Do you find the countryside quite creepy?
When you're in the middle of nowhere and all you can hear are birds singing and a sudden breeze whips up - might a maniac Morris troupe appear out of nowhere and burn you at the maypole? Might a ghostly highwayman appear at the edge of the woods then disappear just as quickly? Whose is that abandoned bike on the bridle path? What's disturbed that murder of crows. It is quite chilling really. A light wind rustles the witches' brew and darkness is just around the corner. Better not be alone...
I was reading an article about the films of 'old, weird Britain' in Sight & Sound. It's not usually a magazine I buy, but the old weird thing caught my eye in the newsagent. It's a great feature, going back to almost as films began right up to the present day. The countryside is all about Straw Dogs and The Wicker Man, really, but of course that's only the tip of the iceberg. Apparently it all comes under the umbrella of hauntology.
I've dabbled in the music of hauntology, by the likes of Belbury Poly or Mount Vernon Arts Lab or The Focus Group. It's difficult, chilling, electronic and rather cold, and you can just imagine it as the soundtrack to a some Seventies British horror set in the country. I must discover more.
I've not finished reading the piece yet, but I'm hoping for more about films like And Soon...The Darkness, thought that's filmed in France. Still, it would work just as well in Britain. Old, weird, Britain. Brrrr.
