Books Spotlight: The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror and Folk Horror On Film: The Return of the British Repressed.

November 25, 2023November 25, 2023 fertilitycult

The following article is not a review as such to avoid accusation of bias as I (Andy Paciorek) have essays in the books (‘Yesterday’s Memories of Tomorrow: Nostalgia, Hauntology and Folk Horror’ in The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror, and ‘Albion Unearthed: social, political and cultural influences on British Folk Horror, Urban Wyrd and Backwoods Cinema’ in Folk Horror on Film’) – but instead is a spotlight of some tomes that may be of interest and/or use to students, lecturers and aficionados of folk horror and its associated fields.

The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror

Edited By Robert Edgar, Wayne Johnson (Routledge. 2023)

“The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror offers a comprehensive guide to this popular genre. It explores its origins, canonical texts and thinkers, the crucial underlying themes of nostalgia and hauntology, and identifies new trends in the field.

Divided into five parts, the first focuses on the history of Folk Horror from medieval texts to the present day. It considers the first wave of contemporary Folk Horror through the films of the ‘unholy trinity’, as well as discussing the influence of ancient gods and early Folk Horror. Part 2 looks at the spaces, landscapes, and cultural relics, which form a central focus for Folk Horror. In Part 3, the contributors examine the rich history of the use of folklore in children’s fiction. The next part discusses recent examples of Folk Horror-infused music and image. Chapters consider the relationship between different genres of music to Folk Horror (such as folk music, black metal, and new wave), sound and performance, comic books, and the Dark Web. Often regarded as British in origin, the final part analyses texts which break this link, as the contributors reveal the larger realms of regional, national, international, and transnational Folk Horror.

Featuring 40 contributions, this authoritative collection brings together leading voices in the field. It is an invaluable resource for students and scholars interested in this vibrant genre and its enduring influence on literature, film, music, and culture.”

Table of Contents –

General Introduction – Robert Edgar and Wayne Johnson

Part I: Origins and Histories

Christopher Flavin Fear of the World: Folk Horror in Early British Literature
Brendan Walsh The Early Modern Popular Demonic and the Foundations of Twentieth Century British Folk Horror
Katy Soar “Banished to woods and a sickly moon”: The Old Gods in Folk Horror
Craig Thomson “I am the writing on the wall, the whisper in the classroom”: The Changing Conception of the ‘Folk’ in the Western Folk Horror Tradition
Darryl Jones M. R. James and Folk Horror
Miranda Corcoran “Leave Something Witchy”: Evolving Representations of Cults and New Religious Movements in Folk Horror
Alan Smith The spectacle of the uncanny revel: Thomas Hardy’s Mephistophelian Visitants and ‘Folk Provenance’.
Charlotte Runcie ‘We’re not in the Middle Ages’: Alan Garner’s Folk Horror Medievalism
Peter Bell Terror in the Landscape: Folk Horror in the Stories of M.R. James
John Miller Folk Horror, HS2 and the Disenchanted Woods
David Evans-Powell Mind the Doors! Characterising the London Underground on Screen as a Folk Horror Space
Beth Kattelman Queer Folk: The Danger of Being Different
David Sweeney “Out of the dust”: Folk Horror and the Urban Wyrd in Too Old to Die Young and Other Works by Nicolas Winding Refn
Catherine Spooner Meeting the Gorse Mother: Feminist Approaches to Folk Horror in Contemporary British Fiction
Ruth Heholt Handicrafts of Evil: Nostalgia and the Make-Culture of Folk Horror
Lauren Stephenson Restoring Relics – (Re)-releasing Antrum (2018) and film as Folk Horror
Andy Paciorek Yesterday’s Memories of Tomorrow: Nostalgia, Hauntology & Folk Horror
Diane A. Rodgers Ghosts in the Machine: Folklore and technology onscreen in Ghostwatch (1992) and Host (2020)
Douglas McNaughton The Pattern Under the Plough: Folk Horror in 1970s British Children’s Television
Jez Conolly ‘This calm, serene orb’: a personal recollection of the comforting strangeness found in the worlds of Smallfilms
Jon Towlson ‘To Traumatise Kids for Life’: The Influence of Folk Horror on 1970s Children’s Television
Bob Fischer That Haunted Feeling: Analogue Memories
Stephen Brotherstone “Don’t Be Frightened. I Told You We Were Privileged”: The British Class System in the Televised Folk Horror of the 1970s
Dave Lawrence The 4:45 Club: Folk Horror Before Teatime in the 1970s and 1980s
Julianne Regan The Idyllic Horrific– Field, Farm, Garden, Forest and Machine
Richard D. Craig “And the devil he came to the farmer at plough” – November, Folk Horror and folk music
Julian Holloway Sounding Folk Horror and the Strange Rural
Jason D. Brawn Sounds of Our Past: The electronic music that links Folk Horror and Hauntology
Joseph S. Norman Even in death: The ‘Folk Horror Chain’ in Black Metal
Ben Halligan Towards ‘Squire Horror’: Genesis 1972-3
Barbara Chamberlin Patterns beneath the grid: the haunted spaces of Folk Horror comics
Max Jokschus From the Fibers, from the Forums, from the Fringe – Folk Horror from the Deep, Dark Web
Dawn Keetley ‘The dark is here’: The Third Day and Folk Horror’s Anxiety about Birth-rates, Immigration, and Race
Robert Edgar Hinterlands and SPAs: Folk Horror and Neoliberal Desolation
Andrew M. Butler “Why Don’t You Go Home?”: The Folk Horror Revival in Contemporary Cornish Gothic Films
Adam Smith Satire and the British Folk Horror Revival
Matthew Cheeseman English Nationalism, Folklore and Pagans
Keith McDonald Bound by Elusiveness: Transnational Cinema and Folk Horror
James Thurgill Strange Permutations, Eerie Dis/locations: On the cultural and geographic specificity of Japanese Folk Horror
Adam Spellicy “All the little devils are proud of Hell”: The First Wave of Australian Folk Horror

https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Folk-Horror/Edgar-Johnson/p/book/9781032042831

Folk Horror On Film: Return of the British Repressed.

Edited by Kevin J. Donnelly and Louis Bayman (Manchester University Press. 2023)

“What is folk horror and how culturally significant is it? This collection is the first study to address these questions while considering the special importance of British cinema to the genre’s development.

The book presents political and aesthetic analyses of folk horror’s uncanny landscapes and frightful folk. It places canonical films like Witchfinder General (1968), The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) and The Wicker Man (1973) in a new light and expands the canon to include films like the sci-fi horror Doomwatch (1970-72) and the horror documentary Requiem for a Village (1975) alongside filmmakers Ken Russell and Ben Wheatley.

A series of engrossing chapters by established scholars and new writers argue for the uniqueness of folk horror from perspectives that include the fragmented national history of pagan heresies and Celtic cultures, of peasant lifestyles, folkloric rediscoveries and postcolonial decline.”

Foreword by John Das
Introduction: what makes the folk horrific? – Louis Bayman and K.J. Donnelly
Part I: Debating The Wicker Man (1973)
1 The context of The Wicker Man – Ronald Hutton
2 A deeply religious people: The Wicker Man, contemporary paganism, and Dracula reversed- Laurel Zwissler
3 Folk horror: a discursive approach, with application to Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973) and Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves (1984) – Mikel J. Koven
Part II: Return of the British repressed
4 The folk of folk horror – Derek Johnston
5 Doomwatch: sacrifice zones and folk horror – Dawn Keetley
6 My ancestors died here: Requiem for a Village and the rural English horror of modernity and socio-cultural change – Paul Newland
7 Outsider history, or outside of history – K. J. Donnelly
8 Anglo creep and Celtic resistance in Apostle – Beth Carroll
9 Women’s folk horror in Britain: history, industry, style – Amy Harris
Part III: Folk horror’s cultural landscapes
10 Ritualistic rhythms: exploring the sensory effect of drums in British folk horror cinema – Lyndsay Townsend
11 ‘Nature came before man’: human as subject and object within the folk horror anti-landscape – David Evans-Powell
12 Hieroglyphics: Arthur Machen on screen – Mark Goodall
13 Albion unearthed: social, political and cultural influences on British folk horror, urban wyrd and backwoods cinema – Andy Paciorek
14 ‘Isn’t folk horror all horror?’: a wyrd genre – Diane A. Rodgers
https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526164926/

Book Review ~The Book of Beasts: Folklore, Popular Culture and Nigel Kneale’s ATV Horror Series by Andrew Screen

November 19, 2023 fertilitycult

Interest in speculative fiction screenwriter Nigel Kneale has seen a 21^st Century cult renaissance, mostly regarding his creation the rocket scientist Quatermass, but here Andrew Screen puts the focus on Kneale’s ATV series Beasts. Broadcast in 1976 during the golden age of British television plays and supernatural/thriller anthology shows, even amidst this bizarre telly miscellany, Beasts is something of a strange … well … beast. Each episode tangentially is related to animals or sometimes the animalistic within human nature – diverse beastly menace from an invasion of super-rats to a possessed kaiju film costume ensues. Screen dives deep into this strangeness seeking possible inspirations for Kneale’s manifestations. The folklore, history, Forteana and comparative media covered is wide and intriguing – resulting at one point in possibly the oddest and most amusing note disclaimer I’ve ever witnessed, stating that the author was in no way suggesting that Kneale was a viewer of equine erotica! – all the more bizarre by the fact that this is mentioned in relation to Buddy Boy, an episode about a dead dolphin haunting a potential porn theatre!

That extra special talking mongoose Gef gets coverage in the chapter covering Special Offer, an episode whereby teenager Pauline Quirke telekinetically terrorises a mini-mart. Discussion of therianthropy arises in relation to What Big Eyes, an episode where Patrick Magee, at his bombastic best, conducts weird experiments at a pet shop. Many aspects of weird history and preternatural phenomena are covered in this book making every chapter an enthralling read. Regarding the episode During Barty’s Party, I started to feel unsettled by the discussion of actual cases of rat attacks and infestation. I am pleased to see Screen feature Kneale’s TV play Murrain in this book. Although part of a TV play series called Against the Crowd, Murrain played a part in the commissioning of the Beasts show but also it feels akin, tonally, aesthetically and subject wise with Beasts, particularly to the episode Baby.

Both Murrain and Baby are set in bleak rural settings and deal with the fear of witchcraft and curses. Murrain, as the name indicates, concerns a rustic community that fears that a swine disease outbreak and other local misfortunes are due to the malfeasance of a suspected witch; whilst Baby concerns the discovery of an anomalous mummified creature found interred in an old rustic house – confined there not perhaps for apotropaic reason but for malediction. As well as rigorously covering production tech-specs and post-production reaction, Screen’s book is the most interesting, inviting and entertaining commentary on the work of Nigel Kneale I’ve encountered. A great tribute to possibly Nigel Kneale’s most peculiar body of work.

The Book of Beasts: Folklore, Popular Culture and Nigel Kneale’s ATV Horror Series
Andrew Screen
Headpress. 2023
pb. Illus. index. 434 pages. £22.99
ISBN. 191531609X

Reviewed by Andy Paciorek

Blood On Satan’s Claw by Robert Wynne-Simmons. Book Review

January 28, 2023 fertilitycult

Over a half-century of waiting but finally that brooding member of the classic Folk Horror unhallowed triumvirate of British films, The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) has its own tie-in novel accompanying on the shelves the book partners of Witchfinder General (1968) and The Wicker Man (1973).
Only in the case of Witchfinder General did the book precede the film (written by Ronald Bassett and published in 1966). The novelisations of The Wicker Man (which was initially inspired by David Pirner’s 1967 novel Ritual) and The Blood on Satan’s Claw followed the films after some years and were both penned by the screenwriters of said films – Anthony Shaffer (alongside the director of the film, Robin Hardy) in The Wicker Man’s case and Robert Wynne-Simmons with regard to The Blood on Satan’s Claw. With time passed this allowed the writers to return to their creations with a fresher mind and to alter or elaborate upon the stories – with greater success in the case of The Blood on Satan’s Claw, (The Wicker Man novel is a decent enough read and works well to flesh out Sergeant Howie’s character but the addition of the characters Beech and Sorrel and their narratives I find somewhat superfluous and distracting).
Wynne-Simmons is more successful in fleshing out the bones of the characters (or rather furring up their flesh) without veering too far from the soul of the film.

Blood On Satan’s Claw or The Devil’s Skin as the book is titled, follows events that unfurled in the early 18th Century in a pastoral British village named Chapel Folding following the discovery of grisly remains by farmhand Ralph Gower when turning the soil of Tarrant’s Field – a patch of land that generally was left un-ploughed. Remnants of the unearthed mysterious body parts fall into the hands of some local children and things in the sleepy village begin to turn decidedly fiendish. It was not simply bodily relics brought to the surface by Ralph’s toils but a malign presence that endeavored to make itself felt through the bidding and worship of many of the locals – particularly the children.

It is this utter corruption of innocence that I feel is the heart of Blood on Satan’s Claw and which gives both the film and book power. It is also however the source of controversy that casts a shadow upon the movie. Without giving away Spoilers to either film or book, there is one scene in particular that regards the fate of one of the village girls. In hindsight the director Piers Haggard says that if he were to have done it now, he would have filmed the scene differently. I personally feel that the events of this scene are pivotal in showing the savage possession that the children have fallen under but do understand the criticisms of its cinematic depiction. Perhaps this was of consideration to Wynne-Simmons in his novelisation as on paper the events unfold thematically the same but stylistically different.
I am categorically a fan of the film, though utterly conscious of any issues levelled against it; but there is something I find eerily spell-binding in it. The book also captivated me. I wonder though if this would differ much had I not watched the film so many times. Dialogue I heard spoken in the specific actors’ voices and I pictured them likewise, which I think speaks well of the casting in the film. The book is a page-turner, though, written in a flowing, inviting manner so I think that for readers with no prior exposure to the film, it would still prove an engaging and interesting read.

The film though also to an extent does seem to have influenced the artist Richard Wells whose chapbook-reminiscent prints illustrate the book. Depicted characters such as the beguiling Angel Blake (one of my all-time favourite movie villains) look very much like their onscreen counterparts (Linda Hayden in Angel’s case).
I am a huge devotee to illustrated books so the imagery contained within is appreciated and a nice-touch. Wells being a prominent figure in the revival of Folk Horror being an apt choice for the job.
One bugbear I have with the film is the visual reveal of the Fiend – I do not think the effects do the malignant entity justice (same bone of contention I have with the otherwise great 1957 film Night of the Demon). I would have preferred both to have been more unseen and would have found that more ominous and disturbing. However within the book the depiction of the devil of the fields in all his glory is reminiscent of the medieval texts and does suit the purpose better.
The red bookmark ribbon is another small but pleasing touch – these visual attentions make the book more of a pleasure to behold and make for a nice ghoulish gift for someone.

It’s been a long time in coming but well worth the wait I feel, as I thoroughly enjoyed the book both for its narrative and writing and for its visual appeal.

Linda Hayden as Angel Blake in The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971)

Blood on Satan’s Claw or The Devil’s Skin
Written by Robert-Wynne Simmons, illustrated by Richard Wells

Available now HERE and at other book stores

Review by Andy Paciorek

The Art of Wandering: the writer as walker by Merlin Coverley

January 22, 2023 yorkpilgrimLeave a comment

Published by Oldcastle Books

Review by John Pilgrim

In this engaging and timely update to The Art of Wandering we are in the convivial company of Merlin Coverley, an author who has written on a variety of topics which will naturally intrigue many Folk Horror Revivalists, including hauntology, psychogeography and occult London.

Merlin Coverley

In the preface to the new edition Coverley reflects on the increasing popularity of walking, not least as an antidote to the stresses of modern life. Many of us will have experienced the positive impact which walking can have in relation to our general sense of wellbeing and in helping us to make sense of our lives. In this book Coverley guides us through the historical legacy of the ‘writer-as-walker’ and surveys the work of contemporary authors, all of whom illustrate how walking, sensemaking and writing are intimately connected.

We learn how from the ancient world to the modern day, the role of the walker has continued to evolve, ‘from philosopher and pilgrim, vagrant and visionary, to experimentalist and radical’. The deceptively simple act of placing one foot in front of another is explored in the context of a rich literary tradition which encompasses writers such as Rousseau, De Quincy, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Clare, Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, Machen and Virginia Woolf. We learn too of the work and lives of those involved in twentieth century movements such as Dada, Surrealism and Situationism. Other perspectives are shared such as that of the anthropologist Tim Ingold who reflects on how walking and writing are closely coupled in movement, for ‘to walk is to journey in the mind as much as on the land: it is a deeply meditative practice’.

As well as the philosophical reflections on the relationship between walking and writing, I very much enjoyed the colourful anecdotes which are peppered throughout the book. Coverley explains how Charles Dickens had an extraordinary capacity for walking, on one occasion choosing to get out of bed at two in the morning and walk for thirty miles into the country for breakfast. Another account relays how Dickens often expected his dinner guests to join him for a walk of many miles across the city at night before eating.

As might be expected given the author’s related work, some time is taken to explore the foundations and contrasting traditions of psychogeography, the space where psychology and geography intersect. Throughout the book an illuminating approach is taken to the use of literary extracts. One such example is that taken from ‘Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography’ by Guy Debord for whom the psychogeographer, ‘like the skilled chemist, is able both to identify and distil the varied ambiences of his environment’, not least through walking in the form the aimless drift or dérive which enables the practitioner to determine the emotional characteristics of particular zones in the city in a way which would not otherwise be possible.

Several writers highlighted in The Art of Wandering will be of particular interest to those with an interest in horror. One such writer is Arthur Machen, author of The Great God Pan, who Coverley considers to be of equal significance as a literary walker to William Blake, De Quincey (Confessions of an English Opium-Eater) and Dickens.

Portrait of Arthur Machen by John Coulthart

Machen spent many years walking through the streets of London, frequently around Gray’s Inn Road but also further afield and often without direction, overwhelmed by a sense of awe bordering on sheer terror at the city’s dark undercurrents and occult associations. Coverley explains how much of Machen’s work can be seen as a strategy to combat this sense of dread and gain mastery over London’s streets by walking them, and through this knowledge overcoming their menace. Here Coverley draws a vivid picture of Machen as ‘the solitary walker seeking an escape from the labyrinth, yet fated to spend a lifetime in doing so’.

One contemporary author who appears to have been similarly fated, though not necessarily in such a solitary way, is Iain Sinclair. For more than fifty years Sinclair has pursued what he refers to has his ‘London Project’, a series of poems, novels, diaries and other non-fiction accounts of London’s neglected spaces.

Iain Sinclair in conversation with John Pilgrim at FHR’s ‘Otherworldly’ event

Early works such as Lud Heat took inspiration from work of Alfred Watkins’ thesis that much of the country’s landscape is connected by hidden ‘lines of force’:

A triangle is formed between Christ Church, St George-in-the-East and St Anne, Limehouse. These are centres of power for those territories; sentinel, sphinx-form, slack dynamos abandoned as the culture supported goes into retreat. The power remains latent, the frustration mounts on a current of animal magnetism, and victims are still claimed.

For Sinclair the city is to be re-discovered through a process of walking and imagination which has the potential to reveal the hidden relationship between the capital’s financial, political and religious institutions.

In more recent years Sinclair has extended the scope of his London project, one journey of note being his extraordinary walk around the M25 in the company of his wife Anna, the artist Brian Catling and the fantasy writer and magician Alan Moore. Participants in the Folk Horror Revival ‘Otherworldly’ event held at the British Museum may also recall Sinclair’s account of the pilgrimage which he and others undertook in memory of Edith Swan Neck, who may have been the first wife of King Harold II. This involved walking over one hundred miles from Waltham Abbey in Essex to St Leonards via Battle Abbey. In instances such as this walking and the act of writing are complementary tools by which hidden narratives and forgotten lives may be resurrected.

Lengthy and arduous walks such as those of Sinclair and Will Self (who once walked across London to New York in a day) are by no means the sole focus of Coverley’s exploration of writer-as-walker. One literary example which Coverley highlights is ‘Street-Haunting’ by Virginia Woolf. Subtitled ‘A London Adventure’, Woolf’s essay is essentially a light-hearted account of one woman’s walk across London in search of a pencil.

Virginia Woolf

The deliciously named practice of ‘street-haunting’ was a lifelong habit which Woolf first began when she moved to Gordon Square in 1904 and enabled much of the author’s creative thinking, planning and ‘scene-making’ to flourish. In this essay, Woolf leaves the solitude of her room to explore her fleeting impressions of London’s inherent strangeness and ‘that vast anonymous army of anonymous trampers’. The transitory nature of Woolf’s walking experience is reflected in her writing which reveals a sense of self which is fragile and free floating.

Importantly, Coverley notes the historical importance of Street-Haunting in relation to the female experience of writer-as-walker, a critical dimension which has traditionally been overlooked. In the preface to this new edition of the book Coverley rightly acknowledges the dominance of this ‘somewhat dispiriting demographic of ageing masculinity’ and welcomes the counter-narrative that has emerged in recent years, with Lauren Elkin’s Flâneuse providing a critical turning point in bringing the female writer-as-walker to the fore. I would have welcomed a deeper exploration of this aspect, for example, through a more detailed appraisal of Rebecca Solnit’s work (Wanderlust: A History of Walking, and A Field Guide to Getting Lost).

The updated edition of The Art of Wandering is an invigorating read, impressive both in its scholarly breadth and in the vivid way in which the relationship between walking and writing is communicated. It also offers the reader something more: a welcome stimulus to re-connect with our cities and landscapes in deeper, more meaningful ways. It is a tonic for our times.

The Beckoning Fair One: Film Review

November 24, 2022 fertilitycult

Following 2017’s Holy Terrors (review here) the excellent film adaptation of various tales by the mystical author Arthur Machen, the directorial duo of Julian Butler and Mark Goodall return with a tale from another past master of the mysterious and macabre – Oliver Onions* and an adaptation of his short tale ‘The Beckoning Fair One’.

The premise of the story follows a writer as he moves into a new apartment in order to complete a novel. Eventually it is revealed that apartment is haunted by the ghost of a previous resident- the ‘beckoning fair one’ of the title.

Timed at 23 minutes, Goodall & Butler’s version of the tale stays closer to Onion’s original short story than the 1968 Don Chaffey directed adaptation that featured as an episode of the ABC/ITV supernatural/weird anthology series Journey to the Unknown.
The Chaffey version has a different tone and replaces the author protagonist with a painter. It gives a specific time-setting in that it takes place 25 years after the World War 2 bombings of London and in doing so gives a more thorough exposition of the presence in the house than either Onion’s story or the Butler-Goodall version. The Chaffey adaptation runs at one hour which is perhaps too long to tell the story as it feels repetitive in parts rather than tension-building. It is however worth a watch both in itself and as a contrast to Goodall & Butler’s envisioning. (There is also a 1973 Italian Giallo film called Un Tranquillo Posto di Campagna – A Quiet Place in the Country inspired by the tale.)

Butler & Goodall only take 23 minutes on the tale which is enough to do it justice. Its tone and atmosphere is rather oneiric; slow-burning yet getting subtly under the skin delivering an entirely believable yet uncanny experience. Its sound design and crisp well-framed photography coupled with an aesthetically pleasing palette and good location choices serve up a pleasant yet eerie package – with a tale and delivery that does hazily unsettle. It is set in contemporary times, but still maintains a timeless quality. It keeps close to the psychological aspect of the original story, keeping the presence within the house and the brooding will of the building itself to the front and foremost -its horror is cerebral and suggestive not an exhibition of gore or jump-scares.
Having a narrator detail the entire tale over live-action footage may not be to the taste of all viewers but for a film of this length serves its purpose well. Indeed I could see Butler & Goodall’s The Beckoning Fair One sit perfectly into A Ghost Story For Christmas slot. Having previously seen (several times actually) and loved their take on the tales of Machen, they have now displayed an empathy and understanding of Oliver Onion’s macabre tale and how to deliver it. I am left hungering to see them take on more of the past visionaries of the horror short story. I’d be curious and keen to see what they could do with the tales of Robert Aickman and Algernon Blackwood for instance.
If anyone from the BBC happens to read this, take heed for Goodall and Butler are creating work that suits these times but also sits comfortably with established spooky series such as A Ghost Story for Christmas, Supernatural (1977) or The World Beyond etc.

The Beckoning Fair One can be seen in its entirety HERE

Portrait of Oliver Onions – Andy Paciorek

*Oliver Onions (1873 – 1961) was an author and artist from Bradford, England. Originally trained as a graphic artist, Onions began writing fiction under the encouragement of the American writer Gelet Burgess. Turning his hand to detective stories, science fiction and historical drama also, it is perhaps for his short tales of the weird, supernatural and spectral that he is best known. His 1911 collection Widdershins which features The Beckoning Fair One is amongst his most famous and critically acclaimed works (including amongst several other writers of weird fiction). As with The Beckoning Fair One, the theme of the relationship between creativity and madness is a theme that he returned to in his work several times.
Married to the novelist Berta Ruck and the father of two sons, Oliver Onions passed away in Aberystwyth, Wales in 1961.

Review by Andy Paciorek
All images unless credited otherwise © Julian Butler & Mark Goodall

Lizzy Laurance – Rocketman Review

July 4, 2022July 4, 2022 darrencharles1Leave a comment

Lizzy Laurance’s debut album, Rocketman was released April 30^th of this year. I would like to start by apologising to Lizzy for the delay in posting this review, however, a series of health issues and time constraints have held things up, which I hope are gradually coming to an end. Anyway, now that’s out of the way lets get down to Lizzy and her suitably impressive debut release.

Lizzy is a London based electronic musician who create “grainy pop-collages inspired by spatial locations; inner, outer and cyber”. In creating her music, she uses found sounds, ambient electronics, library samples, and electronic beats; stitching them together to create atmospheric aural soundscapes. Lizzy explores “the mythology of pop music and the icons who inhabit it”, through stories of “female identity, image-making and toxic masculinity”. Her inspirations are varied and thought-provoking, Lizzy cites David Lynch, Lana Del Ray and Godspeed You! Black Emperor as key influences on the sound of her album, and whilst this may sound like a disparate selection of artists, you can hear a little bit of each in the music, as well as a whole lot of herself. This is by no means an exercise in simply showing adulation for her heroes, she simply uses them to inspire and inform her own original sounding material.

The concept for the album came together while Laurance was artist in residence at Illutron, an arts and technology institute situated on an 800ft dredging boat in Copenhagen. She lived alone on the boat and made a number of field recordings that would form the basis of the songs featured on the album, not just from a musical perspective but from a storytelling perspective too. Lizzy says that she always felt there was “something rotten about the place” before she eventually uncovered that she was living at the site of the infamous Copenhagen Submarine murder of 2018. Founder of Copenhagen’s rocket building scene, Peter Madsen murdered a journalist (Kim Wall) who had come to interview him on board his home-made submarine. Laurance tries to reconcile the visionary ideals and technological innovations Madsen made with the destruction that was “left in its wake.”

After a short intro track (Promenade) that merely hints at what is to follow we are into our first song proper. “Baby Loves”, is a hauntingly atmospheric piece of Avant Garde audio that is eloquent and beautiful, yet possesses hints of a much colder, darker, industrial soundscape. “Come Down” almost sounds like drum and bass at times, yet Lizzy’s haunted vocals and the jazz trumpet samples give it a wholly warmer feel. “Gasoline Blue Jeans” reminds me a little of Portishead at their most experimental. There is also a starkness throughout the album that draws me back to Lynch’s solo albums Blue Bob and Crazy Clown Time. I also feel this particular track would have fitted nicely on the soundtrack to Lynch’s third series of Twin Peaks. “Too Hard to Die” is an off kilter, glitchy industrial nightmare that leaves the listener feeling drained, while “White Nights” is the sound of some sort of clanking mechanical hell, manifesting as music, with Lizzy’s ethereal vocals rising out of the clanking sounds of heavy machinery. “Shine” is a largely ambient track that allows Lizzy’s voice to take centre stage while strange otherworldly sounds move around it. I really like this track for the way in which it manages to create something that sounds like it belongs on the soundtrack to a 1970s Avant Garde science fiction movie. “Famous” starts off with what sounds like corrupted seabird samples before settling into slightly off kilter ethereal pop territory. The lyrics are written from the perspective of a man who stalked Lizzy during her time in Copenhagen, but it’s got a much deeper meaning about toxic masculinity and why women continue to fall for bad men. “Rocketman” is a collision of metallic sounds, screeching metal guitar punctuates ambient industrial drones amid the roar of mighty engines. This is a throbbing and pulsing masterpiece of wyrd electronica. The album closes with the incredibly sad, “Song for Kim Wall” a short, melancholy tour de force that reminds you of the horrific events surrounding her disappearance and subsequent discovery before coming to what feels like quite an abrupt end.

Overall, I found Rocketman to be a masterpiece of dark industrial electronica that sounds like nothing else out there. There are hints of other things from time to time, David Lynch’s albums really come to mind at certain points, but it retains a special quality all of its own. Lizzy’s ethereal vocals are somewhat reminiscent of the sadly missed Julee Cruise, but that may be a lazy observation on my part.

The album can be listened to and bought from Lizzy’s Bandcamp page at: https://lizzylaurance.bandcamp.com/album/rocketman

You can also keep abreast of any future news by signing up to Lizzy’s website at:

https://lizzylaurance.wixsite.com/mysite

All social media links are available on her website.

‘The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain and Northern Ireland ‘ and ‘The Atlas of Dark Destinations’ ~ Book Reviews

February 14, 2022 fertilitycult

The Hellebore Guide is produced by the same team that created the very popular Hellebore zine that has blossomed in the recent renaissance of indie specialist-interest zines and the revival of attention to occulture and folklore. They have taken their sphere of interest and distinctive design aesthetic forward into book format with this very handy and beguiling gazetteer of British ritual, weird-lore and magical creativity. In the introduction specific attention is brought to the 2 books that this guide could most oft be compared to, the Readers Digest Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain and Westwood & Simpson’s The Lore of The Land. The inspiration and similarities are worn on the sleeve but as Pérez Cuervo informs us, there is a difference that carries the themes forward and makes this work a useful companion to those other books mentioned. In addition to covering numerous sites of folklore, occult practice and strange history, this book also points us to places that inspired or in some instances were used as filming locations for numerous cult /horror novels, films and TV shows. Fans of M.R. James, Derek Jarman, Witchfinder General, The Owl Service and many other such creators and creations will find notes of interest therein. This richly illustrated book will fit handily into a backpack for onsite visits. One point that readers may raise is that due to size restraints certain localities or topics may not be covered in the greatest of detail but within its 316 pages a lot of ground is trekked. The book therefore can inspire further personal research and does offer scope for further volumes.

The Atlas of Dark Destinations however is not a book as easily taken out on location unless you have huge pockets as this is more of a weighty coffee-table book – lusciously illustrated but also incredibly informative. Again, as with The Hellebore Guide, the book cannot contain everywhere and everything but does cover considerable distance across the globe. As some countries are perhaps underrepresented there is again potential perhaps for a further volume. Hohenhaus, in his introduction, explains his reasoning for some omissions; he holds no truck with the visitation of living slums as tourist destinations nor does he favour notable suicide sites such as Japan’s legendary Aokigahara Forest. Serial Killer haunts and other singular murder sites are not represented but there is certainly no shortage of death behind the book’s dark cover. Sites of Genocide and wartime suffering are extremely well covered, with a lot of the book being taken up by sites of military and political intrigue. (Which upon showing the work to my 95 year old father, who was in internment and forced labour across Europe during WW2 and isn’t much of a reader generally gained a second review of the Atlas as being “A very good book”).

In addition to well known places covered within the book such as Chernobyl, Auschwitz, Hiroshima and 911 Ground Zero there are notable cemeteries, ossuaries, catacombs, penitentiaries, ghost towns and areas of natural wonder featured and some less familiar intriguing sites such as such as the ornate Milano Cimitero Monumentale necropolis, the Bali Trunyan Burial site and the Darvaza Hell Mouth (a 250 foot wide, 65 foot deep crater in Turkmenistan where an inferno fuelled by natural gas reserves has burned unabated for over 50 years.) Less obviously Fortean in subject-matter than The Hellebore Guide, and perhaps too heavily martial-politically focused for some readers of this magazine, The Atlas is nevertheless actually very readable and fascinating (in many instances particularly in provoking contemplation of humankind’s inhumanity towards each other.)

Both books could also be inspirational to fiction-writers as well as Fortean travellers, for use in setting location and back-story of their tales. Both books are designed to be dipped into rather than be read cover to cover and whether out on the road or in the comfort of my own arm-chair I can see myself delving into both titles for many years to come.

The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain and Northern Ireland
Edited by Maria J. Pérez Cuervo
Hellebore Books 2021
Pb. 316 pp. illus. index. £18.75. ISBN. 9781399906968
https://helleborezine.bigcartel.com/products

Atlas of Dark Destinations: Explore the World of Dark Tourism
Peter Hohenhaus
Laurence King Publishing. 2021
Hb. 352 pp. illus. index. £25.00. ISBN. ‎9781913947194
https://www.laurenceking.com/product/atlas-of-dark-destinations/

Reviewed by Andy Paciorek

Lamb: Film Review

December 20, 2021 fertilitycultLeave a comment

I must confess that I watched Valdimar Jóhannsson’s Lamb (Dýrið) whilst having a goblet or two of Absinthe, but had I viewed it tea-total, I don’t think it would have been any less strange!!
I don’t want to give away too much of the film but the basic premise is that a farming couple, Maria and Ingvar (played by Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snær Guðnason) living on a remote sheep-holding in Iceland discover that one of their animals has given birth to a very peculiar offspring. They develop a deep attachment to this progeny and it becomes like a child of their own. This strange scene of domestic bliss is strained by the arrival of Pétur (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson) the brother of Ingvar and, so it would seem, a previous lover of Maria, (or at the very least someone who would very much like that to be the case). But it transpires that he is not the only visitor to the isolated farm.

Lamb is slow to the point of being glacial. That is not a problem for me as I really like slow-burn movies and here it really suits both the plot and the setting. The desolate beauty of the Icelandic landscape seems to lend itself to atmospheric, introspective drama and the photography in the film is bleakly beautiful.

As with other A24 films that dwell in ‘folk horroresque’ fields, I can see that Lamb may prove to be a ‘Marmite’ movie that would provoke a divisive response between viewers ( I myself am of the camp that loves the current output of Robert Eggers but have little regard for the films of Ari Aster, which are very popular with some; but one person’s poison is another person’s meat.)
Regarding Lamb I could see why some viewers would not like it, but I personally thought it was an unusual tale delivered well, with hints of a fairy-tale like narrative to it. It is worth noting though for viewers who have a sensitivity to animal death in film, that there are two animal deaths depicted in the film, one of which, the first has a specific narrative role but the latter is arguably unnecessary but serves as one of the film’s actual few ‘horror’ moments. For the most part Lamb does not play out as a ‘horror’ film as such but as a domestic drama (albeit it a very strange one) but its conclusion returns it firmly into a horror fold.

Reviewed by Andy Paciorek

Mandrake Petals and Scattered Feathers by David Greygoose

November 16, 2021November 17, 2021 darrencharles1Leave a comment

Mandrake Petals and Scattered Feathers: Tales from the Forest and Beyond: Amazon.co.uk: Greygoose, David: 9781838024734: Books

Every now and again a book comes along that really captures the imagination. Mandrake Petals and Scattered Feathers is one such book. Written by David Greygoose, this volume of short stories is nothing short of excellent. A veritable smorgasbord of classic fairy and folk tale tropes, mixed with Greygoose’s wonderful knack for telling a story, Mandrake Petals and Scattered Feathers is a must read for fans of traditional storytelling.

Mandrake Petal and Scattered Feather features a multitude of interlinked stories, that not only showcase Greygoose’s brilliant storytelling capabilities, but his richly fleshed out cast of characters. Pickapple, the loveable trickster at the crossroads, Mullops, the man who falls prey to Pickapple on a number of occasions, Elmskin, the lovelorn, who is searching for Rimmony, the love of his life, who has just dropped everything and gone off in search of Flax Wing, a potentially mythic being who she thinks she she saw once bathing in a clearing by the river and who she believes has spoken to her. Mandrake Petals intertwines the stories of these characters and many others into a complex but moreish whole that draws the reader in and won’t let go.

David Greygoose writes with a passion that leaps off the page, his stories, regardless of length always leave you wanting more and ready to move on and find out what happens to these characters who you have become so invested in. The only sad thing about this magical book is that it has to come to an end.

Hawkwood Books | Mandrake Petals and Scattered Feathers

Mandrake Petals and Scattered Feathers is a modern-day masterpiece of storytelling. It mixes short stories, poetry and songs, just like the folk traditions of old and it is all done with such elegance and flair. The book itself features recommendations from some pretty big hitters in the form of legendary storyteller and folk music icon Donovan, Phil May from the Pretty Things and Melanie Xulu, from Moof magazine.

As a rather lovely promotional tool, David Greygoose has created a short film that introduces us to the world of Pickapple, Rimmony and the others. This serves as a wonderful introduction and if my review doesn’t whet your appetite for the book, then hopefully the video will.

Mandrake Petals and Scattered Feathers is released by Hawkwood books, and is available from the rather wonderful indie bookstore News from Nowhere.

http://www.newsfromnowhere.org.uk/books/DisplayBookInfo.php?ISBN=9781838024734

Let’s Get Wyrd: Webinar and Book Discount Code

October 18, 2021 fertilitycult

It might be spooky season now, but you can write and publish horror all year round! Tune in to the Lulu learn what makes a great horror story and tips for getting started in the genre from Andy Paciorek, author, illustrator and founder of Folk Horror Revival, Urban Wyrd Project, Northumbria Ghost Lore Society & Wyrd Harvest Press .

In this session, Andy will share his tips, tricks and treats for writing and publishing harrowing horror stories.

Join us, if you dare!

Wednesday, 20 Oct 2021, 5.00PM UK time

12 pm US / Canada Eastern Time

The Webinar is Free
Register to Attend at – https://event.webinarjam.com/register/25/pw8n0cxx