The Sermon opens with some beautifully shot images of the English countryside haunting, magical and pictureseque they set the scene perfectly. These are followed by an opening credit sequence that recalls the heyday of Hammer and Amicus films, a lone crow flies into shot and lands in a lonesome tree. A close up of the crow sits behind the films titles, in homage to Piers Haggard’s folk horror classic The Blood on Satan’s Claw. Already this feels like familiar territory.
The story concerns the events of a small rural village somewhere in England. We are presented with images of a young woman and her father, the local preacher preparing for the sermon of the title. She is filling a glass decanter with wine, whilst the father shaves in preparation of the coming events.
The vast majority of the film’s eleven minutes takes places in the church hall, as the preacher well spoken and charismatic takes centre stage. The sermon itself is unsettlingly homophobic in nature and makes for incredibly uncomfortable viewing. What it does is, it sheds a little light on the attitudes of the community, its people and its prejudices. The preacher’s hateful attack on homosexuality is strikingly outmoded to us in today’s world, and yet the congregation is supprtive of his principles. It highlights perfectly for me the positive changes that we as a people have undergone over the last 50 or 60 years in our attitudes to sexuality. I am reminded somewhat of The Wicker Man, in that we are presented with a rural community isolated not only geographically but also from modern liberal thought. One imagines how Sgt Howie must have felt upon finding out that certain archaic practices were still being practiced many years after popular belief in them had faded away.
The final twist in the tail is a satisying turn, it is harsh and unpleasant in its execution, however it makes for a great ending. The film is not yet out on general release so I am unable to discuss the storyline any further at present, other than to say it is an excellent film and well worth checking out if you get the chance.
Overall, The Sermon is a very well made, beautifully scripted short film. The music by Benjamin Hudson and Cape Khoboi fits perfectly, and it features some genuinely lovely cinematography, that really captures the essence of the English countryside. I am not entirely sure if it was intentional, but several external shots were taken from a low angle. This was very reminiscent of Dick Bush’s amazing cinematography for Blood on Satan’s Claw, where it was used to great effect to hint at how everything rises up from the earth. This may or may not be the case, however I felt compelled to raise it in passing.
Director Dean Puckett cut his teeth making documentary films, the most recent of which was released in 2013, Grasp the Nettle highlights the exploits of a group of land rights activists who battle to set up alternative communities in Britain. The Sermon is his second fiction short to have been supported by Creative England and the BFI after the comedy, horror, sci-fi short Circles in 2015. Circles, which was also set in Devon involved paranormal investigators taking their revenge on a group of crop circle hoaxers. I will certainly be looking forward to seeing more from Dean on the evidence of The Sermon.
The Sermon will receive its premiere at the BFI Flare London LGBTQ+ Film Festival this coming weekend, Saturday March 24th. I have included more information for those interested in checking out this excellent folk horror gem.
Folk Horror Revival presents Winter Ghosts Where better to spend an engaging winter’s evening in the compan…
Where better to spend an engaging winter’s evening in the company of the Folk Horror Revival group, than in the beautiful coastal town of Whitby. This event promises to be one of the highlights of the wyrd calendar, and is most definitely not to be missed.
In the intimate setting of The Metropole, Whitby, we cordially invite you to join us for our winter soiree, a gathering of the clans on the North Yorkshire coast. Folk Horror Revival present a series of exhilarating talks and musical performances for your terpsichorean pleasure.
Beginning at 4pm, the event gets under way with a series of thought provoking oratories with a distinctly local flavour, before we plunge headlong into an evening programme of esoteric, auditory treats for the soul.
Talks:
George Cromack – Coastal Terrors
Elaine Edmunds – The Tell Tale Art
Bob Fischer – A Story To Shiver To
Followed by – The Flash Company’s Mummer’s Play
Live Music:
The Equestrian Vortex featuring Melmoth the Wanderer
The Soulless Party featuring Chris Lambert
Leasungspell
Inkubus Sukkubus
Poster Image courtesy of Andy Paciorek and Erin Sorrey
Folk Horror Revival’s very own Gary Parsons will be giving his talk on Witchcraft Documentaries of the 1970s at Treadwell’s bookshop on 9th June 2017.
“Wicca rode on the countercultural sentiment of the late 60s onward. The 60s were a technicolour era, when recreational drugs got big, as did sexual liberation and a mass distrust of authority.” Dazed interviewed film expert Gary Parsons on this alluring subject. Parsons comes to Treadwells to discuss the portrayals of witchcraft in the documentaries of the early 1970s, considering also the involvement of people in Wicca at the time. Clips from rituals and interviews help show what Parsons means when he says witchcraft was an important part of the alternative scene in Britain. (Gary Parson interview in full.) Time: 7.15 pm for a 7.30 pm start. Price: £10 Ring, or book online
This week’s Unearthing Forgotten Horrors radio show is a May Day spectacular featuring music from Pink Floyd, Acid Gallery, Maypole, Paul Giovanni, Sharron Kraus, Shirley and Dolly Collins, Inkubus Sukkubus, The Stone Tapes, Revebjelde, Perry Leopold and Jethro Tull. So gather round your maypole and light the bonfires for a 7pm start UK time here on (A1 Radio).
Unearthing Forgotten Horrors’ is an hour-long delve into the darker recesses of the musical underworld. A chance to immerse yourself in obscure horror soundtracks, dark drones, weird electronica, freaky folk, crazed kosmiche and some of the most abhorrent and twisted psychedelia ever committed to vinyl, CD or cassette. A1Radio – Online, Anytime
A1Radio – Online, Anytime
A1Radio is an Internet Radio station broadcasting from Peterborough in the UK. We broadcast 24/7 with live show…
Our Young Artist of the Month for April is Harry Stagg.
Harry is 8 years old and is from East London. He enjoys acting and karate and watching cartoons with his dad. His favourite cartoons are Regular Show, Invader Zim and Ghostbusters. His favourite band is Guns & Roses and his favourite song is Jukebox Hero by Foreigner. Harry really enjoys ghosts and monsters and is learning to play Magic The Gathering (he has already beaten his dad multiple times.)
Harry wants to grow up to be an artist and thanks to the support of the members of Folk Horror Revival, he is more determined than ever and is already planning to make it happen.
Harry’s wonderful drawing of a gargoyle fired the imagination of the admin team and we think he truly captures the essence of his subject. Well done Harry, and congratulations on being our very first Young Artist of the Month.
If you know a young artist aged 16 or under who you feel has produced artwork worthy of inclusion, please email us with “Young Artist” in the title to (folkhorrorrevival@gmail.com). Please remember to include the young artist’s name, age and a short profile, along with a copy of their work.
This week’s Unearthing Forgotten Horrors Radio Show features music from Electric Wizard, Burning Saviour, The Rowan Amber Mill, Bob Fox and Stu Luckley, Sharron Kraus, Mark Korven, Pino Donaggio, The Doors, White Noise, Mighty Baby, The Incredible String Band and Mort Garson’s Lucifer. Tune in from 7pm UK time on (a1radio.co.uk) for an evening of twisted psychedelia and eerie electronics.
Unearthing Forgotten Horrors’ is an hour-long delve into the darker recesses of the musical underworld. A chance to immerse yourself in obscure horror soundtracks, dark drones, weird electronica, freaky folk, crazed kosmiche and some of the most abhorrent and twisted psychedelia ever committed to vinyl, CD or cassette.
This week’s Unearthing Forgotten Horrors is the 100th episode of our time with A1 Radio. This special show features new music from The Daughters of Grief, Mortlake Bookclub and Mzylkypop, as well as tracks from Hexvessel, Circulus, Bruno Nicolai, Carlo Maria Cordio, Hermione Harvestman and Sidney Sager.
It also features my tribute to legendary Can drummer Jaki Leibezeit who very sadly passed away over the weekend.
It all happens Monday evening at 7pm UK time on a1radio.co.uk.
Unearthing Forgotten Horrors’ is an hour-long delve into the darker recesses of the musical underworld. A chance to immerse yourself in obscure horror soundtracks, dark drones, weird electronica, freaky folk, crazed kosmiche and some of the most abhorrent and twisted psychedelia ever committed to vinyl, CD or cassette.
(http://www.a1radio.co.uk/)
This week’s Unearthing Forgotten Horrors radio show features music from Blood Ceremony, Witchcraft, Sylvester Anfang II, Stone Breath, The Valerie Project, Fred Myro and Malcolm Seagrove, Eric Peters, Opeth and Palace of Swords. It all kicks off on Monday evening at 7pm UK time on (A1Radio – Online, Anytime)
A1Radio – Online, Anytime
A1Radio is an Internet Radio station broadcasting from Peterborough in the UK. We broadcast 24/7 with live show…
Unearthing Forgotten Horrors’ is an hour-long delve into the darker recesses of the musical underworld. A chance to immerse yourself in obscure horror soundtracks, dark drones, weird electronica, freaky folk, crazed kosmiche and some of the most abhorrent and twisted psychedelia ever committed to vinyl, CD or cassette.
A few over-grassed earthworks are all that remain of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle in the picturesque market town of Ellesmere (North Shropshire), stood on the banks of The Mere, the largest of a number of small lakes in the area. It is said that the lake was originally dry pasture, with a good well on it; but when, in a time of drought, the farmer (a wicked old woman – presumably a witch) who owned the field charged the townspeople a ha’penny for every bucket of water they drew, God punished her by causing the well to overflow, drowning the pasture and forming The Mere. Whatever the truth of its origin, The Mere is reputedly home to some very fay creatures.
Once, on a clear night of the full Moon, a fisherman caught an Asrai in his net. An Asrai is a water spirit, taking the form of a beautiful, green-haired, lithe-limbed woman the height of a child. He was entranced, staring at the Asrai where she lay in the bottom of his boat, entwined in the net, bathing her pale body in the moonlight (Asrai are said to feed on the Moon’s rays). Come sunrise, she became distressed and struggled to return to the water. The fisherman, determined to keep her, covered her with pond weed to protect her from the sunlight and rowed hard for the shore; but, once ashore, all that remained beneath the weed was his empty net and a pool of water.
Another denizen of The Mere is Wicked Jenny, a type of water-hag relatively common in England – others of her kin are Jinny Greenteeth, in Lancashire, and Peg Powler, in the River Tees (effectively portrayed as “Meg Mucklebones” in Ridley Scott’s 1985 film, ‘Legend’). Wicked Jenny lurks at the edges of the lake, waiting to sieze the unwary and drag them to the muddy bottom, where she devours them. Her favoured prey are children.
In the early 1970’s, so the story goes a group of young up and coming Portuguese script writers recruited from adverts in trade magazines and on university noticeboards were locked in a room together with a projector, an endless supply of coffee and cigarettes and a pile of books. The books were mainly short story collections of the weird and esoteric fiction variety whilst the projector showed episodes of American sci-fi/supernatural TV show The Twilight Zone in continuous rotation.
This inexperienced collective were charged with producing the first six episodes of what was hoped to be Portugal’s response to a current trend for surreal storytelling and macabre tales. Given the work that Spanish filmmaker Amando de Ossorio and Italians Jess Franco and Dario Argento were currently involved with it is easy to see why television executives thought there was an opening in the market for Portugal’s take on the genre. The dream was to create a weekly TV show much like The Twilight Zone but with European art house sensibilities that showed leanings towards the current trend for the more grisly macabre work of those three directors.
This claustrophobic setting and the darkly intense atmosphere of the continuously flickering projector led this band of writers to emerge almost two days later with the now fabled ‘O Campo Bazar’.
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Full of hope for this exciting project, filming began with alarming speed – but with scripts still being finished on set and the technical equipment in the hands of an equally inexperienced and amateurish crew the project seemed to be dying before it had even been fully born. The resulting pilot episode was critically panned and although it is cited to be Alfred Molina’s screen debut he now strongly refutes the fact claiming no involvement whatsoever in the doomed project
Critics were relentless in their damning of everything to do with this project from the sets and stories to the acting and directing. There was however one factor that caused such embarrassment that it is often cited as the last nail in the not very convincing coffin.
To affiliate this fledgling series to an already established genre and gain credibility, Vince Price had been employed to provide the voiceover introduction. It transpired that a staggeringly significant percentage of the overall budget had been spent on securing Price’s services – money that everyone agreed should have been spent on the program itself. What made this so embarrassing however was the fact that Vince Price’s pronunciation and overall delivery of the Portuguese introduction was so cringingly bad as to sound like a mocking stereotype. With no money left to find another actor of Price’s stature to rerecord the part, and with newspapers and radio programs daily mocking this particular aspect of the show, the station programmers decided to cut their losses and pull the plug.
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‘O Campo Bazar’ would have disappeared without a trace – as was the TV Company’s wishes – had it not been for the release of the` (episodios de) O Campo Bazar’ e.p. Indeed there are no known surviving prints of the six episodes – of which only four ever saw the light of day – but the existence of this e.p. has ensured that the legacy of this doomed project is not forgotten. ` (episodios de) O Campo Bazar’ was a promotional gimmick marketed as `a sampler of instrumental works created especially for the programme’ and has since become an ultra-rare curio hiding out with the national collection of Hen’s Teeth.
Cover of the 1973 release `O Campo Bazar’
The original press release states that `the stunning full colour sleeve features O Campo Bazar in horrifically realistic costumes’. This is the only reference ever given to the performers who were – and still are – a mystery. Released in Portugal in 1973 on the Gravacoes Freeworld label this collection of sinister synth led soundscapes is long overdue a rerelease.
Several years later the cult status and mythos of the group/artist brought about the release of `The Bane Tree’– again on the Gravacoes Freeworld label. This vinyl version of `The Bane Tree’ is the only UK release for `O Campo Bazar’ there has been the. The artist(s) name had been translated into English – The Field Bazaar – and the` (episodes from)’, which was a clear indication of its TV series roots, had also been translated and kept. The name itself – `The Field Bazaar’ – comes from a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and was seemingly chosen to represent the writers own take on `The Twilight Zone’…..a mysterious place where the weird and wonderful coexist with the horrifying and the macabre.
The Bane Tree has the feel of being demos and unused tracks from the original recordings although the music is more acoustic and pastoral sounding with greater use having been made of sound effects. The performers remained unknown.
Front cover of the UK release `The Bane Tree’
Back cover. Note the full name translation for the title whereas credits list the group as just `the Field Bazaar’
Recently artwork for a previously unreleased and assumed lost (episodes from) The Field Bazaar album `A Tale of Witches, Woodland and half-remember melodies…’ was discovered in a box of old picture frames at a church jumble sale in Long Crendon, Buckinghamshire. In 2012 a ¼ inch tape also surfaced at a bankruptcy sale for a small recording studio in Bloomsbury which had been known for soundtrack and sound effect recordings. This acetate contained what is now believed to be tracks from the recording sessions for this lost album. So far a tweaked and updated `The Musgrave Ritual’ is the only track to have materialized from this lost album. The title again references Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and includes a reading of the ancient ritual from the Sherlock Holmes story of the same name.
Artwork for the recently discovered `lost’ album
Also found alongside what is assumed to be the final approved artwork for the lost `A tale of Witches, Woodland and half-remembered melodies….’ was a scribbled early sketch for the album cover – possibly drawn up by one of the unknown, almost mythical members of the band/collective/composer who made up (episodes from) The Field Bazaar. A more recognizable sketch of the final composition shows the removal of the witch’s young companion for the image –possibly considered too sinister in its implications – and also the crucifix from the front of the building.
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The Long Crendon sketches – Note the inclusion of the child and crucifix in the first sketch which has been omitted in the second more familiar image.
Unfortunately there are no signatures or notes on the reverse of either piece to hint at who the artist may have been or even who was operating in the studio under The Field Bazaar moniker at the time.
Several tracks recorded by (episodes from) The Field Bazaar have been rereleased in recent years thanks to the work of a small group of geekish fans who hunt down the original studio versions, strip them down, clean them up and remix them to form even the briefest of tunes into a coherent track. Their curation and conservation of the (episodes from) The Field Bazaar’s music is not only helping to save a forgotten gem but also to bring it to a wider audience.
(https://soundcloud.com/thefieldbazaar-1)
Folk Horror Revival & Urban Wyrd Project ⨘ 