I was trying to find a copy of the Sight & Sound article on FILMS OF OLD WEIRD BRITAIN but all I found was this poxy list

Rob Young wrote Electric Eden

I like "Alfred The Great" and I think "Blood On Satan's Claw" s/b on that list.

OH DUH! whoops, sorry!

xp

Yeah, other suggestions welcome btw!

Oh god what a weird list of films, I've not even seen half of them. Torn between Oss Oss Wee Oss and The Flora Faddy Furry Dance Day based solely on the subject matter. (Though didn't Aphex Twin do the soundtrack for Sleep Furiously?)

Just to clear up after my blithering idiocy in the post, Rob Young wrote this article too (which of course I knew all along, ahem).

It is a weird list of films, and I feel like I need to read the piece now to understand why things are there.

Well, it involves a lot of paganism and folk dancing, that's for certain.

(My father insists there is some family connection to the Flora Faddy Furry Dance or whatever it's called, but cannot remember for the life of him what it is.)

Not seen most, but A Canterbury Tale is one of my favorite films

iirc, Blood on Satan's Claw is mentioned in Electric Eden along with lots on The Wicker Man, so there may be a reason he doesn't mention them in the article.

I did read somewhere that he was planning a book on this subject, but maybe the project turned into this article instead?

The Owl Service was slightly disappointing compared to the book, it was a TV series rather than a film but I guess the article includes both.

Haven't seen Children Of The Stones, scripted by Nigel Kneale I think? Hauntological types go on about it a lot.

Some of these are on youtube ... Children of the Stones, Flora Faddy Furry Dance, Journey to Avebury being three of them for example. Not the ideal way to watch them but gives you an idea of what you're in for.

Children of the Stones is a great TV series - it's technically for kids, but unlike, say, Moondial, you don't really ever get the feeling it's specifically for children. Has some proper British eeriness to it.

I have this issue! It's the only one I have, but I got it for this very (honestly rather disappointing) article.

Sleep Furiously has Aveil 14th and a couple of other Aphex Twin songs on it. I don't think it's a commissioned soundtrack or anything like that.

I saw most of the films from the list that interested me, save for Akenfield. Couldn't find that one.

Anyway I can scan it, just don't get too excited, it's not very good.

NickB, I can do a scan later today of the article.

Would love to see Akenfield - the book is wonderful.

My god, this thread is even more incompetent than my usual standard.

Billy D, Adamrl - that would be fabulous if one of you could, but thanks to you both for the offer! Don't put yourself to too much trouble on my account though. My ilx mail thing should work btw if you want to send it there.

Canterbury Tale is one of my all time fave films but i dunno that i want to vote for it in this context

I saw this - http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/504811/index.html - last night ('Halfway House', 1944) which seemed to be maybe something that would belong here. "Ten people are drawn to stay at an old hotel in a small Welsh village, and through their experiences there, re-evaluate their lives": yes, but they work out really quickly that the place they're staying isn't really there, and the landlord and his daughter are deceased. It's that they stick around afterwards that's kind of interesting. - has anyone else seen this?

also i finally got around to watching quatermass recently and boy has it not aged well

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Oh, I guess I didn't vote in this in the end. Too many good choices, anyway.

London orbital!11

For anyone who's interested I scanned the article on the following links:

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i329/yorkshiresky/IMG_20120317_121338.jpg
http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i329/yorkshiresky/IMG_20120317_121348.jpg
http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i329/yorkshiresky/IMG_20120317_121402.jpg
http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i329/yorkshiresky/IMG_20120317_121417.jpg
http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i329/yorkshiresky/IMG_20120317_121431.jpg
http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i329/yorkshiresky/IMG_20120317_121455.jpg

I think "The Changes" belongs in this company as well? Such a great TV series.

Didn't see this thread; many of my favourite films here. Maybe add Winstanley to the list?

No Winstanley and a cpl of Deek Jarman films = what's wrong with this article I have not read, surely.

Reeves' The Sorcerers is getting a screening in London soon, might turn up.

Thank you for the scans, those are very interesting!

However, this makes me froth at the mouth...

Oss Oss Wee Oss (1953) was shot during the Mayday celebrations at Padstow in Cornwall - one of the strange survivals whose actual date of origin is almost impossible to trace, but whose very alienness points to an England from which modernity is almost insulated.

Or perhaps that "alienness" points to the fact that Cornwall is not actually in "England" at all.

::mutters Kernow Bys Vyken darkly::

Thanks Billy! I'll have a look at those later.

also i finally got around to watching quatermass recently and boy has it not aged well

do you mean the tv series, or the movie? yeah, of course they've both 'dated', being nearly sixty years old and all, but the former is still v rich in 'ideas', especially compared to other kinds of film/tv sf at the time and despite its obv technical limitations, and the latter still moves at an incredible lick, has a nice feel for landscape (the opening sequence in particular) and features at least one impeccable and moving performance from richard wordsworth as the infected astronaut (also think that the sequence where they watch the footage shot onboard the spaceship is both eerie and prescient). and the film version of quatermass and the pit, while leaving lots of stuff out from the tv series and obviously working on a p limited budget, still stands up as one of the great british horror movies, w/ lots more 'going on' than the average britflick

xpost,

Nick, no problem. If you or anyone else is after something scanned from SaS let me know.

haven't seen any of the series but the 1967 'quatermass and the pit' is an awesome film, still incredibly haunting and sinister. also used to v. good effect as a reference point in 'lipstick traces.'

I think "The Changes" belongs in this company as well? Such a great TV series.

― Lawanda Pageboy (Capitaine Jay Vee), Saturday, March 17, 2012 12:39 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's in the list! I started watching it on youtube a while ago, but it wasn't as compelling as Children of the Stones, and the video quality wasn't amazing, so I kind of drifted away from it. The opening is a blinder, though.

Just watched A Canterbury Tale and enjoyed it so much. I was expecting it to be kinda creepy and olde weird lore like a lot of the stuff on the Here's a Health to the Barley Mow DVDs but it was the most fun propaganda feel good awesomeness. Beautiful. I'm going to spend the August Bank Holiday in countryside Kent now I think.