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

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Onto the positives - yes, this book does describe a late 17th century rural village really well. We have the unknown but ever present threat of superstition and pagan practices and good old devil worship. We have witchfinder authority figures, who never really come across as the good guys either. There are quite a few scenes which are creepy without being gratuitous. I’m under contract to write a book for The Devil’s Advocates series. This set of brief books is focused on horror films. This particular volume is on the lesser known British film, The Blood on Satan’s Claw. I’ve reacted to both the film and the book on my blog ( Sects and Violence in the Ancient World). This book is a great introduction to the movie and it brings out several aspects of it that I had missed watching it on my own. Anthony Ainley, who plays a curate who Linda Hayden's character attempted to seduce, once said in an interview, "When it came to doing the nude scene where Angel comes into the rectory at night and disrobes this was done at least three times and Linda was spot on with every take...she was a total professional with a refined sense of the erotic unusual for her age...I believe she was only 17 at the time." [22] Musical score [ edit ] The children begin to act strangely, their childish games and squabbles developing a more sinister nature, a cult forming around the girl who holds a vicious claw. Blood on Satan’s Claw reigns as one of the Unholy Trinity films of the folk-horror genre, and for good reason. It engraved the genre’s key components in stone for all who wanted to wander its forbidden and supernatural powers that continue to terrorize audiences 50 years after its release. Unlike the fictional creatures and growling monsters, the movie reveals the evil existent in humanity. Now that is terrifying.

Set in the early 18th century, this is a time when the beliefs and customs of folklore and old Paganism still held firm and Christian fears of witchcraft and Satanism were at the height of hysteria, beliefs combining and conflicting, with the English Civil War and England's witch trials still in living memory. Exploring the epidemic qualities of terror and hysteria, which we've witnessed so often throughout history and continue to this day, Wynne-Simmons crafts an atmospheric narrative of compelling and creeping dread. This adaptation stars Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearsmith, alongside the original film's Angel Blake, Linda Hayden. Gatiss and Shearsmith are both huge fans of the original film, even recording a commentary for the DVD release. Possessing a WITCHFINDER GENERAL-type atmosphere, helped immeasurably by Mark Wilkinson's truly beautiful score, this tale of superstition and a Satanic contagion that exhibits itself as an ugly, hairy patch on the skin (motivating alternate title SATAN'S SKIN) is evidence of solid horror-making afoot. Whilst this book is released under an imprint of Liverpool University Press, Evans-Powell’s delivery gives it greater appeal. Not just for students and scholars, it is accessible, and of interest to wider fans (and even detractors) of The Blood on Satan’s Claw– a film which, although not entirely devoid of flaws (in my opinion it would be better had the fiend itself not be seen outright, but just vaguely depicted in shadows – and for the ending to have been drawn out longer, as it seems a tad rushed), is an important piece of both folk horror and British film history and, indeed, a disturbingly mesmeric artistic creation. An important addition to the Devil’s Advocates catalogue, and one concisely and extremely well provided by its author. 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. [11] Summarizing the screenplay, Haggard commented in 2003:

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The Blood on Satan's Claw was acquired by the American distribution company, Cannon Films, who released it theatrically in the United States in the spring of 1971, with a New York City opening taking place on 15 April 1971. [1] It went on to screen frequently in the American drive-in theater circuit throughout the remainder of 1971. [b] Several of the younger cast members, particularly Hayden, Ustinov, and Richard Williams, recalled that Haggard's direction was concise and that the shoot operated smoothly. [18] The tarnished church is the focal point of the earthy and rural scenery. The adults worry about the dark forces in their town and its effect on their innocent children. Young girls like Margaret are accused of being witches for having sexual cravings, and Blake tempts Reverend Fallowfield with her naked body before accusing him of rape. The patches of furry skin and claws are cut off the victims like puzzle pieces put together to form the image of Satan. The abandoned church is where the teenage victims are tortured, raped, and killed in return for the furry skin. The cult’s actions signify the breakdown of values, and the growing madness in the secluded countryside as a result of the demonic possessions. The story is a rare example of diving headlong into the action done right. It spends little time establishing the status quo prior to its disruption, but instead gives a general impression of what it might have been prior to the supernatural horrors which stalk the land. While in many cases this could have been abrupt, the audio drama uses a strong cast and a building sense of dread to hook the listener very early on. Deighan, Samm (3 June 2013). "Blood on Satan's Claw (Blu-ray Review)". Diabolique Magazine. Archived from the original on 19 September 2021.

A farmer ploughs the land in 18th century England. The earth turns and reveals a strange corpse of a beast that disturbs the eye and chills the blood. The village youth believe they are possessed by the beast, whipped up into demonic fervour. Is their ringleader Angel (Linda Hayden) a witch, or a dangerous troublemaker who the elders need to suppress? See this for Linda Hayden's sexually charged performance as Satan-loving teener Angel Blake, one of British Cinema's more memorable portrayals of pure evil in a petticoat. Related: Harvest Home : The 1973 Pagan Horror Classic that Laid the Groundwork for Stephen King's "Children of the Corn" Clarke, Donald (2 November 2010). "Mark Gatiss's History of Horror". The Irish Times . Retrieved 2 November 2010.Guaranteed to make you unsettled every time you go past a hedgerow in the British countryside, The Blood on Satan’s Claw is a great introduction to folk horror. This book is a novelisation of the classic folk-horror film, 'The Blood on Satan's Claw' written fifty years later by the original screen play writer. If you've seen the film then you're probably the target audience for this and it's fun reading along waiting for all the bits you remember from the film to crop up and the novel does expand on the film in quite a few ways to give the reader a little more context. Written by the film’s original screenwriter Robert Wynne-Simmons and featuring haunting new illustrations from Richard Wells, it is an atmospheric and defining cult classic in the making. a b c d Simpson, Michael (2003). "Piers Haggard interview". MJSimpson.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2 May 2013. Consequently, the film’s depiction of witchcraft is also complicated: on the one hand, the film never shies away from depicting the cruel and evil actions carried out by the coven, including the rape and murder of sacrificial victims from outside the community. At the same time, the film avoids presenting the coven as made up entirely of fundamentally evil people and instead offers some implicit explanation for why so many members of the community–particularly young people–find the movement so appealing.

Flower curtains open as the sun rises at noon, and people with animal masks prey upon trespassers as spring makes way to summer. There is blood dripping like strawberry jam on your fingers and the group chants to honor your work. That, my friends, is folk horror—bloody and ritualistic terror thriving by day. Seventeenth-century England, and a plough uncovers a grisly skull in the furrows of a farmer's field. The skull disappears, but its malefic influence begins to work in insidious ways upon the nearby village of Hexbridge. First, the cows stop milking and the fruit turns rotten on the trees. Then, an insolent ungodliness takes hold of the local children, mysterious fur patches appear on limbs and people start disappearing.... Blood on Satan's Claw and the Devil films of the 1970s". www.acidemic.com . Retrieved 28 January 2022. With the younger cast, Haggard dedicated two weeks prior to the shoot to hold rehearsals. [12] Filming [ edit ] The ruined Saint James Church in Bix Bottom was the setting for some of the film's most dramatic sequencesI'm partial to these rural horror stories about communities collectively engaging with the devil, but not necessarily when they take the premise so straightforwardly as this. This audio drama has a very nice soundscape and better acting than most audiobooks, and on a scene to scene level the writing is good enough. The problem is that overall, despite the witchy trappings, it has the mentality of a very unimaginative slasher movie. The devil possesses practically all of the kids in town almost immediately, and the middle 80% is just a sequence of the same "kid getting murdered" scene playing out over and over again without much escalation or character building or mythology to build a more interesting context for them to fit into. It relies heavily on familiar tropes to get right into its business and get right out of it as soon as it's time to stop, without any particular narrative tissue in between. Moreover, while there are some kind of neat touches, a lot of the specific expression of the devil is either boring, problematic, or just dull. My favorite part about the community aspect of these stories is that the devil gets to be a social lever exploiting internal conflicts and prejudices, and this devil has exactly 0 of that subtlety or charisma. Canby, Vincent (15 April 1971). "Screen: Rural Diabolism:' Satan's Claw' Opens in Horror Double Bill". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 19 September 2021. a b c Stafford, Jeff. "Blood on Satan's Claw". Turner Classic Movies. Archived from the original on 10 April 2014. PDF / EPUB File Name: Blood_on_Satans_Claw_-_Robert_Wynne-Simmons.pdf, Blood_on_Satans_Claw_-_Robert_Wynne-Simmons.epub Evans-Powell, David (29 April 2021). "Reviving forgotten horrors: celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Blood on Satan's Claw". Liverpool University Press. Archived from the original on 29 April 2021.