Blood on Satan's Claw: or, The Devil's Skin

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Doch dann betritt der Richter und Templer Judge Mandeville das Dorf und sagt dem Bösen den Kampf an.

The next couple of sections deal with the importance of the landscape and how it is used in the film, as well as looking at nature and the way the setting juxtaposes the simple superstition of the rural setting with that of the rational, enlightened city (London). For its release in England, Tigon British Film Distributors secured the New Victoria Cinema to screen the film, which accommodated 2,600 guests.The scene in which the villagers hold a funeral for Mark Vespers was shot in the village of Hurley, while portions of the woodland sequences were filmed in the Warburg Nature Reserve and Black Park near Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire. I'm not sure, but the mystery and uncertainty sometimes feels a little jarring rather than pulling you deeper in. The story and its themes are stereotypical binary folklore: women are both more mystical and thus more prone to evil or darkness; men represent civilization, rational thinking and authority; Christianity must prevail against an ancient pre-Christian evil. These are followed by a section discussing the film’s main characters, that features some interesting analysis of not only the family and their flawed existence but even Black Philip himself.

The shoot lasted approximately eight weeks, and mainly took place in the small village of Bix Bottom, Oxfordshire, located in the Chiltern Hills. If Blood on Satan’s Claw, The Wicker Man and Witchfinder General are the classic unholy triumvirate, The Witch is one of the titles that fits the bill as their modern equivalent, alongside films like Kill List, November, In the Earth and Midsommar it sits at the forefront of the Folk Horror revival. Director Piers Haggard was hired to direct the project, and worked with Wynne-Simmons to retool the screenplay from its anthology format to a singular, cohesive narrative. The film's visceral power is reeled in a little, as it seems Wynne-Simmons has had plenty of time to marinate his characters and themes.When I step back, it’s amazing how we’ve gotten to this place from the city a few years ago and from even further afield before that.

It's difficult not to compare the book to the film, but the story easily translates between the two mediums. Ce livre est donc la novélisation, par le scénariste original du film, Robert Wynne-Simmons, et magnifiquement illustré par Richard Wells, à la manière de gravures sur bois. One bugbear I have with the film is the visual reveal of the Fiend – I do not think the effects do the malignant entity justice (same bone of contention I have with the otherwise great 1957 film Night of the Demon).Along with ‘The Wicker Man’ and ‘Witchfinder General’, it found new ways to terrify audiences using elements of superstition and folklore.