating kind of transformation. 2972 02:46:31,560 --> 02:46:34,258 [ominous music] 2973 02:46:35,956 --> 02:46:37,827 It's also something central to Asian folktales 2974 02:46:37,871 --> 02:46:40,264 and folk horror films that we see in things 2975 02:46:40,308 --> 02:46:43,006 like the ghost cat movies of which there were over a dozen 2976 02:46:43,050 --> 02:46:46,009 of these films up to the '60s. 2977 02:46:46,053 --> 02:46:49,491 By the 14th century, it was a common belief in Japan 2978 02:46:49,535 --> 02:46:51,754 that cats, especially older female cats, 2979 02:46:51,798 --> 02:46:55,236 could turn into demons or goblins and also shapeshift 2980 02:46:55,279 --> 02:46:58,544 into humans in order to bewitch people. 2981 02:46:58,587 --> 02:47:00,371 And importantly, they would eat the people 2982 02:47:00,415 --> 02:47:02,678 whose shapes they had adopted. 2983 02:47:02,722 --> 02:47:06,030 [somber music] [woman crying] 2984 02:47:06,074 --> 02:47:09,773 [woman speaking in Japanese] 2985 02:47:23,178 --> 02:47:25,920 [dramatic music] 2986 02:47:28,749 --> 02:47:31,578 [cat meows] 2987 02:47:31,621 --> 02:47:34,276 [woman grunts] 2988 02:47:38,672 --> 02:47:40,543 - [John R.] And a lot of these spirits, 2989 02:47:40,587 --> 02:47:43,503 their revenge certainly in the films is a form of vampirism. 2990 02:47:43,546 --> 02:47:45,069 They're sucking blood and so on. 2991 02:47:45,113 --> 02:47:50,031 [suspenseful music] [singer vocalizing] 2992 02:48:00,868 --> 02:48:03,740 - A kind of ethnographic vision, 2993 02:48:03,784 --> 02:48:06,874 if I can use that term, is also there 2994 02:48:08,353 --> 02:48:12,009 in the 1953 Finnish film "The White Reindeer." 2995 02:48:13,533 --> 02:48:17,580 And while we have this story of a young woman 2996 02:48:17,624 --> 02:48:22,498 who is transformed into a kind of vampiric white reindeer, 2997 02:48:24,326 --> 02:48:28,069 what the film really focuses on are the folk traditions, 2998 02:48:29,810 --> 02:48:32,856 the folk beliefs, the folk culture of the Saami 2999 02:48:34,162 --> 02:48:36,947 in Northern Lapland in Finland. 3000 02:48:36,991 --> 02:48:39,689 The story and the belief about the young woman 3001 02:48:39,733 --> 02:48:43,650 who can exist as both a human and as an animal, 3002 02:48:44,738 --> 02:48:46,783 the kind of shapeshifter figure, 3003 02:48:46,827 --> 02:48:50,178 is still very much part of the Saami folk belief. 3004 02:48:50,221 --> 02:48:53,224 [suspenseful music] 3005 02:48:58,665 --> 02:49:00,580 - [Kier-La] And this idea of a man hunting 3006 02:49:00,623 --> 02:49:03,408 or somehow pitted against a creature only to realize 3007 02:49:03,452 --> 02:49:04,975 it's actually his own wife, 3008 02:49:05,019 --> 02:49:07,239 it's kind of a common story type, 3009 02:49:07,283 --> 02:49:09,590 most famously something like 3010 02:49:09,633 --> 02:49:12,680 the lady of the snow segment of "Kwaidan." 3011 02:49:12,723 --> 02:49:15,683 [mysterious music] 3012 02:49:23,604 --> 02:49:25,823 - [Pete] The themes of Asian horror are probably 3013 02:49:25,867 --> 02:49:29,435 the same themes as you get in Western horror, revenge, 3014 02:49:29,479 --> 02:49:31,612 things to do with childbirth, for example. 3015 02:49:31,655 --> 02:49:36,094 A lot in Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and so on, 3016 02:49:36,138 --> 02:49:38,096 a lot of the ghosts, the female ghosts, 3017 02:49:38,140 --> 02:49:40,577 are women who died in childbirth. 3018 02:49:40,621 --> 02:49:42,187 And in some cases, women who gave birth 3019 02:49:42,231 --> 02:49:43,667 after they'd been buried. 3020 02:49:43,711 --> 02:49:45,843 [woman gasps] 3021 02:49:45,887 --> 02:49:50,282 [woman speaking in foreign language] 3022 02:50:07,082 --> 02:50:09,650 [woman crying] 3023 02:50:15,743 --> 02:50:20,182 [woman speaking in foreign language] 3024 02:50:29,452 --> 02:50:32,498 [thunder rumbles] 3025 02:50:32,542 --> 02:50:35,153 - One of the very big hits for Thai cinema 3026 02:50:35,197 --> 02:50:38,983 was a film released in 1999, which is called "Nang Nak." 3027 02:50:39,027 --> 02:50:41,682 The story is about a young couple who get married 3028 02:50:41,725 --> 02:50:45,729 and the guy is called away to fight in the war. 3029 02:50:45,773 --> 02:50:48,645 When he comes back, everything has sort of slightly changed. 3030 02:50:48,689 --> 02:50:52,736 His wife is there and he's got a young child, 3031 02:50:52,780 --> 02:50:56,653 but she never lets him have very much to do with the child. 3032 02:50:56,697 --> 02:50:58,524 And also he finds that all of his friends, 3033 02:50:58,568 --> 02:51:00,309 the ones that survive, don't really wanna have too much 3034 02:51:00,352 --> 02:51:01,919 to do with him. 3035 02:51:01,963 --> 02:51:04,095 And eventually one of them tells him, 3036 02:51:04,139 --> 02:51:05,618 "You're living with a ghost." 3037 02:51:05,662 --> 02:51:07,185 And he says, "What are you talking about?" 3038 02:51:07,229 --> 02:51:09,623 He says, "Your wife died in childbirth. 3039 02:51:09,667 --> 02:51:11,974 She's been dead for a year." 3040 02:51:13,802 --> 02:51:16,456 The ghosts and the spirits you get in Asian films, 3041 02:51:16,500 --> 02:51:17,936 they're hungry for blood, 3042 02:51:17,980 --> 02:51:20,286 but particularly they're hungry for revenge. 3043 02:51:20,330 --> 02:51:23,681 So a lot of these scary spirits and monsters, 3044 02:51:23,725 --> 02:51:25,509 I suppose we would call them, 3045 02:51:25,552 --> 02:51:28,120 that you see in Asian films are women that have been wronged 3046 02:51:28,164 --> 02:51:29,861 that are looking to right that wrong. 3047 02:51:29,905 --> 02:51:31,950 And in a sense, they're gonna continue 3048 02:51:31,994 --> 02:51:34,126 looking to right that wrong more or less forever. 3049 02:51:34,170 --> 02:51:36,302 They never actually seem to find that closure. 3050 02:51:36,346 --> 02:51:38,914 [somber music] 3051 02:51:40,785 --> 02:51:42,656 - [Kier-La] So like all folktales, 3052 02:51:42,700 --> 02:51:44,789 these stories tend to evolve and mutate 3053 02:51:44,833 --> 02:51:47,661 to reflect the beliefs and fears and anxieties 3054 02:51:47,705 --> 02:51:49,794 of the place in time they're in, 3055 02:51:49,838 --> 02:51:52,579 and all folk horror, whether it's about a pagan village 3056 02:51:52,623 --> 02:51:56,061 being confronted with the changes wrought by modernization 3057 02:51:56,105 --> 02:51:59,673 or the physical transformation of a person into a she-wolf 3058 02:51:59,717 --> 02:52:03,503 or a white reindeer, this idea of change and how scary 3059 02:52:03,547 --> 02:52:07,986 change can be is central to a lot of the stories. 3060 02:52:08,030 --> 02:52:11,207 And so a lot of time, these traditions that we hang on to 3061 02:52:11,250 --> 02:52:14,601 by observing these folktales are ironically stories 3062 02:52:14,645 --> 02:52:16,603 that help us adapt to change. 3063 02:52:16,647 --> 02:52:19,389 [dramatic music] 3064 02:52:21,957 --> 02:52:26,396 [woman speaking in foreign language] 3065 02:52:37,581 --> 02:52:40,584 [suspenseful music] 3066 02:52:46,590 --> 02:52:49,375 - I love our stories. I love how unique they are. 3067 02:52:49,419 --> 02:52:51,247 And I think people need to see our interesting 3068 02:52:51,290 --> 02:52:54,076 and different stories and hear our voices, 3069 02:52:54,119 --> 02:52:56,643 and also see how similar they are. 3070 02:52:56,687 --> 02:52:58,254 But I think that the future for folk horror 3071 02:52:58,297 --> 02:53:00,386 is not about any one country. 3072 02:53:00,430 --> 02:53:01,910 I think the future for folk horror 3073 02:53:01,953 --> 02:53:05,435 is about seeing how diverse it can be 3074 02:53:05,478 --> 02:53:08,438 and seeing how it's more than just this set 3075 02:53:08,481 --> 02:53:11,659 of British films that people think is folk horror, 3076 02:53:11,703 --> 02:53:16,360 that there's so much more to folk horror than just that. 3077 02:53:18,623 --> 02:53:22,018 [soft suspenseful music] 3078 02:53:27,458 --> 02:53:30,940 [crickets chirping] 3079 02:53:30,983 --> 02:53:32,637 - [Narrator] Where the wave of moonlight glosses 3080 02:53:32,680 --> 02:53:35,292 the dim gray sands with light, 3081 02:53:35,335 --> 02:53:39,862 far off by furthest rosses we foot it all the night. 3082 02:53:39,905 --> 02:53:44,257 Weaving olden dances, mingling hands and mingling glances 3083 02:53:44,301 --> 02:53:46,825 till the moon has taken flight. 3084 02:53:48,653 --> 02:53:52,265 To and fro we leap and chase the frothy bubbles 3085 02:53:52,309 --> 02:53:54,311 while the world is full of troubles 3086 02:53:54,354 --> 02:53:56,487 and anxious in its sleep. 3087 02:53:58,315 --> 02:54:01,796 Come away, oh, human child to the waters of the wild 3088 02:54:01,840 --> 02:54:03,973 with a fairy hand in hand. 3089 02:54:05,365 --> 02:54:07,019 For the world's more full of weeping 3090 02:54:07,063 --> 02:54:09,065 than you can understand. 3091 02:54:10,414 --> 02:54:13,504 [soft ominous music] 3092 02:54:23,427 --> 02:54:26,169 [engine rumbles] 3093 02:54:29,346 --> 02:54:33,350 [wooden instruments clattering] 3094 02:54:35,091 --> 02:54:37,484 - In March 2011, a film called "Wake Wood" came out, 3095 02:54:37,528 --> 02:54:39,312 and I think it was the "News of the World" 3096 02:54:39,356 --> 02:54:43,534 that referred to it as a great example of folk horror. 3097 02:54:43,577 --> 02:54:46,232 [ominous music] 3098 02:54:47,625 --> 02:54:48,582 And I remember noticing that and thinking, 3099 02:54:48,626 --> 02:54:50,019 oh, there's that phrase. 3100 02:54:50,062 --> 02:54:51,672 That's interesting. 3101 02:54:51,716 --> 02:54:55,415 And then I wasn't quite prepared for the degree 3102 02:54:55,459 --> 02:54:59,332 to which that phrase suddenly became very prevalent indeed. 3103 02:54:59,376 --> 02:55:02,466 [soft ominous music] 3104 02:55:04,424 --> 02:55:07,036 [bell ringing] 3105 02:55:17,961 --> 02:55:20,615 [woman gasping] 3106 02:55:25,229 --> 02:55:26,882 - One of the big mistakes I think I made 3107 02:55:26,926 --> 02:55:28,884 and is still continually being made about it 3108 02:55:28,928 --> 02:55:32,366 is that it is and functions like a genre. 3109 02:55:32,410 --> 02:55:36,066 So I think the best way to see it is as a mode 3110 02:55:36,109 --> 02:55:40,809 in the sort of musical sense where there is a set 3111 02:55:40,853 --> 02:55:43,203 of key notes, but they're providing a different context 3112 02:55:43,247 --> 02:55:45,075 'cause they're played in different order. 3113 02:55:45,118 --> 02:55:48,034 And so folk horror works like this along with other modes, 3114 02:55:48,078 --> 02:55:50,428 things like psychogeography, 3115 02:55:52,038 --> 02:55:55,085 ontology, urban weird, English eerie, 3116 02:55:56,608 --> 02:55:57,739 all of these sort of different modes 3117 02:55:57,783 --> 02:55:59,480 that are sort of interlinked, 3118 02:55:59,524 --> 02:56:01,395 but they don't quite function as one cohesive genre. 3119 02:56:01,439 --> 02:56:04,442 They're all more interrelated in more complex ways. 3120 02:56:04,485 --> 02:56:07,445 [soft tense music] 3121 02:56:13,799 --> 02:56:17,281 - When we go through a celebrator phase 3122 02:56:17,324 --> 02:56:19,283 as we did in the 1990s, 3123 02:56:22,982 --> 02:56:25,071 as we did in the 1960s, 3124 02:56:25,115 --> 02:56:28,596 there's that sense that history is resolved. 3125 02:56:28,640 --> 02:56:31,338 In the 1990s Francis Fukuyama wrote this book, 3126 02:56:31,382 --> 02:56:33,993 "The End of History," talking about how liberal democracy 3127 02:56:34,037 --> 02:56:38,867 was the ultimate, ultimate result of Western civilization. 3128 02:56:42,523 --> 02:56:46,484 And then September the 11th, 2001 happened 3129 02:56:46,527 --> 02:56:48,312 and we discovered that liberal democracy 3130 02:56:48,355 --> 02:56:51,141 was not the ultimate result of Western civilization 3131 02:56:51,184 --> 02:56:53,273 and we entered a period of doubts. 3132 02:56:53,317 --> 02:56:56,320 [soft ominous music] 3133 02:57:02,326 --> 02:57:05,024 And this brings us to hauntology. 3134 02:57:05,068 --> 02:57:08,506 [eerie voice chattering] 3135 02:57:11,161 --> 02:57:13,338 Jacques Derrida described hauntology 3136 02:57:13,381 --> 02:57:17,342 as an unresolved past that comes back. 3137 02:57:17,385 --> 02:57:19,735 - [Eerie Voice] If I cannot have it... 3138 02:57:19,779 --> 02:57:23,522 - [Howard] The ghost is the idea of an unresolved past. 3139 02:57:23,565 --> 02:57:28,570 - Heading towards mic three. [static screeching] 3140 02:57:30,746 --> 02:57:34,010 - Hauntology and folk horror are both forms 3141 02:57:34,054 --> 02:57:38,493 of kind of cultural nostalgia for a mode of storytelling 3142 02:57:38,537 --> 02:57:40,539 that kind of doesn't really exist anymore, 3143 02:57:40,582 --> 02:57:42,497 and perhaps never existed at all. 3144 02:57:42,541 --> 02:57:45,674 Perhaps both of these things are ideas 3145 02:57:45,718 --> 02:57:50,505 that we 30, 40 years later are projecting onto the past. 3146 02:57:50,549 --> 02:57:53,117 [gentle music] 3147 02:58:21,797 --> 02:58:23,451 - One of the reasons that folk horror 3148 02:58:23,495 --> 02:58:26,106 has so much resonance to me is that 3149 02:58:26,150 --> 02:58:28,891 theater itself is ritual. 3150 02:58:28,935 --> 02:58:31,981 [soft ominous music] 3151 02:58:34,941 --> 02:58:38,988 So theater is a very ancient form of storytelling 3152 02:58:39,032 --> 02:58:43,123 that probably evolved from rituals themselves. 3153 02:58:43,167 --> 02:58:47,083 So, it evolved from the religious or spiritual rituals 3154 02:58:47,127 --> 02:58:49,651 that were important to early cultures. 3155 02:58:49,695 --> 02:58:51,784 In the horror genre, that sense of ritual 3156 02:58:51,827 --> 02:58:54,221 is still very much alive. 3157 02:58:54,265 --> 02:58:56,963 [ominous music] 3158 02:59:11,978 --> 02:59:14,154 - [Woman] It makes me weep 3159 02:59:15,243 --> 02:59:16,940 for what she gave for the world 3160 02:59:16,984 --> 02:59:19,465 with no expression on her face. 3161 02:59:19,508 --> 02:59:22,468 - If you look at all around the world, 3162 02:59:22,511 --> 02:59:25,993 urban centers are basically the producers 3163 02:59:27,821 --> 02:59:31,390 and recreators of such ideas and ideologies 3164 02:59:33,261 --> 02:59:35,655 in terms of this is where the financial centers are, 3165 02:59:35,698 --> 02:59:37,178 this is where the media bases are, 3166 02:59:37,222 --> 02:59:40,616 the cultural industries, academic industries, 3167 02:59:40,660 --> 02:59:44,968 basically the whole global culture is an urban culture. 3168 02:59:45,012 --> 02:59:47,710 So really, what goes on in the countryside 3169 02:59:47,754 --> 02:59:52,019 is sort of automatically shrouded in darkness. 3170 02:59:52,062 --> 02:59:53,890 It's hidden from view. 3171 02:59:55,065 --> 02:59:58,068 [suspenseful music] 3172 03:00:15,521 --> 03:00:19,351 So I think maybe that's why there's a resurgence 3173 03:00:19,394 --> 03:00:21,309 in folk horror at the moment. 3174 03:00:21,353 --> 03:00:25,531 We're so busy living in the moment that we've forgotten 3175 03:00:25,574 --> 03:00:28,664 really our connection with our own landscapes 3176 03:00:28,708 --> 03:00:32,364 and where we fit into our wider environment. 3177 03:00:33,713 --> 03:00:36,716 [suspenseful music] 3178 03:00:46,378 --> 03:00:51,383 [dramatic music] [man gasping] 3179 03:00:58,738 --> 03:01:01,393 [ominous music] 3180 03:01:13,753 --> 03:01:15,885 - I made this short film "Solitudo" 3181 03:01:15,929 --> 03:01:19,020 and it was set in the medieval period. 3182 03:01:23,154 --> 03:01:25,592 And I think one of the reasons that I became interested 3183 03:01:25,635 --> 03:01:29,073 in that particular era was the idea that if, you know, 3184 03:01:29,117 --> 03:01:31,075 you lived in the 12th century, 3185 03:01:31,119 --> 03:01:33,600 how would you know what was reality? 3186 03:01:33,643 --> 03:01:36,994 You can't check your phone, you're not getting rolling news. 3187 03:01:37,038 --> 03:01:39,301 What's your guidance, what's your signpost 3188 03:01:39,345 --> 03:01:40,911 for what's reality? 3189 03:01:40,955 --> 03:01:42,783 It would take ages for a message to come to you. 3190 03:01:42,826 --> 03:01:44,088 Even if something massive politically was happening, 3191 03:01:44,132 --> 03:01:45,612 there was a war or something, 3192 03:01:45,655 --> 03:01:48,397 you wouldn't get that news for a long time. 3193 03:01:48,441 --> 03:01:49,964 And so I think that was why, you know, 3194 03:01:50,007 --> 03:01:51,922 obviously superstition prevailed, 3195 03:01:51,966 --> 03:01:54,403 but I wonder if there is a parallel to our current time 3196 03:01:54,447 --> 03:01:57,928 where we've got such a proliferation of information 3197 03:01:57,972 --> 03:01:59,930 because of the internet that we don't know 3198 03:01:59,974 --> 03:02:00,931 what's reality anymore. 3199 03:02:00,975 --> 03:02:03,456 [eerie music] 3200 03:02:10,463 --> 03:02:12,029 So, I think definitely something like "The Witch" 3201 03:02:12,073 --> 03:02:14,292 where it's people in isolation, you know, 3202 03:02:14,336 --> 03:02:19,341 it almost could be like "The Village" by M. Night Shyamalan. 3203 03:02:20,516 --> 03:02:21,996 You're almost expecting like, 3204 03:02:22,039 --> 03:02:23,171 well maybe they don't live in the past. 3205 03:02:23,214 --> 03:02:24,781 Maybe they live in present. 3206 03:02:24,825 --> 03:02:26,783 Maybe that's what we're all going towards anyway 3207 03:02:26,827 --> 03:02:28,132 because there's gonna be some sort 3208 03:02:28,176 --> 03:02:29,612 of nuclear apocalypse. [chuckles] 3209 03:02:29,656 --> 03:02:32,702 [ominous music] 3210 03:02:32,746 --> 03:02:37,054 And we'll all be in, you know, leather jerkins 3211 03:02:37,098 --> 03:02:39,796 digging up the ground trying to plant stuff. 3212 03:02:39,840 --> 03:02:42,495 [ominous music] 3213 03:03:18,401 --> 03:03:20,185 - [Man] He also has a nightmare about Mary, doesn't he? 3214 03:03:20,229 --> 03:03:22,405 He sleeps on some clover. 3215 03:03:22,449 --> 03:03:24,886 He says it's six feet high, a six-feet-high bed of- 3216 03:03:24,929 --> 03:03:27,018 - [Mark] But I think also, and very importantly, 3217 03:03:27,062 --> 03:03:31,240 and the thing that kind of ties the present to the world 3218 03:03:31,283 --> 03:03:34,417 that the sort of key folk horror films emerged from 3219 03:03:34,461 --> 03:03:36,985 is we are living in dark times. 3220 03:03:38,900 --> 03:03:42,033 - [Man] He's lying on the ground under a foot tunnel. 3221 03:03:42,077 --> 03:03:45,776 - It definitely feels like anything can happen right now, 3222 03:03:45,820 --> 03:03:49,476 but not in that hopeful anything can happen. 3223 03:03:51,173 --> 03:03:52,870 It's like absolutely 3224 03:03:52,914 --> 03:03:54,393 anything can happen right now. - Anything can happen. 3225 03:03:54,437 --> 03:03:57,092 [ominous music] 3226 03:03:59,268 --> 03:04:00,617 - [Woman] Far from this vast- 3227 03:04:00,661 --> 03:04:02,532 - [Chad] All of the atrocities 3228 03:04:02,576 --> 03:04:04,795 that are happening right now in our culture are people. 3229 03:04:04,839 --> 03:04:06,318 You know, there is nothing supernatural. 3230 03:04:06,362 --> 03:04:08,146 It's all people doing all the stuff. 3231 03:04:08,190 --> 03:04:10,845 [ominous music] 3232 03:04:12,455 --> 03:04:15,066 - [Woman] His faithfulness [indistinct]. 3233 03:04:15,110 --> 03:04:17,765 [woman screams] 3234 03:04:19,157 --> 03:04:20,463 - [Chad] And so I think that folk horror 3235 03:04:20,507 --> 03:04:22,291 feels like it's something else 3236 03:04:22,334 --> 03:04:25,163 like the old gods or the land or the bad harvest 3237 03:04:25,207 --> 03:04:26,643 or the ground is bad. 3238 03:04:26,687 --> 03:04:29,559 [ominous music] 3239 03:04:29,603 --> 03:04:32,431 And Jud says, "The soil of a man's heart is stonier, Louis." 3240 03:04:32,475 --> 03:04:34,608 He's basically saying that at the end of the day, 3241 03:04:34,651 --> 03:04:37,088 you bring your horror in with you. 3242 03:04:37,132 --> 03:04:39,787 [ominous music] 3243 03:04:58,849 --> 03:05:02,287 - There's a direct echo of the world 3244 03:05:02,331 --> 03:05:05,290 from the time that the folk horror films 3245 03:05:05,334 --> 03:05:06,944 that we're talking about were made 3246 03:05:06,988 --> 03:05:08,772 and the world we live in now 3247 03:05:08,816 --> 03:05:13,342 in that there's a real sense of pessimism about the future. 3248 03:05:14,735 --> 03:05:16,563 And that was very much present in the '70s 3249 03:05:16,606 --> 03:05:19,610 when certainly in Britain you had quite a serious state 3250 03:05:19,654 --> 03:05:22,134 of social and cultural breakdown. 3251 03:05:22,178 --> 03:05:24,136 You know, there was famously rubbish 3252 03:05:24,180 --> 03:05:27,836 piled up in the streets, power cuts, strikes. 3253 03:05:29,664 --> 03:05:31,840 There was a great sense of environmental destruction 3254 03:05:31,883 --> 03:05:34,669 and a sense that the way that we had built 3255 03:05:34,712 --> 03:05:37,672 our culture around us was actually destroying 3256 03:05:37,715 --> 03:05:40,022 the world that we lived on. 3257 03:05:42,241 --> 03:05:43,982 - I talked about how in the '70s 3258 03:05:44,026 --> 03:05:46,855 you had an ill-fated conservative election plan, 3259 03:05:46,898 --> 03:05:51,250 a president going a bit wrong, and a divisive referendum 3260 03:05:51,294 --> 03:05:53,731 on Europe, and if those things don't sound familiar, 3261 03:05:53,775 --> 03:05:57,039 where have you been the last few years? 3262 03:06:00,782 --> 03:06:04,089 Suddenly we get to a period where there's terrorism, 3263 03:06:04,133 --> 03:06:08,224 there's Nazis on streets, there's stuff happening 3264 03:06:10,226 --> 03:06:14,622 which does not feel like everything is okay, 3265 03:06:14,665 --> 03:06:16,624 and history's biting us. 3266 03:06:17,973 --> 03:06:20,540 And we have this unresolved past, 3267 03:06:20,584 --> 03:06:24,327 this hauntology that is bringing back ghosts. 3268 03:06:26,721 --> 03:06:30,855 And we're expressing this partly in the way 3269 03:06:30,899 --> 03:06:33,641 the occult and the unusual is extending itself 3270 03:06:33,684 --> 03:06:35,294 into everyday life. 3271 03:06:35,338 --> 03:06:37,993 [ominous music] 3272 03:06:56,098 --> 03:06:59,623 - I think there's just a huge need in our society 3273 03:06:59,667 --> 03:07:03,409 to hold onto something that is more than 3274 03:07:03,453 --> 03:07:05,237 what we see in our ordinary life. 3275 03:07:05,281 --> 03:07:07,979 [rain pattering] 3276 03:07:13,115 --> 03:07:15,421 - I think people feel lonely. 3277 03:07:15,465 --> 03:07:18,120 [ominous music] 3278 03:07:21,124 --> 03:07:22,734 I think people feel isolated. 3279 03:07:22,778 --> 03:07:24,083 I think people feel out of touch 3280 03:07:24,127 --> 03:07:26,172 because in our new modern world, 3281 03:07:26,216 --> 03:07:29,915 we're so connected and yet we're super anonymous, 3282 03:07:29,959 --> 03:07:33,658 and we've just lost touch with the community 3283 03:07:35,138 --> 03:07:37,793 and the traditions that we once had. 3284 03:07:39,229 --> 03:07:41,100 - In the 21st century, the renewed interest 3285 03:07:41,144 --> 03:07:43,494 in folk horror now is to do with another major change, 3286 03:07:43,537 --> 03:07:44,843 it's a change of technology, right? 3287 03:07:44,887 --> 03:07:46,453 People living in an analog era, 3288 03:07:46,497 --> 03:07:47,977 we live in a very digital era, 3289 03:07:48,020 --> 03:07:50,501 people living in their own little worlds, 3290 03:07:50,544 --> 03:07:52,633 their own little bubbles of contained communities 3291 03:07:52,677 --> 03:07:54,157 like pseudo-communities. 3292 03:07:54,200 --> 03:07:56,550 And often in these kinds of situations, 3293 03:07:56,594 --> 03:07:58,727 people yearn for the old again. 3294 03:07:58,770 --> 03:08:01,860 [gentle somber music] 3295 03:08:04,820 --> 03:08:06,386 They wanna believe in something. 3296 03:08:06,430 --> 03:08:07,953 It may not be religion anymore, 3297 03:08:07,997 --> 03:08:10,216 but they wanna believe in some kind of power. 3298 03:08:10,260 --> 03:08:11,740 - You're sounding like Lord Summerisle. 3299 03:08:11,783 --> 03:08:12,741 [Vic laughs] 3300 03:08:12,784 --> 03:08:15,787 [gentle music continues] 3301 03:08:15,831 --> 03:08:18,659 - I think there is this urge to find something 3302 03:08:18,703 --> 03:08:21,967 that because it can't be dissected and analyzed 3303 03:08:22,011 --> 03:08:25,318 into non-existence that will have retained 3304 03:08:25,362 --> 03:08:27,712 some kind of core of power 3305 03:08:27,756 --> 03:08:30,671 and perhaps you can call that spirit or soul. 3306 03:08:30,715 --> 03:08:32,673 I don't know, but I think maybe 3307 03:08:32,717 --> 03:08:34,675 that's what people are drawn to, 3308 03:08:34,719 --> 03:08:39,550 the fact that these films do seem to have a kind of a soul. 3309 03:08:44,381 --> 03:08:46,905 [gentle music] 3310 03:09:19,938 --> 03:09:24,944 ♪ What is this that I can't see ♪ 3311 03:09:26,424 --> 03:09:31,255 ♪ Ice cold hands that get hold of me ♪ 3312 03:09:32,778 --> 03:09:37,783 ♪ I am dead, no one can tell 3313 03:09:39,437 --> 03:09:44,442 ♪ Open the gate to Heaven or Hell ♪ 3314 03:09:46,444 --> 03:09:51,449 ♪ Oh Death, someone would pray 3315 03:09:52,929 --> 03:09:57,194 ♪ Could you wait for another day ♪ 3316 03:09:58,804 --> 03:10:03,635 ♪ My head is warm, my feet are cold ♪ 3317 03:10:05,115 --> 03:10:10,120 ♪ Death is a-moving upon my soul ♪ 3318 03:10:11,469 --> 03:10:16,474 ♪ Oh Death 3319 03:10:17,562 --> 03:10:22,567 ♪ Oh Death 3320 03:10:23,481 --> 03:10:28,486 ♪ Oh Death 3321 03:10:29,748 --> 03:10:34,753 ♪ Oh Death 3322 03:10:35,493 --> 03:10:39,932 ♪ Won't you spare me over 3323 03:10:40,890 --> 03:10:45,503 ♪ For another year 3324 03:10:46,983 --> 03:10:51,465 ♪ Fix your feet till you can't walk ♪ 3325 03:10:52,989 --> 03:10:56,993 ♪ Lock your jaw till you can't talk ♪ 3326 03:10:58,516 --> 03:11:02,694 ♪ Close your eyes so you can't see ♪ 3327 03:11:04,174 --> 03:11:08,352 ♪ This very air come and go with me ♪ 3328 03:11:09,831 --> 03:11:14,140 ♪ Death I come to take the soul ♪ 3329 03:11:15,576 --> 03:11:19,580 ♪ Leave the body, leave it cold ♪ 3330 03:11:21,147 --> 03:11:25,239 ♪ Draw the flesh up off the frame ♪ 3331 03:11:26,719 --> 03:11:30,723 ♪ Dirt and worm both have a claim ♪ 3332 03:11:31,550 --> 03:11:36,511 ♪ Oh Death 3333 03:11:37,251 --> 03:11:41,734 ♪ Oh Death 3334 03:11:42,517 --> 03:11:47,044 ♪ Oh Death 3335 03:11:47,914 --> 03:11:52,353 ♪ Oh Death 3336 03:11:52,397 --> 03:11:57,402 ♪ Won't you spare me over 3337 03:11:58,403 --> 03:12:02,929 ♪ For another year 3338 03:12:04,061 --> 03:12:08,239 ♪ Won't you spare me over 3339 03:12:09,196 --> 03:12:11,285 ♪ For another year