orbific

A Personal Folk Horror Film Festival

My friend Kate recently made herself a French film festival and has been raving about the movies it led her to. So I thought I’d do something similar. It was about time I watched the classics of folk horror, as well as catching up on some of the newer films. Here are the first few films I watched before I took a diversion into time loop films.

Kill List – I remember watching this with Tom when it first came out on DVD, and being a little taken aback by the turn near the end. Watching it again, it works perfectly, and I’m not sure if that’s from me knowing that was coming or a change in my sensibilities. The film uses the set-up of ‘strangers out of their depth’ well, but the rural is partly replaced by surburbia – including some great scenes in a chain hotel. The kitchen sink drama plays well against the violence, making you face what has bought the central family their pleasant lives. The film tells a powerful story about modern Britain.

The Wailing – I wish I’d seen this in the cinema. At home, I ended up slicing it up as if it was a TV series, and much of the plot flowed over me, so I was very much watching it as a surface. It’s a long movie – almost three hours – and moved from a sort of broad comedy into horror. There is (of course?) a religious ceremony scene which is incredible. I don’t know for sure if I would classify this as folk horror, beyond finding it on a list of folk horror films. But it definitely fit some of the main tropes and played well against the others.

Blood on Satan’s Claw – There’s a lot to like about this film, but it’s also hard to look beyond the graphic rape scene in the middle. I liked the structure of it – the film was originally written as an anthology, before being put together as a single storyline. I know I shouldn’t quibble about production issues, but the shot of the church with modern houses in the background was jarring. This film is obviously influential, but there was little more than historical interest for me.

Quatermass and the Pit – This is one of those films I should have seen years ago. But, you know when something is seminal, you know all about it and the original passes you by (I did read the novelisation as a teen though). John Higgs had watched it recently, and described the ending as “balls-out madness” and I decided to give it a go. It was a much quieter film than I expected, which I enjoyed. For a film made in 1967, there was an interesting old-fashioned mood, particularly from the ‘establishment’ characters.

A year of lockdown (Day 366)

March brings covid-anniversaries. It’s a strange time for everyone – our recollections are so personal and so similar to everyone else’s.

While the official lockdown started on March 23rd, my personal lockdown began on March 16th. Initially, as the pandemic spread outside China, I was as relaxed as the government. I thought the economic effects from people’s anxiety would be worse than the virus itself. While the government played down the disease, my employer was bringing in more and more rules. It was obviously a fast-changing situation. I went from joking about the new work-from-home policy on the Friday to taking advantage of it on the Monday. Later that day, the office was closed, and has yet to fully re-open.

Based on the news from China, I was prepared for the disruption to last about three months. I’d read somewhere that the lockdown in Wuhan was about 11 weeks. I figured that, since Britain had more warning, we could manage things better. I’d really not expected to be locked down a year later.

The last year has been hard. While my personal situation is pretty good, my resilience has worn down over the past few months. The last month has felt particularly difficult. My memories of the first lockdown are relatively pleasant. I know that’s probably not true, and that there was definitely anxiety at the time (waking every morning, certain I was in the wrong universe) but it felt like I came through that OK.

We frame our lives through the stories we tell. This has not been an entirely wasted year, and I’d rather remember it as positive. I’ve been forced to confront a lot of things about myself that I ignored in the hubbub of a packed calendar. I’ve managed to see my parents a couple of times, and also got to visit Sheringham and Norwich, as well as time in Shropshire where I climbed a tiny mountain. I hiked the White to Dark trail and did the Brighton and Hove Way in a single day. I spent Halloween in Puzzlewood. I did a lot of hiking on the Downs, and my photos show the arc of spring to summer to autum. I’ve contributed to Bodge magazine and Rituals and Declarations. I continued meeting with the Invisibles group, and ran a seminar at Chichester University. I hosted the Not for the Faint-Hearted writing sessions. I played my way through Death Stranding on the PS4. I won prizes in a 10-word story contest. I’ve improved my writing and released three booklets. Lots of swimming! And now I’m in the process of selling my house and leaving Brighton. The future is bright, and I’d rather remember this as a stage on the way to that.

It’s not been a great time but it’s still been a pretty good year.

Thinking about ley-lines

Over the past few months, I’ve been writing a page on ley-lines for Bodge. It’s a subject I’ve been thinking about for years, and I’ve accumulated several books on the topic. I’m very aware that ley lines are a statistical effect, drawing meaning from random data: they still fascinate me. They’re part of British landscape folklore.

Most of my books are from the 1970s through to the the 1990s. The more recent volumes focus on the new age/earth energy side of the topic. Indeed, wikipedia refers to this in their summary:

In 2005, Ruggles [in Ancient Astronomy: An Encyclopaedia of Cosmologies and Myth] noted that “for the most part, ley lines represent an unhappy episode now consigned to history”. However, belief in ley lines persists among various esoteric groups, having become an “enduring feature of some brands of esotericism”.

Considering the amount written about the subject, the books I’ve read are slightly flimsy. Mitchell’s New Views of Atlantis spends a lot of time discussing the metrology of the pyramids. Later books on ley-lines move into shamanism and death roads. There is a huge amount of material in magazines such as the Quicksilver Messenger and the Ley Hunter, both available online. But, the books informed by this are not particularly complicated.

The 1983 book Ley Lines in Question, by Liz Bellamy and Tom Williamson, performed a fairly clear demolition of most of the historical theories about ley lines and computer mapping easily demonstrates alignments of spurious data such as phone boxes, public toilets and pizza restaurants.

My interest is in ley-lines as a form of land art and storytelling. A paper on the Tate website links Alfred Watkins to artists like Richard Long. There was also the Seattle Ley Line project from the Geo Group, which caused controversy by receiving public funding.

Ley lines might be ahistorical, but there’s a beauty to how they cut across time and landscape, connecting places. While there may be little evidence to support them, I’m excited about the idea of creating ley lines and what stories they can be used to tell.

Iteration 16: Repeaters

Yesterday was March 378th 2020, and I marked it by watching a time-loop movie. Repeaters, from 2010, is about three people in a rehab facility who find themselves repeating the same day. While I found the film a little slow (this was very much mumblecore sci-fi), it had an innovation that I’d not seen before. Spoilers follow.

The three main characters are following a 12-step programme. They have reached Step 9 (‘make amends’) and have a day-pass to leave the facility. As the day repeats, Sonia, Kyle and Michael take advantage of this in different ways. At one point, they decide to get high, since they won’t be addicted when they wake the next day. Kyle decides to rob a liquour store, fulfilling his outlaw fantasy, but is shocked when Michael uses the lack of consequences to attack a young woman. Michael has decided to use the repetitions to do what he likes, and it becomes increasingly difficult for Kyle to stop him.

I’ve wondered a few times what would happen if the repeats stopped unexpectedly. In Repeaters, Michael’s rampage stops when he realises it is snowing, and it’s not supposed to snow on the day they are repeating. The three have slipped back into the normal flow of time, leaving Michael with blood on his hands.

The ideas here were interesting and the links between repetition and addiction/recovery were potentially fascinating. I think this film could have done much more with its themes, rather than focussing on the conflict between Kyle and Michael.

Statistics

Length of first iteration (in film): 9 minutes
Length of second iteration: 9 minutes
Reset point: End of day
Fidelity of loop: perfect
Exit from the loop: a certain number of repetitions

Iteration 15: Blood Punch

Yesterday was March 377th 2020, and I marked it by watching some more time-loop movies. Blood Punch is another film that appears for free on Amazon Prime. Which tends not to be a mark of quality, but this turned out to be a lot of fun (with some reservations).

This film seems to be a side-project by the cast and crew of a Power Rangers spin-off. It’s a criminals-hiding-out movie, a little like Reservoir Dogs. Skyler gets sent to rehab so she can recruit a meth cook, and seduces chemistry student Milton. After being busted out by Skyler’s psychotic boyfriend Russell, Milton has to survive the next day.

I liked this film a lot and loved watching the double-crosses unwind. However, the script tries to be edgy which means jokes about child abuse, a homophobic slur and repeated uses of the c-word. Spoilers follow.

The start of this film is a little confusing, as it drops into flashback while establishing the loop. The initial sets, supposed to be a rehab center, are obviously cheaply repurposed, but once the film moves to the hunting lodge where most of it is set, things take off. Like Mine Games this was a film that made me want to spend time in the countryside. The cabin here contained a wall full of weapons, which was the most enthusiastic Chekov’s Gun I have seen in ages.

The time-loop scenario here was innovative (although its explanation as an ancient Indian curse felt tiresome). It added to the complexity of the dynamics between the characters, and made for some great comedy. A couple of the twists took me completely by surprise. And this film looks like it was so much fun to make! It looks like it’s was made for fun too, but I am amazed nobody has tried to remake it.

Statistics

Reset point: End of day
Fidelity of loop: Traces of previous loops remain
Exit from the loop: One person survives the day

Iteration 14: Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas

Yesterday was March 377th 2020, and I marked it by watching some more time-loop movies. I watched this Disney film because it appears on the Wikipedia time loop movie list and it was easy to get hold of. It’s actually an anthology movie, so the story in question is a 15-minute cartoon. Spoilers follow.

The time loop idea here is simplistic – as you’d imagine from a short cartoon. Donald Duck’s nephews pray for Christmas to come every day, and it does, until they are sick of it. The cycle is broken by doing the day perfectly. It included the iteration where they took advantage of the lack of consequences and misbehaved.

I’ve never been much of a fan of Disney films. The cartoons were on TV when I was a kid, but I preferred Warner Brothers, and have no idea why anyone wouldn’t. There is a huge issue with Disney cartoons in the hierarchy of animals. It’s like, Pluto and Goofy are both supposed to be dogs but are very different. In this film, the ducks eat turkey for dinner. What the actual fuck is wrong with them?

Statistics

Length of first iteration (in film): 4 minutes
Length of second iteration: 3 minutes
Reset point: going to sleep
Fidelity of loop: perfect
Exit from the loop: doing Christmas perfectly

Iteration 13: Mine Games

Yesterday was March 377th 2020, and I marked it by watching some more time-loop movies. Mine Games is another horror film. It had a fairly low IMDB score and I expected little, but it turned out to be surprisingly good. Not everything made sense, but it produced a feeling of dread.

A group of young people drive into the woods to stay at a cabin with friends. While exploring the local area they find an abadoned mine, containing a grisly discovery. Spoilers follow.

This film included pretty much every cliche of the cabin-in-the-woods genre. The characters were foolish – not just going into the spooky mine, but also taking hallucinogens there. There was a slightly dodgy use of mental illness, with a character not taking their medication so they could freak out and cause the plot. It wasn’t the most sympathetic portrayal of schizophrenia.

As a time-loop movie, this only just qualified. There was definitely a repetition here, but we only followed one cycle. The time-loop was not helped by an awful denouement that made no sense, and simply seemed to be there to produce a jump scare. I’m allowing this anyway.

While this film was deeply flawed, I enjoyed it. The characters were interesting enough that I could overlook their incompetence in negotiating the horror movie scenarios. The idea of people discovering their own corpses felt horrific, and I also liked when one person refused to help their future self. There are a lot of dodgy films on Amazon Prime, but this turned out to have been worth a watch. And the beuatiful scenery makes me long to stay in a cabin in the midst of a wild forest.

Iteration 12: Game Over

Today is March 377th 2020, and I marked it by watching a time-loop movie. Game Over is another slasher film, but it’s also very different to all the other loops so far.

Watching movies based on an arbitrary link produces an interesting range. This is a 2019 Indian film, originally shot in both Tamil and Telugu before being dubbed into Hindi. Set in Gurgaon, it tells the story of Swapna, a young games designer, and was billed as a home invasion movie. Spoilers follow

This film wasn’t what I expected, not least because the time loops started very late in the movie. Up to then, it told the story of a traumatised woman, dealing with the aftermath of a brutal attack. She goes to have a tattoo, only to learn later that the wrong ink was used. Swapna’s tattoo contains the ashes of a woman who has been murdered.

While the film’s opening few minutes are brutal and shocking, the violence in the rest of the film never felt lingering or sadistic (to me, anyway). More time was spent on Swapna’s life and trauma than on the actual home invasion sequence. I can imagine many people finding this triggering, and while Taapsee Pannu’s portrayal of Swapna was excellent, I didn’t feel that the film had much to say about misogyny and violence. There was also a long sequence about cancer survival, and portrayals of suicide attempts. This movie contained a lot of highly-charged material.

The time loop here was related to video games, with Swapna’s tattoo providing ‘three lives’ in which to try surviving the attacks. Videogames are an obvious structure for time loops, since that is what the character/player in the game perceives when replaying a sequence. While this idea was used for both theme and decoration, the addition of the supernatural element felt a little strange.

It was interesting that the game we see Swapna playing is Pacman. This is the same game that Lisa’s brother plays in Haunter.

Statistics

Length of first iteration (in film): 10 minutes
Length of second iteration: 11.5 minutes
Reset point: Death
Fidelity of loop: perfect
Exit from the loop: dying three times or survival

Iteration 11: The Final Girls

Today is March 376th 2020, and I marked it by watching a time-loop movie. This one is another slasher comedy, The Final Girls. While it’s included on wikipedia’s list of time loop films, this film uses a time loop for a joke, rather than being about time loops. However, it just about qualifies under my rules, with the film’s main plot occurring in the final iteration. Spoilers follow

The Final Girls is the story of Max Cartwright, whose late mother acted in Camp Bloodbath, an 80’s slasher film. A fire starts during a late-night showing of the film and, in trying to escape, Max and her friends find themselves somehow inside the movie. The film’s time-loop is confined to a few minutes before Max and friends begin participating in the movie’s storyline.

I’d been planning to watch this film since it came out, without it ever quite reaching the top of my list. It’s fun, if a little cartoonish. It felt like the PG-13 rating held the film back, and it might have benefitted from being a little more violent, a little more like the films it was spoofing.

It was interesting to see the time-loop here as an artefact of recording technology. There was also a good joke about the background music becoming diegetic, and warning the characters of the killer’s approach. This film probably had too many nested flashbacks, but it was fun. “Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve dreamed of being the final girl“.

Statistics

Length of first iteration (in film): 45 seconds
Length of second iteration: 45 seconds
Reset point: 92 minutes passes (the length of Camp Bloodbath)
Fidelity of loop: perfect
Exit from the loop: getting in the VW Camper with the characters and continuing the plot

I’ve watched a lot more films set in the real world over the last week than I normally do – and I am thoroughly sick of scenes where people are involved in car crashes mid-conversation. It worked well when I saw it in the Shot Caller recently, but I’ve now seen it several times in quick succession. Keep your eyes on the road!

One thing I’ve not seen a lot of is films inspired by repetition in video games. I think I have a couple of those up next.

Iteration 10: 12:01pm

Yesterday was March 375th 2020, and I marked it by watching two time-loop movies. I then watched the short film 12:01pm. This is one of two adaptations of a short story by Richard A. Lupoff and it’s available on youtube. Spoilers follow.

Myron Castleman is trapped within a one-hour loop, which takes place during his lunch break. We initially see him sitting and talking to a woman on a park bench, and he explains to her that time is due to reset.

This is a pulp sci-fi story and the ‘time bounce’ is caused by the collision between matter and anti-matter universes. I know it’s just a macguffin, but it’s irritating. The consequences of the loop are far more interesting than the explanation, particularly when the explanation’s physics makes no sense. Despite the window-dressing, the film managed to show Myron’s frustration at being stuck within the same hour.

(The film is also interesting because it’s made plain that the entire world is looping. Myron is the only person conscious of this fact).

(Something that is rarely considered in these films is whether the universe continues after the resets. In a multiverse, we might have each day continuing, with most of them making no sense to the person who has just left the loop. Imagine Bill Murray’s Phil Connor leaving one of the loops a day or two before he fell in love…)

This was originally made as a TV film in 1990, and that affects the quality. The interaction between Myron and the woman on the bench feels dated, as does his treatment of his secretary. This was nominated for ‘Best Short Film, Live Action’ in the 1991 Oscars, and subsequently remade into a full movie whose makers considered suing Groundhog Day‘s producers.

Statistics

Length of first iteration: 9 minutes
Length of second iteration: 6 minutes
Reset point: the end of an hour
Fidelity of loop: perfect
Exit from the loop: no exit