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There are 3 films that are considered the ‘unholy trinity’ of folk horror movies, The Wicker Man, Blood on Satan’s Claw, & The Witchfinder General. All three come from that cynical decade the 1970s and all three are British in origin. Now, folk horror with its rural settings, ancient practices, and disquieting people can be found around the globe. Estonia’s November from 2017 remains one of my favorites, but what of American, and by that I do mean specifically United States, folk horror.

There are those who would count Eggers’ The Witch as folk horror but that feels like a misclassification to me. That movie is as writer/director Eggers described it a Puritan nightmare. Others classify the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre as folk horror but while its isolated rural setting fits, one deranged family of cannibals do not a culture make and for me folk horror is always about cultures and the clash of outsider to an isolated culture.

1992’s Candyman get closer with its inner-city culture that is decidedly alien to the pretty, blonde, protagonist but it strikes me as more of a ghost story than a folk horror. Vengeful ghosts are great stories but in my eyes they are not ‘folk.’

Isolated communities living by practices forgotten by the wider world in America would seem to point to with Appalachian Mountain towns in the deep recesses of the that rugged terrain or somewhere in the vast American West where so many communities became ghost towns as their fortunes evaporated.

And yet as my mind twists and turns at the germination of an idea for a novel of American Folk horror it is neither the hillbillies nor the cowboys that is drawing my attention and inspiration but rather the hippies of the 1960s.

Counter-culture is simply another culture one that, to an extent, fetishized the idea of abandoning modernity and returning to nature. An isolated commune, 60 years separated from the rushing madness of modern American life feels like a perfect fit for folk horror. What starts are a collective rejecting modernization and mechanization can grow and transform into a unique and alien culture with its own ideas of what is proper to worship.

This is the direct I think I want to go but I need to make up my mind is the horror metaphysical or is it entirely a matter of practice and belief?

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(Spoilers for a 57-year-old film)

Another May 1st has come and gone the fictional anniversary of the loss of Sargent Neil Howie West Highland Police to the neo-pagan cult on Summerisle.

The Wicker Man is considered one third of the ‘unholy trinity’ of British Folk Horror films along with Blood on Satan’s Claw and The Witchfinder General. Of the three films The Wicker Manis by far my favorite and the one that intrigues me the most.

Canal Studios

After being lured to the produced producing island of Summerisle by a bogus missing child case, Sgt Howie (Edward Woodward) is burned alive as a human sacrifice by the island’s neo-pagan population lead by the community and religious leader Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee.)

The question of villainy in this story is an interesting one. Clearly deceiving Howie, subjecting him to secrets tests to determine his suitability as a sacrifice, and then burning him alive to appease the goddess of the fields are not the actions of a good and heroic people.

Howie however while less overly threatening or dangerous displays a willingness and a conviction that the people of Summerisle must be brought to a Christian heel, to be compelled to live in a manner consistent with his interpretation of his religion. His disdain and intent to bring ‘the authorities’ to Summerisle precede any knowledge of actual wrongdoing or violence. Had there been no missing child and Howie had stumbled upon Summerisle he still would have scampered off to bring official action against the people.

It is in these two diametrically that I see the real villain of The Wicker Man; dogmatic conviction.

Blind obedience led the neo-pagans to horribly slaughter a stranger for the island’s religious practices and that very same straitjacket of belief would have led Howie to force his interpretation of morality upon the island.

The small ‘l’ libertarian in me finds all parties in the film to be utterly horrifying, with the neo-pagans only marginally more dangerous.

Universal Pictures

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From the creatives at Radio Silence that brought to life the delightful horror/comedy Ready or Not comes their latest bit of cinematic fun Abigail.

If you have seen the trailers, then you know the core concept: a gang of professional criminals kidnap a young girl in hopes of a massive payoff but discover to their horror that she is in fact a vampire and they must now fight to survive their criminal enterprise.

The film and the trailer, with their tongue pressed firmly into their cheek, makes liberal use of music from Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake a nod to Universal granddaddy of Vampire films 1931’s Dracula which used the ballet’s themes as its score.

The film is led by Melissa Barrera as ‘Joey’ the most sympathetic member of the kidnapers and who displays the most concern for Abigail before they learn of the girl’s true monstrous nature. Joey contends for leadership of the gang against ‘Frank’ (Dan Stevens) a former police officer and the most hardened of the criminals.

Abigail, like Ready or Not before leans more towards the comedic than the horrific. The writers and directors display an utter lack of concern with the quantities of cinematic blood that they explode across their frames. There are twists within the simple and contained plot of the film but none that aren’t easily deduced from clues contained with the movie’s trailers. The film can be seen as the love child of The Usual Suspects and an over-the-top Hammer movie.

The cast is uniformly good with particularly standout performances from Kevin Durand as ‘Peter’ the dimwitted muscle of the group and Alisha Weir as the title character Abigail. Weir shows remarkable range for so young a performer going to terrified child to threatening monster in the space of a breath.

Abigail is a not a deep film that comments on the ineffable nature of the human condition but rather is something fun the be experienced and enjoyed. The filmmaking is clever and competent enough that things are established but not so blatantly as to be obvious. This is a film that will be best enjoyed in a theater with a crowd of people laughing and screaming with the rapid onscreen escapades.

Abigail is currently player in theaters.

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Saturday night, after getting my taxes completed and filed, and despite the late showtime I finally managed to get out and see The First Omen a prequel to the 1976 horror film The Omen.

20th Century Studios

Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) a young American Nun is transferred to a Catholic orphanage in Rome. There she discovers that the orphanage conceals a dark and terrible secret concerning the coming of the antichrist.

I am a fan of the original film The Omen just as I am a fan of The Exorcist despite being a non-believer myself. And just as with The Exorcist the squeal to The Omen have had little attraction to me most often possessing intercepting ideas that are not quite executed well enough being secondary to shock and jump scares. Sadly, The First Omen, in addition to violating canon, something that was evident in the trailers, fails to commit itself to either the nihilism of the original or shake itself free of aping sequences from its classic progenitor.

In The Omen, while it stands on shaky theological ground, the focus of its theme was clear, a clear acceptance of Christian theology in particular the Book of Revelations and the ending of the world. The writers of The First Omen seem to shy away from such concrete convictions. Instead that place into the mouths of their devote characters prosaic and petty motivations for their conspiracy. This has the double effect of making their goals far less threatening and undercutting the ultimate stakes at play.

The First Omen is competently crafted, and Arkasha Stevenson’s direction is quite well executed. The cast which includes Charles Dance and Bill Nighy are all very good and turn in credible performances. I was distracted by Mark Kroven’s score which neither paid sufficient homage to Jerry Goldsmith’s outstanding original score nor did it stand on its own enough to be compelling in its own right.

While this review may seem harsh it is because I had hoped for better. The First Omen is simply a middling film, not as terrible as some of the sequels that preceded it or as brainless as many horror films but neither did it achieve anything nor seem to have anything interesting to say. Immaculate is the far better evil nuns and church conspiracy film this year.

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A little later than I had originally planned I finally got out and watched Immaculate.

Black Bear Pictures

A young American nun Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney) arrives in Italy to join a convent follow their recruitment invitation. The convent is dedicated to hospice care for aging and dying nuns and as Sister Cecilia is advised death is daily there. She is befriended Sister Gwen who religious devotion is suspect and seeming without provocation gains the enmity Sister Isabella who is harsh and demanding. Following disturbing nightmares Sister Cecilia is visited upon by a seeming minacious event.  As events turn darker Cecilia grows suspicious and becomes the convent’s venerated prisoners as their true nature and intent for her become clear.

Immaculate is a sharp, smart, atmospheric horror film that trusts its audience to understand without spoon feeding laborious exposition. The film opens with a pre-title prolog that discloses nothing of the plot or backstory but rather gives the audience the film’s tone, dark, suspenseful and with flashes of graphic blood violence.

Screenwriter Andrew Lobel and director Michael Mohan have crafted a horror film that relies on character, mystery, and insidious plans rather than an unstoppable killer and body counts. Cinematographer Elisha Christian’s photography is both lush and deeply disturbing. Fearless enough to play scenes in darkness as black, trapping the audience as helplessly as the characters as they stumble about the convent’s catacombs.

Immaculate also leaves the film’s ultimate interpretation up to the audience. It is possible to view all the events of the story as grounded reality without magic or mysticism. It is equally valid to see this as a film that has subtle supernatural elements. Which interpretation the viewer takes with them greatly effects Cecilia’s final actions and determines if they are horrendous, blasphemous, and heroic. Lobel and Mohan do not tell you which it is or how you should feel that they leave to you. I do not doubt that this ambiguity will sit poorly with some. This is a movie I quite enjoyed and left me, even as a non-believer, thinking deeply upon its character and potential meaning.

Immaculate is currently playing and theaters and well worth the time.

20th Century Studios

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It is my contention that aside from The Omen released in 1976 there hasn’t been a good film in the franchise. Despite this I am interested in seeing the newest film in that continuing horror series the prequel The First Omen.

Despite not being any sort of believer in Christian theology The Omen, along with the Exorcistremains among some of my favorite horror films. Omen II almost was a good film but just missed the mark in the scripting stage, Omen III turned out so bland that even though I have seen it twice I can’t recall a single scene from that feature. I haven’t seen Omen IV, and 2006’s remake of the original proves how vital important the original stars and direct were to that film’s lasting quality.

So, with that sort of personal track record of responses why am I interested in a prequel that from the trailers looks to violate established canon?

I do not know.

I can say that I am fascinated by Ralph Ineson as Father Brennan. He strikes me as the perfect modern casting to follow Patrick Troughton, but one or two actors are not usually enough to pull me into a theater. neither the director nor the team of writers are familiar to me and as such created no draw and yet I am going to see this movie this weekend. It’s a gut feeling, a sense, that perhaps, just maybe, this one will work.

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This weekend my sweetie-wife and I enjoyed a couple of Italian movies on Blu-ray disc that she had checked out of the library. Remember, your local library can be more than just great books to read.

First up is Mario Bava’s 1966 horror movie Kill Baby, Kill.

A doctor is summoned to a remote Carpathian to assist a detective investigating a series of bizarre deaths that the locals believe to be the result of a murderous ghost. With the aid of a local woman who has just return from college the doctor quickly find himself in a world of ghosts, mediums, and witchcraft, all swirling around a young girl’s mysterious death years earlier.

Bava, a director with flair even when his budgets are slashed, is in full form and glory with Kill Baby, Kill. His characteristic use of colored lighting that has no diegetic source adds depth to the frames and mood the scenes. Available on Blu-ray disc with its original Italian dialog track, this movie speeds along quickly wasting hardly a frame of its brief running time. I was most pleased that the resolution was not some hand-waving Scooby Doo gimmick but that this was rather an actual supernatural propelled piece of horror. While sedate and decidedly not explicit compared to modern movies Kill Baby, Kill remains an effective, atmospheric film worth seeking out.

We followed that up with a giallo. Gialli are Italian crime films of the 70s that feature particularly lurid sensationalized convoluted plots with often a saturated color pallet.

The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail is about a woman who collects on a million-dollar life insurance policy after her estranged husband dies in a mysterious air disaster. Suspicious of events the insurance firm dispatches an investigator to ferret out if the woman is responsible for the crash. When people associated with the incident are viciously murdered the press, the police, and even Interpol become involved. As with many classic giallo this story has lots of twits and reveals, both in plot and in female skin, until the resolution of the mystery with the final and largest twist. Some movies of this genre try too hard and create final solutions to the mystery that do not follow logically but The Case of The Scorpion’s Tail works out quite logical even if some of the information is withheld from the audience. After all, with giallo it is not about solving the mystery but experiencing it. Along with Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace this film would make an excellent introduction to giallo.

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A clever concept that can’t quite connect.

IFC Films

Late Night talk show host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) desperate to reverse a slide in ratings night books a parapsychologist (Laura Gordon) and supposedly demon possessed subject (Ingrid Torelli) for a live television event on Halloween night 1977 and gets far more than he bargained for.

Utilizing the ‘found footage’ conceit Late Night with the Devil is comprised of broadcast footage and off-air recording captured by the studio cameras to recount the events of Delroy’s final program. This setting circumvents many of the issues with found footage films by giving a rational and reasonable answer as to why the cameras are not only there but why as horrific events unfold people continue to operate them. Sadly, while having a quite intriguing concept and a talented cast, LNwtD, is hampered by both budgetary constraints and a script that needed another couple of passes.

The film opens with effectively a prolog telling the audience the backstory for both the central character of Jack Delroy and the possessed girl Lilly. In my opinion, this prolog blunders in two aspects, the greater error is attempting to leaving Lilly’s nature mysterious. The audience will have almost certainly seen trailers for the film and even if they had not, they purchased their tickets expecting to see a horror film. Trying to leave the question of Lilly’s possession as an unknown doesn’t create any suspense as that is our expectation before we have even walked into the theater. The second lesser failing is that the prolog tries to tell us two different backstories, Lilly’s and Jack’s, and the best prolog are simple and direct. They inform us of the one thing we must know in order to appreciate the story from the start. Splitting the prolog dilutes it and starts the movie of in a flabby manner.

The budgetary constraints appear in the final act of the film. If you do not have the budget for a VFX spectacle then you shouldn’t try to have one. The real tragedy is that if the directors had forsworn the effects and gone for a more ground simpler approach the horror would have hit harder, felt more real, instead of what looked like VFX that could be done at home pulling the audience out of the reality of the film.

I can quibble with some of the decisions here and there. The used of hypnosis by the skeptic to attempt to disprove the possession but these are minor things more about taste than failings of the film. A more subtle approach to backstory and exposition is something that always appeals more to me than more direct expressions but again that is a matter of personal taste. I am disappointed that Late Night with the Devil did not live up to my personal expectations, but neither was it insultingly bad. The film lands in the dreaded mediocre middle of horror.