.

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?

.

(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

.

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.

.

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.