The Last Sacrifice, on Shudder

In America, small towns are friendly and welcoming. Not in England (and particularly not the Cotswolds). That’s basically why we have folk horror. They are used to having neighbors die in gruesome unexplained ways, so they resent it when outsiders come to investigate them. That was the case for Sgt. Neil Howey in Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man and also for the legendary Detective Sergeant Robert Fabian when investigating the real-life murder of Charles Walton. Filmmaker Rupert Russell delves into the case widely considered to be the partial inspiration for The Wicker Man, in the context of the rise of Wicca/witchcraft in 20^th Century United Kingdom, in the documentary The Last Sacrifice, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

If Russell only addressed the Walton murder, his film would still be one of the more interesting true crime docs. Walton sounds like a perfectly nice farm laborer and landscaper, who had the grisly misfortune to be impaled with his own pitchfork and slashed with his pruning shear, so probably not suicide.

In fact, the case was so sensational, DS Fabian was dispatched to lead the investigation, but he was shocked by the locals, whom he found disinterested, recalcitrant, and uncooperative. At the time, Fabian never failed to solve a case, so this blemished his perfect record.

Subsequently, many “experts,” like anthropologist Margaret Murray, argued the Walton murder was a ritualistic sacrifice related to witchcraft. They found a receptive audience thanks to the likes of Alex Sanders, who became a tabloid celebrity as the face of hip swing sixties Paganistic wicca.

Although not directly related to the Walton case, Russell’s discussion of Sanders and related figures makes sense, because it perhaps helped inspire the general milieu they capitalized upon. Horror fans will also enjoy the way he uses clips from folk horror films, especially Wicker Man, but also including films like Wheatley’s Kill List, Aster’s Midsommar, and Hammer’s The Witches, to illustrates various concepts and themes (while clearly labeling them as fiction).

To Russell’s credit, he also includes skeptical voices, who openly doubt claims Walton was murdered as part of a pagan sacrifice. However, his on-camera experts draw sufficient parallels with Hardy’s film, so that fans of the cult classic should not feel misled.

Saloum, from Senegal with Fear

Fela Kuti might have said “music is the weapon…of the future,” but for the mercenaries known as “the Hyenas of Bangui,” guns and “voodoo”-like magic are better weapons. Their bwiti practitioner, Papa Minuit, covers their magical six. However, they will be severely out magically-gunned when they take refuge in the notoriously haunted Sine-Saloum delta region in director-screenwriter Jean Luc Herbulot’s Saloum, which releases today on BluRay,

Chaka leads the Hyenas from their base in the Central African Republic, but he originally hails from Senegal’s Sine-Saloum. For their latest gig, the Hyenas must safely escort a Mexican drug-lord out of the chaos of Guinea-Bissau’s 2003 coup. Unfortunately, a bullet nicks the fuel line of their getaway plane, forcing an emergency landing in Sine-Saloum, where Cheika happens to know a “nearby” (eight hour’s walk) artist’s retreat.

Except, their detour was no accident. Cheika engineered it, because he seems to have unfinished business with Omar, the proprietor, who can’t quite remember where or when they met. The family-style meals will be especially awkward, since they must share them with Souley Fale, a cop supposedly on vacation and Awa, a deaf-mute who makes it known to Cheika (through sign language) she knows who they are and she will expose them, unless he agrees to take her with them.

Initially, the Hyenas want nothing to do with the demanding Awa. However, when the local demonic monsters start attacking the guests through their ears, her deafness becomes an unlikely asset. For years, Omar kept them in check through a Faustian bargain, but Cheika’s plans upset the balance.

The swarming entities looking surprisingly cool on-camera, especially considering the film’s extreme budget constraints. They are also quite distinctively different from just about every other supernatural bogeyman horror fans might have seen before.

Yet, Herbulot does not merely overachieve with the special effects. Saloum is uncannily atmospheric and increasingly unnerving. Arguably, this is the most satisfying, relentlessly super-charged African film since Viva Riva! (exclamation point in title).

The Savage Hunt of King Stakh, on OVID.tv

Marsh Firs is sort of like a Belarusian Baskerville Manor. About 200 years ago, Nadzieja Janowska’s ancestor killed the so-called King Stakh, a powerful, but ironically reformist landowner. Ever since then, King Stakh has cursed the Janowska family line, somehow causing a steady stream of unnatural deaths and haunting the grounds with his spectral hunting party. A modern thinking folklorist like Bielarecki does not believe in ghosts, but he cannot deny something evil plagues the estate in Valeri Rubinchik’s restored The Savage Hunt of King Stakh, which premieres today on OVID.tv.

Marsh Firs has quite a history. In addition to King Stakh’s hunt, there is also the “Little Man,” whose appearance foretells death to those who see him, and the Woman in Blue, the ghost of a witch killed something like 800 years ago. Janowska believes in them all, but her estate manager Gacievic only gives credence to the wild hunt, but that is more than enough.

Janowska’s uncle and executor Dubotowk is less than thrilled she is hosting Bielarecki, after he took shelter there one proverbial dark and stormy night. Dubotowk’s ward Vardna is even less so. Perhaps not so coincidentally, they are also the ones who stand to inherit Marsh Firs should anything happen to her—and fatal misfortune has a habit of befalling the Janowskas.

Savage Hunt has been billed as folk horror, which is not unreasonable, since it revolves around a ghostly “wild hunt” motif. The look and atmosphere also harken back to the original Russian folky horror film, Viy. Yet, despite the dreamy tone, Rubinchik maintains a lot of ambiguity as to just how supernatural it really is. Regardless, he leans heavily into the gothic trappings.

The Wicker Man: 50 Years a Folk Horror Classic

It is a place of free love and folk music, where people are keenly attuned to nature. The remote Scottish Summerisle is also a profoundly evil place. Sergeant Neil Howey, an outsider investigating the reported disappearance of a local teenaged girl, will discover just how sinister in Robin Hardy’s folk horror classic The Wicker Man, which opens Friday in New York, marking its 50^th anniversary.

Sgt. Howey is a righteous God-fearing Chistian, as we can see from the early prologue (depending on which cut you are watching—they all end the same way). He has come to isolated Summerisle via the police department’s seaplane, to investigate an anonymous letter claiming a teenaged girl, Rowan Morrison, is in peril.

At first, nobody acknowledges knowing Rowan, not even her mother. However, as he unearths evidence of her existence, they change their tune. The girl is actually dead, and therefore gone, according to their Pagan beliefs, so there is no Morrison left for them to speak of.

As Howey explores the tiny isle, he is shocked by the openly hedonistic behavior he sees. However, he is outraged to find the schoolteacher opens teaching witchcraft and paganism. Technically, Lord Summerisle rejects the term “Pagan.” He essentially preaches a licentious version of New Age mysticism that retain many of the “old” deities. Howey will not be swayed, nor will he be tempted into sin by Willow MacGregor, the lusty innkeeper’s daughter.

Arguably, The Wicker Man is one of the few horror films that is even scarier after you have already seen it. You might already guess where it is all headed—probably Howey is the only one who cannot. Even if you can’t, there is no way to miss the overwhelming atmosphere of impending doom Hardy realizes. It is powerfully accentuated by all the unnerving little occult easter eggs incorporated into the richly detailed set and production design. The film deserves its reputation as the greatest folk horror film of all time.

It also features one of Sir Christopher Lee’s most distinctive villains, the hippy-like Lord Summerisle (sporting an unkempt Beatle-style coif). Even though Wicker Man co-stars both Lee and the great Ingrid Pitt (as the Librarian), nobody ever confuses it with Hammer Films (like fans often do with Amicus releases, such as The Skull). Pitt and Diane Cilento (the Schoolteacher) are also great as supporting villains, who definitely help wind up Howey. Of course, nobody does so more than Britt Ekland as MacGregor. This must be Ekland’s greatest screen performance, even though her voice was dubbed by jazz vocalist Annie Ross (of Lambert Hendricks & Ross).

Legions, from Argentina

As a shamanistic warlock, blood and faith are all that matter to Antonio Poyju. Both are central to his work and his identity. Unfortunately, his demonic nemesis has targeted his daughter Helena’s faith to undermine his bloodline. Poyju was never happy in contemporary urban society, so he is perversely just as comfortable cooling his heels in a criminal asylum, but he will have to finally break out to save his estranged daughter in Fabian Forte’s Legions, which is now available on VOD.

Poyju would prefer to still live as a medicine man-hermit in the rain forest, “mediating” between the spirit realm and our own world. However, a demon killed his beloved wife and stole the talisman that guarded Helena’s faith. As her belief waned, the demon grew stronger. The secular society attracted the teenager like a magnet, so the old man moved with her. However, he still practiced his severe brand of spiritualism, which was misunderstood in the capitol. Ultimately, he was committed to the mental hospital, while his son-in-law, Warren, files his appeal and serves as a buffer for the increasingly freaked out Helena.

Of course, we know she hasn’t seen anything yet. Unfortunately, old Poyju is right about everything. That means his daughter is in grave danger. He needs a lot of spiritual help to save her, but his cronies in the asylum mostly just provide comedic relief.

Weirdly, the inmates are staging a play based on Poyju’s demonic battles, but Forte wisely avoids meta gamesmanship, using it instead as a macabre and absurdist backdrop. Frankly, descriptions positioning Legions as a comedy somewhat overstate matters, but it certainly has an off-kilter sensibility that helps set it apart.

Matriarch, on Hulu

So much for all that bogus double-talk about the “patriarchy.” Of course, it never had any place in folk horror. All those weirdo villagers who secretly held to “the old ways” were often enthralled to some sort of a pagan earth goddess. It turns out Laura Birch was not wrong to stay so-long estranged from her mother Celia, because the older woman made a Faustian bargain with the evil power controlling her village in Ben Steiner’s Matriarch, which premieres Friday on Hulu.

Birch was going through a rough patch in London that culminated in a coke overdose. She probably should have died, but he felt like something pulled her back. She also feels compelled to finally visit her old mother, who strangely looks like she has not aged a day since they last met. Birch hardly gets much of a welcome from the tight little village, but folk horror fans know they never take kindly to outsiders. Only Birch’s old friend Abi still greats her warmly. However, Birch is a little put off by the way Abi’s father, the village Pastor, condemns the town for turning its back on Christianity and everything else decent.

Matriarch takes a little time to get going, but once Steiner gets into the folk horror, the film gets seriously sinister. There is a palpable atmosphere of Pagan-wrongness to the village. Kate Dickie (who is becoming an established horror star, thanks to Raven’s Hollow, Shepherd, and The Green Knight) is satisfyingly creepy as Mother Birch. Jemima Rooper (who was also weirdly compelling in Flowers in the Attic: The Origin) effectively portrays Birch’s cynical urban materialist skepticism as it slowly gives way to the shock and horror of her Pagan legacy.