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