Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s

I recently had the good fortune to be included in Spectacular Optical's second film anthology, Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s. Edited by film writers and programmers Kier-la Janisse (House of Psychotic Women) and Paul Corupe (Canuxploitation), this impressive volume was released a few months ago and is focused on various aspects of the Satanic Panic: the decade-long fear of a Satanic conspiracy that gripped the US, Australia, Canada, and the UK in the 1980s and into the early ‘90s.

Convinced Satan lurked everywhere, the media, government, Christian right, and parents targeted pop culture from music videos to role playing games, and more. The book's various chapters discuss things like the memoir Michelle Remembers, Russ Martin’s satanic erotic novels, Dungeons & Dragons, Christian propaganda, kids’ cartoons, horror films, news broadcasts, music censorship, MTV, heavy metal, Christian rock, and crimes like the McMartin trial and Ricky Kasso case. My own chapter is on heavy metal horror films like Trick or Treat, Rocktober Blood, The Gate, Black Roses, and many more.

In addition to Janisse and Corupe, some of my fellow writers include Gavin Baddeley (Lucifer Rising: Sin, Devil Worship and Rock n’ Roll), Rue Morgue’s Liisa Ladouceur and Alison Lang, David Flint (Sheer Filth!), Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (Rape Revenge Films: A Critical Study), Flavorwire’s Alison Nastasi, and many more. There are original illustrations from Rick Trembles and Mike McDonnell, and it's packed with stills, posters, comics, and plenty of great visuals.

The book is also the subject of a worldwide tour, with events and film screenings throughout Canada, in London, Austin, Australia, Boston, New York, and more. I'm conducting tonight's book launch in Philadelphia at PhilaMOCA. Join me at 7 p.m. for a multi-media tour of the satanic 1980s. Admission is $10 and I'll be selling books after the presentation. Happy Halloween!

Sheer Filth: Review and Interview with Editor David Flint

David Flint’s U.K. based zine, Sheer Filth, has seen the light of day again this April, after FAB Press released both a hardback and softcover compendium. This complete collection includes all the issues of the zine from 1987 to 1990, including some of Flint’s previously unreleased material, or articles published elsewhere during the same time period. If, like me, you were simply too young (and on the wrong continent) to be exposed to Sheer Filth, now is your chance to snap up a publication essential for all fans of cult, erotica, horror, and exploitation.

While the late ‘80s and early ‘90s was a critical time for homemade zines and independent magazines about cult cinema, including the likes of Shock Xpress, Cinefantastique, and many others, Sheer Filth put an emphasis on exploitation and erotica somewhat lacking in other horror-focused publications. Editor David Flint wrote and organized an impressive body of content that covers quite a lot of ground throughout the book’s 200+ pages. Opening with a lengthy article about and interview with B-movie producer David F. Friedman (Blood Feast, Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, and so many more), the zine covers everyone from Jörg Buttergereit (Nekromantik), Samuel Z. Arkoff, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Ed Wood, Betty Page, Irving Klaw, Pee-Wee Herman, Annie Sprinkle, and more.

There are also numerous film reviews, including the Carry On series, an article about sex cinemas in Britain, The Horror of Party Beach, porn and erotica like The Devil in Miss Jones, Salon Kitty, and Mesa of Lost Women. Sheer Filth was also famously the first U.K. publication to cover Death Bed: The Bed That Eats People (typing that sentence was a joyous experience). Cinema is far from the only subject, and you’ll find everything from book reviews of Apocalypse Culture to fiction, tomes on sex, serial killers, Grand Guignol, the Marquis de Sade, and more. Music and art are both represented with reviews and articles on Robert Crumb, Vienna Aktionism, Psychic TV, Coil, Trevor Brown, and even a nice article on songs about death.

Arguably, you could find information about all of these things online – but you would already have to know what to look for. Sheer Filth is an indispensable resource, because it’s a connoisseur’s collection of books, movies, music, artists, and other things that are still underrepresented, out of print, not yet on DVD, or that you may still not have heard of, particularly for younger genre fans not around during the zine boom of the ‘80s and ‘90s. And that is Sheer Filth’s second major draw – it is an almost perfect time capsule of underground culture from that period. Clearly a labor of love, it is well-organized and easy to read, but also sticks to a traditional zine format and includes posters, flyers, drawings, stills, and plenty of topical illustrations. The interviews are also well worth the reasonable price of admission, as you can choose between a hard or softcover version and the book is available in the U.K. and the U.S.

Editor David Flint (he is certainly not the only contributor for Sheer Filth) was kind enough to let me ask him a few questions about the experience of creating Sheer Filth and preparing it for publication now. In addition to editing and writing for Sheer Filth, Flint has contributed to Penthouse, Flesh & Blood, Bizarre, and more, as well as written booklet notes for a number of DVD releases, including Salon Kitty, The Brood, Santa Sangre, etc. And that’s just the bare minimum of his work, which includes book publications, radio, and online writing and editing.

Satanic Pandemonium: I was part of the first generation to really use the internet to develop my knowledge/fandom, but most of it still came from word of mouth at screenings, books, zines, the video store, and bootleg services, due to lack of overwhelming internet content in the early ‘90s. How did you find out about things growing up? What were some of your favorite gateways?

David Flint: Well, the zine scene was essential. A local shop got a stack of old Cinefantastiques in when I was a kid and I picked up as many as I could afford - that was full of movies you'd never heard of. Then, there were the books - Denis Gifford's Pictorial History of Horror Movies and Alan Frank's Horror Films were essential volumes for any kid into horror. Later, the likes of Re/Search's Incredibly Strange Films and The Psychotronic Encyclopedia were eye-openers. Though by the time they came out, we were all carrying out our own explorations in video stores, renting movies we'd never heard of (because most books and zines at that point were still very U.S./U.K. biased). So it was a combination really. Some very odd things would turn up on TV at that time too -- Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's Hitler: A Film from Germany having a peak time Saturday night slot just before the horror double bills on BBC2 when I was about ten. So my interest in art house and experimental cinema began really early as a result.

SP: There are some truly amazing interview subjects and contributing writers throughout the various issues of Sheer Filth. How did you find those contacts?

DF: I can't remember exactly. H.G. Lewis was doing an appearance at the Scala in London, which is where I met him; I obviously found Dave Friedman's address somewhere. Tuppy Owens got in touch to subscribe, funnily enough. A lot of people were attending festivals and similar events -- Pam Green was doing promotional stuff for David McGillivray's book for instance, and Annie Sprinkle was performing in Newcastle (I used to travel a lot to interview people!). As time went on, it certainly became easier to access people, but nothing like it is now where you can hit them up on Twitter or Facebook.

SP: To get a little more in depth, how did you manage to find out about some of the things Sheer Filth covered very early on or before anyone else in the U.K.? Nekromantik comes to mind.

DF: Nekromantik credit has to go to David Kerekes, who had made contact with Jörg Buttgereit before the film was made -- so we ran his review of Jörg's earlier film Hot Love in issue 2, I think. As a result of that, he got in touch with me, sending the poster for Nekromantik over, and we went from there. We became buddies for a few years - even went to see the Cramps together when he was over here for a festival!

As for other stuff, it was just luck. There was a finite amount of material that anyone could cover, and not THAT many zines out there. As a lot of them were video nasty/gore fixated, it was fairly easy to pick up on other stuff. I just wrote about the sort of things I was seeing at the time -- when someone in Italy says they have a mondo movie called Mutant Sexual Behaviour, of course you have to see it! There was definitely a certain level of competition in the end to find rare stuff no one else had seen, but initially, it really was a case of seeing something weird and then writing about it. I always thought that was the whole point -- why write about the same old films? If people were buying my zine, I wanted them to be told about films, books and music they might not know about, not to give them yet another New York Ripper review.

SP: Do you have a favorite Sheer Filth memory?

DF: Not really, to be honest. It was actually a pretty good time all round, so any memories are more general ones of the period -- hanging out in Manchester with like-minded miscreants every Saturday, usually lurking around Steve's World Famous Movie Store, which became the central fanzine selling hub in the city. This was the era of the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, so there was a real buzz about the city, even if you weren't into that scene. It was a great time, looking back on it, and publishing Sheer Filth did mean that I was at the centre of it. So I think that is the best memory -- just the whole atmosphere of that period, from 1988 to maybe 1995.

SP: Why release a compilation of Sheer Filth now? And how has the reception been?

DF: The project came about because I was looking at the idea of e-books and thought it might be worth digging out the old material and giving it a new life. It was originally that simple - scan and upload. But I'm too picky to let it go like that and thought I could tidy it up a bit, correct some typos, get better quality images… anyway, Harvey from FAB Press was up at the Mayhem Film Festival and I mentioned this to him, and he was keen on the idea, so we pretty much etched an agreement that weekend to do it as a proper book. Thank God! It took a couple of years after that to finally appear, but I'm very happy with it -- I'm my own biggest critic normally, but because this content it so old, I can actually look at it objectively now and enjoy it again.

And people seem to be enjoying it. The reviews have been embarrassingly positive, we had a great launch night, showing Jake West's Video Nasties: Draconian Days to a sold-out crowd, and it seems to be selling well. I was always aware that there seemed to be more love for Sheer Filth than anything else I've done, for whatever reason.

SP: What are some other recent or upcoming projects we should look out for?

DF: I'm working on a couple of things for FAB, but neither has been announced yet, so I can't say what they are -- one has to do with film censorship. I'm still looking at the idea of e-books for some projects and of course I have my website (www.strangethingsarehappening.com). Other than that, I have to work out a way of making a living -- times are hard in the freelance world!

SP: Thanks, so much, David!

You can pick up Sheer Filth from Amazon or the hardcover directly from FAB Press – and again, it comes highly recommended and is a critical resource for anyone interested in exploitation, horror, cult cinema, or underground culture.

The Malleus Maleficarum: Hammer of the Witches

“No one who reads the histories can doubt that there have always been witches, and that by their evil works much harm has been done to men, animals, and the fruits of the earth, and that Incubus and Succubus devils have always existed.”

-Malleus Maleficarum, Part 2, Chapter IV

Yesterday, I wrote about Benjamin Christensen's Häxan, which is somewhat based on and was definitely inspired by the 1486 witch hunting manual, the Malleus Maleficarum, Maleficas, & earum hæresim, ut phramea potentissima conterens, which translates to The Hammer of Witches which destroyeth Witches and their heresy as with a two-edged sword. Known today as the preeminent medieval witch hunting tome, the Malleus was written by Heinrich Kramer, a German priest and self-styled inquisitor. Jacob Sprenger, another German priest, also become involved with the publication, though contemporary scholars, such as Hans Peter Broedel, have come to believe Kramer was the primary author. Kramer sought to prove the existence of witches and educate other inquisitors on the best ways to locate, identify, and convict witches, most of whom he believed to be female, because of women's supposed predisposition to sin and vanity.

Based on earlier works, such as Johannes Nider’s Formicarius from 1435, the Malleus Maleficarum is divided into an introduction and three main sections, with the ultimate goal of asserting the existence of witchcraft and describing the variety of black arts available to servants of Satan. The first part serves as a lengthy introduction to witchcraft and explores such themes as why witches exist and what forms they can and cannot take, how they must have commerce with the Devil in order to bring about magic, the existence of incubi and succubi, the necessity of witches having sexual intercourse with the Devil, the fact that the majority of witches are female and why, and a description of the variety of powers that witches may possess. 

Part two explains these powers in further depth - who witches can and cannot affect, their methods of disturbing and seducing the innocent, how they form a pact with the Devil, how they transport themselves, how they copulate with the Devil, demonic possession, and how they affect human procreation and fertility, and many other things. Part three examines bringing witches to trial, interrogation, and sentencing, covering such topics as who is fit to be a judge in a witch trial, number of witnesses and the examination process, whether or not “mortal enemies” are acceptable witnesses, what kind of defense may be presented, etc. What kind of torture is acceptable is a major part of this section, which reveals details such as that witches must be shaved to displays the devil’s marks and red-hot irons are a great means of producing confessions. 

Based on his attempts at organized witch hunting in various regions of Germany, Kramer was given a papal bull in 1484 by Pope Innocent VIII, the Summis desiderantes affectibus, which gave him full authority to persecute and prosecute German witches. The bull declared, “Persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother's womb, as also the offspring of cattle,” among many other alleged evils. The bull threatened local clergy with excommunication if they did not cooperate and Kramer wound up using this text as the preface to the Malleus Maleficarum. 

Despite this papal mandate and the book’s enduring popularity and infamy, it was not officially used by the Inquisition. Witch hunting (and the belief in witchcraft at all) was initially considered to be unlawful superstition by the early Church leader, but from the 12th to 15th centuries, largely due to political motivation, the idea of persecuting caught on with increasing fervor. Regardless of the Church’s stance on the Malleus, witch hunting caught on, particularly after the invention of Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press in the 15th century, making the Malleus far more accessible and kicking off a potential propaganda firestorm. 

Though the Malleus has long been associated with the Inquisition, in the last forty years academic critics have relegated its importance to a more symbolic function. It is doubted that Innocent VIII ever saw the book and it is now believed that the text had much less of an effect on medieval witch hunting practices. It was soon condemned by the Church, in particular Spanish Inquisitors, the most infamous branch, warned against accepting its veracity. I can't pretend the Malleus is compelling reading. Despite subject matter like covens, witches' sabbaths, sex with the Devil, feasting on babies, incubi and succubi, Kramer's book reads like the dullest legal brief imaginable. Regardless, it stands as an important symbol, both of a time of persecution and near genocide, and as the potential, if ironic source for something more contemporary: Wicca and neo-paganism. 

Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of THE DEVILS by Richard Crouse

I’ll never forgot the first time I saw The Devils (1971), Ken Russell’s blasphemous masterpiece about a 17th century priest who is accused of possessing a convent full of nuns and is subsequently tortured and executed, despite his innocence. I was 19, and someone brought me a (very bad quality) VHS copy because they knew I liked extreme cinema. I cannot express how unprepared I was for the insane, beautiful mixture of sex, violence, and religion that followed. I spent the next hour and half watching it with my jaw basically scraping the ground. From that moment, it has been one of my favorite films, if not my favorite, and I have gone on a ten year quest to find a restored, uncut print of the film. So far I have found an uncut bootleg and the British Film Institute released an absolutely beautiful, restored DVD (with the cut scenes included on a second disc) in 2012, but Russell’s classic of hysteria, repression and political persecution remains elusive, particularly for American audiences. It is, unarguably, one of the most controversial and inaccessible films of all time.

Richard Crouse’s book, Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of the Devils(released last October from ECW Press) documents the long, arduous journey the film made from pre-production to its first official DVD release 40 years later. Crouse explores Russell’s primary historical source, Aldous Huxley’s non-fiction book The Devils of Loudon, as is packed with details about the chaotic production. Everything from the casting of stars Vanessa Redgrave, Oliver Reed and many other major and minor players; the set design from British wunderkind Derek Jarman; costumes from Russell’s then wife Shirley; the score by avant-garde composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies; and more is covered in depth. Crouse also looks at the disastrous reception of The Devils from Warner Bros., audiences, and film critics, and the recent attempt at a revival after footage thought to be lost was found and restored to the film. This warm, funny, fascinating book is recommended to Ken Russell fanatics, cinephiles in general, and anyone interested in the dubious process of film censorship.

Toronto resident Richard Crouse has had a long career as a film critic and Canadian TV personality. He has written several films books, including The 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, hosted IFC’s show Reel to Reel, Bravo’s In Short and has appeared on many Canadian TV and radio programs. He is a regular fixture at North American film festivals, and is obviously a huge fan of Ken Russell. Allegedly, he has seen The Devils200 times. In a few years, I will hopefully give him a run for his money, but his devotion to this criminally neglected and censured film is the driving force behind Raising Hell.

The book is chock full of detailed interviews. Crouse managed to track down most of the surviving cast and crew, film historians, and contemporary directors who (rightly) love the film, such as Guillermo del Toro, David Cronenberg (who gives very positive feedback about working with Oliver Reed on The Brood), Joe Dante, William Friedkin, and more. He was fortunately able to interview Russell before his death in November 2011 and many snippets of this are included throughout the book. Crouse also examines the loving, but volatile relationship between the very similar Russell and Reed, two personalities fascinating enough to span several volumes.

Crouse goes into depth about the late ‘60s/early ‘70s film scene, and the evolution of censorship in the short period between The Devils and The Exorcist. Part of the controversy is that even though a film like The Exorcist was given a free pass, despite scenes of a child masturbating violently with a crucifix, among other things, The Devils was cut to shreds. Warner Bros. effectively green-lit a very expensive film with the biggest set since Joseph Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra, then demanded a never-ending series of cuts and made sure audiences and critics ignored it. Two of the scenes in question – the “Rape of Christ” scene, where a room of hysterical and mostly naked nuns have sex with a giant statue of Christ on a crucifix, and a concluding scene where their Mother Superior masturbates with the charred thigh bone of the executed priest – were ordered removed by Warner and thought lost for 25 years. Film historian Mark Kermode recovered them after a long and impassioned search, and Crouse gives credit where it is due, including Kermode as one of the first champions of the film. Despite the fact that a complete version is now available, Warner has continued its ridiculous treatment of The Devils. Currently, they have only begrudgingly allowed a region 2 DVD release from the BFI, with the cut scenes sequestered on a second disc and no Blu-ray or region 1 permissions in sight.

My complaints about Crouse’s book, which was clearly a labor of love, are few. I would have enjoyed a transcript of his interview with Russell before the screening of The Devils at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto in 2010, as well as photographs and illustrations from the film’s production. But these are minor issues. Also included are appendices and absolutely wonderful cover art from Rue Morgue artist Gary Pullin. The book is available from Amazon.com and most retailers as a paperback or in a Kindle edition. To hell with Warner Brothers.

House of Psychotic Women by Kier-La Janisse

House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films is Kier-La Janisse's newest film criticism tome. Just before her screening of Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll in Philadelphia last November, she was kind enough to speak with me about the book, which was named after the alternate, U.S. title for Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll, a Spanish giallo starring Paul Naschy and directed by Carlos Aured. I am finally getting around to writing a review, even though I think I finished reading it about three days after I picked it up. Janisse’s book, the first of its kind, is an “autobiographical exploration of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films.” 

If you are unfamiliar with her name, Janisse is extensively involved in the North American horror community. She’s been a contributing writer for Rue Morgue, Fangoria, Filmmaker and others, and has already published one book with horror/cult publishers FAB Press, A Violent Professional: The Films of Luciano Rossi. She co-produced the documentary EUROCRIME! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the ‘70s and been the subject of the documentary Celluloid Horror. Janisse has programmed films at Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse and Fantastic Fest, at Canada’s CineMuerte horror film festival, etc. She edited Fantasia International Film Festival’s former online magazine Spectacular Optical and founded The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. She also founded and curated the now-defunct Montreal film center, Blue Sunshine. Learn more about her at her personal site, Big Smash! Productions. 

House of Psychotic Women is chock full of film facts, history, and criticism, combined with essays about Janisse’s personal life. She essentially compares crazy women in genre film with herself and the other crazy women in her life, opening up a dialogue about the role film plays in our own personal narratives. This is one of the most interesting examinations of female hysteria and madness and comes highly recommended, whether you want to read about horror films or you are a memoir junkie. It is also a great reference work. Janisse mentions hundreds of films, some of them well known, but many are more obscure. She breaks the book into ten sections, organizing the films and chapters of her life by subject. To give an idea of the range, she covers things like The Entity, The Corruption of Chris Miller, Singapore Sling, 3 Women, Repulsion, Let's Scare Jessica to Death, The Haunting of Julia, Secret Ceremony, Cutting Moments, The Piano Teacher, Possession, Antichrist, Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly, Martyrs, Images, All the Colors of the Dark, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, and many, many more.

The book took Janisse over a decade to finish and is a combination of critical film writing and autobiographical essays, merged together and loosely related. Though she has stated in interviews that an autobiography of a non-famous person is slightly ridiculous, I disagree. There are certainly readers who will see this as an exercise in self-indulgence, but it is a fascinating look at why one person is able to relate to certain works of art, this case, certain horror and exploitation films. I’m honestly surprised that no one had previously thought to do a combination of film theory and memoir, as the latter subject is so popular (just look at the rankings for David Sedaris over on Amazon.com). And as someone who grew up watching horror movies as a way to escape from a bad childhood, I think it is academically valid to examine the relationship between spectatorship and catharsis, voyeurism and therapy. 

Janisse’s autobiographical sections mirror the horror and exploitation films she discusses. She covers her abusive childhood, her mother’s rape, running away and being sent to teen detention centers, drug use, dysfunctional adult relationships, mental breakdowns, and more. Her writing style is neither sensational or sentimental and though she discloses many candid, personal stories, she spends an equal amount of time talking about damaged female characters and film personalities, moving fluidly between memoir and analysis. One of my few criticisms is that, outside of relating various life events and connecting these to certain films, she is unable to create a full, compelling narrative arc, as the best memoir writers are able to do. She needs more narrative and a more cohesively structured one. But it is easy to forgive this because her book is fascinating and brave and I hope to see more film writing like it. 

Also included is a lengthy appendix of reviews. If the film was covered earlier in the book, it only gets a short paragraph, otherwise Janisse writes up to a page about a number of films that fit in with her subject matter. While I understand why this section was necessary, it’s a little disappointing that this takes up half the book, but it is a great reference and, as far as I'm aware, the only one about female characters in horror. 

Pick it up from the wonderful FAB Press. Though the beautiful hard cover is sold out, there are still paperbacks available through the FAB Press site directly or through Amazon. This 360 page volume is as lovely to look at is it is interesting to read, with many, many images throughout. There are 32 pages of full color stills, posters and promotional artwork, as well as family photos, illustrations and mementos from Janisse’s life. FAB Press never fails to release great books on genre cinema and this is surely one of their best. I can't wait to see what Janisse comes out with next. 

Algernon Blackwood: An Interview with Andrew McQuade about Blackwood's Uncollected Fiction

“When common objects in this way be come charged with the suggestion of horror, they stimulate the imagination far more than things of unusual appearance; and these bushes, crowding huddled about us, assumed for me in the darkness a bizarre grotesquerie of appearance that lent to them somehow the aspect of purposeful and living creatures. Their very ordinariness, I felt, masked what was malignant and hostile to us.”

Algernon Blackwood, “The Willows”

Algernon Blackwood is one of the finest and most prolific English fiction writers specializing in horror and weird tales. He was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn along with fellow weird fiction writer Arthur Machen. Blackwood’s interest in nature and the occult informs his fiction, which is less directly terrifying and more subtly scary. Much could be (and probably has been) written about Blackwood’s work in the context of the sublime. Though he primarily wrote short fiction, he also penned novels, children’s books, plays, articles, journalistic essays, prefaces, book reviews and more, and later made radio and television appearances. Unlike more popular writers like the earlier Edgar Allen Poe or the later H.P. Lovecraft, Blackwood’s work has never been collected in its entirety. 

I highly, highly recommend checking out some of his short fiction. Here are some places to start, both online and in print:

Recommended Books:

Best Ghost Stories - a great collection of Blackwood stories; probably the best place to start if you’re a newcomer. 

Ancient Sorceries - another Blackwood short fiction collection, edited by S.T. Joshi. 

Here’s a list of all Blackwood’s available books on Amazon

Mike Ashley’s Blackwood biographries Starlight Man and Algernon Blackwood: A Bio-Bibliography

H.P. Lovecraft’s Supernatural Horror in Literature

S.T. Joshi’s The Weird Tale

Jack Sullivan’s Elegant Nightmares 

Peter Penzoldt’s Supernatural in Fiction

Recommended Websites:

Algernon Blackwood at Project Gutenberg

More Blackwood Stories for free online

Algernon Blackwood Society

Literary Gothic

I recently interview Andrew McQuade - academic, writer and weird fiction fan - about his research on Blackwood and his attempts to collect and read every Blackwood short story. Andrew and I met a couple of years ago at the Dead By Dawn horror film festival in Edinburgh. When I heard he was doing some extensive research on the uncollected works of Algernon Blackwood, I thought it would be a great way to kick off a series about horror writers, particularly the ones slipping through the cracks for newer audiences. Andrew studied at the University of Wales and received a BA in Film and Television and a MA in Audience and Reception Studies.

We sat down (over the internet) and had a wonderful, lengthy chat about the importance of Blackwood and why he is still relevant today. 

Satanic Pandemonium: Why are you qualified to talk about Blackwood?

Andrew McQuade: I have always been fascinated by the experience of being scared. Which isn’t necessarily the same as horror, although horror is certainly the most obvious place to look for this experience. I spent 2008 to 2010 writing for a British horror magazine and, one day, opportunity knocked on my door and I was made part of the regular staff. Working in and around horror every day is every horror fan’s dream, but the experience was ultimately so traumatic that I frankly swore I never wanted anything to do with the genre again. 

And yet, some strange thing drew me back to writers like Blackwood, Le Fanu and James and the guys who, on page, gave me what I’d always wanted from horror – to be scared. It’s worth remembering that for all the negativity in the horror scene on a professional level, the strength and emotional power of its best practitioners is far greater. Blackwood played a big part in turning horror into something enjoyable for me again and, as a result, I’ve spent the last few years collecting as much Blackwood as I could, reading about him, and basically spreading the word of this wonderful man (he was a secret agent in WWI don’t ya know). Call it a moral obligation of sorts, to the fellow who saved me from turning my back on what is, after all, a wonderful thing.

SP: How did you get into horror literature and Blackwood in particular?

AM: Like most folks, my entry to horror literature was a rather cliché one. Some time in my teens I ill-advisedly became convinced Stephen King was the greatest thing in the universe. From him I worked back through all the other canonical and non-canonical writers. Around the same time, I developed a massive interest in folklore and the esoteric, particularly of my own native England, and became drawn to those writers who used this as an influence. I’d found the work of Lovecraft surprisingly empty, in as much as the Elder Gods weren’t rooted in any genuine folk-reality, the remnants of which scatter England profusely. It was all too outré to scare me. But in some of the authors that inspired him, I think particularly Machen and Blackwood, there is that same sense of cosmic mystery, but handled with a more genuine sense of folk realism, and a much more subtle prose style. 

In Blackwood, we have this amazing sense of the wonder of nature and the universe, and its indifference to humanity, which is neither good nor evil. This much he has in common with the Lovecraftian school, except with the difference I think that there is far less misanthropy in Blackwood. He cares about his characters, indeed he always maintained they were based very much on people he knew. And so, whilst there is definitely a philosophical depth to his work, his characters aren’t just ‘labels for ideas,’ which you get a lot in horror, especially horror attempting to be socially relevant. I’ve always seen social relevance as a ‘nice-to-have,’ but we don’t still read Beowulf for that reason. We re-read it because it delivers the goods on an emotional level first and foremost.

Blackwood’s latter work in particular is very interesting because it’s almost as if he’s not directly trying to frighten you, but evoke this mysterious sense of awe. The consequence of this is to be frightened. He was, thus, a master of the indirect, arguably more so than M.R. James, and in doing so was the obvious precursor to the likes of Walter De La Mare and Robert Aickman. Blackwood really has it all – at his best he’s really scary, but his sense of love for nature and people never fades. He was, I think, the master of creating a natural interest and a supernatural interest in his stories, to equal degrees.

SP: What are some of your favourite Blackwood collections and resources?

AM: Literary Gothic is one of the best, if not THE best, websites for horror of the pre-war period. However it is quite academic, and one might argue inaccessible to the casual fan. There are a number of Blackwood collections still in print. E.F. Bleier’s Best Ghost Stories is somewhat ill-titled as ‘ghost stories’ doesn’t really sum up Blackwood with remote effectiveness. This contains fan favourites like ‘The Willows’ and ‘The Wendigo,’ both of which are supremely scary woodland horrors (copied by just about every ‘lost in the forest’ horror movie). Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi’s Ancient Sorceries is also very well edited. Peter Penzoldt’s Supernatural in Fiction is another good starting point for the curious.

The most erudite man in the field of Blackwood is Mike Ashley, who published Blackwood’s biography Starlight Man as well as Algernon Blackwood: A Bio-Bibliography, which contains details on everything Blackwood wrote and where to find it. He also collected a hit and miss collection of unpublished Blackwood in the late eighties for the Equation Chillers range. Jack Sullivan’s Elegant Nightmares is one of the best studies of English supernatural horror, including extensive focus on Blackwood. Of course H.P. Lovecraft sang Blackwood’s praises in his excellent essay Supernatural Horror in Literature and S.T. Joshi has also written on him. 

The problem with much of this material is that its emphasis is purely on the intellectual and thematic, not on technique or the emotionality of the writing. When I’m reading horror my curiosity is always on ‘how was this effect achieved’? That’s the most burning question in my mind, which scholarly works always ignore since, sadly, scholars seem to be intellectually very gifted but emotionally illiterate for the most part.

SP: Amen. I would agree enthusiastically with all of these. Literary Gothic got me into a lot of writers I otherwise would have never known about and that Best Ghost Stories collection introduced me to Blackwood. Can you talk about why Blackwood is so neglected and why all of his works aren't printed in different fancy editions like the works of other horror writers such as Poe, Stoker and Lovecraft?

AM: Copyright. In the U.K., an author’s work goes out of copyright 70 years after their death. Most publishers, rather than pay the author’s family’s estate money, would rather just wait. I’ve heard tell from a number of sources that certain representatives of certain estates of certain authors have placed extraordinarily greedy demands on any works reissued. You can read into that what you will, but ultimately we’re the ones who lose out. 

The main problem with all facets of horror, however, is that it’s dictated purely by commercial factors. There is very minimal state support for horror in the way that there is for certain other genres or causes. Recently, some of the made-for-TV horror from the BBC in the ‘70s has been reissued by the British Film Institute, but it’s very much a genre held to ransom by commercial whim. All the power in horror is held by an extremely conservative horror establishment, especially so in film, which means it’s very hard to actually get scared nowadays. Finding good material, in literature or film, takes a hell of a lot of searching. More searching than most of us, with day jobs and other commitments, have time for.

SP: This is a good explanation for why Hollywood would rather do lousy remakes of ‘80s horror classics and churn out 16 Saw sequels than risk investing in anything new. 

You’ve done a lot of work recently on completing the short fiction section in Blackwood’s Wikipedia page. Why did you decide to research his so far uncollected and poorly researched short fiction?

AM: A lot has been done on Blackwood. Mike Ashley has done some wonderful things over the years and I cannot sing his praises enough. However, his research remains pretty much only within the reach of the die-hards. I’ve added bits and pieces to Wikipedia because I think everyone should be able to enjoy this work, not just collectors with bucket loads of cash to spare. That’s a kind of cultural elitism I object to. What’s needed is an institution of some sort to promote horror without the trappings of commercial necessity. Such institutes exist, for example, for gay and lesbian fiction/film, yet there’s nothing for horror. There are those who will say that horror is unimportant in the grand scheme, but it’s important in the small scheme, and it’s important to me. And I hate the way all that is great in horror is constantly brushed aside for the mediocrity enforced by the horror-establishment.

Blackwood wrote well over 200 short stories, in fact, closer to 250. The bulk of this was collected in his lifetime, though some of these are easier to get hold of than others. I had to go to a few different libraries to find Shocks, his final collection, and The Doll and One Other was only released in the U.S. (although both tales from that collection have been issued in the U.K. in other collections). Several tales appeared in periodicals like Pall Mall Magazine, which are kept by the British Library, who keeps a copy of every book published in the U.K. and has a vast collection of Victorian and Edwardian periodicals. The harder ones to get hold of are published in newspapers, for which I’ve had to visit specialist libraries like The British Newspaper Library in Colindale. Beyond Ashley’s book, I’ve gone through periodical indexes to see if I could find outstanding stories. What little I have found has been non-horror - Blackwood also wrote sentimentalism and, at the height of the war, propaganda pieces. In total, there are about 30 or so uncollected works. There are at least five pieces of worthy consideration that weren’t collected by Ashley in the late eighties though and I hope there are still more. It’s a wonderful feeling when you come across something that nobody has probably read in decades.

What I hope to do with Blackwood’s collected fiction, when the time is right, is put it out into the public domain, along with various other writers whose works I’ve collected. Their materials will all be annotated, arranged into order of publication, and accompanied with critical commentaries. I’d also like to include some illustrations to give them a visual appeal that will attract a larger audience. This is really how the horror establishment has kept the likes of Poe and Lovecraft alive in the public consciousness for so long and so well. I need to get more people on board to help me with this, then we can distribute this stuff on the net. The challenge is finding people who also want to keep this project free from commercialism, which has basically killed horror. 

SP: Has Blackwood left any sort of legacy other than his collected and uncollected writing?

AM: It would appear that Blackwood was quite the radio celebrity in his latter years and wrote additional tales for radio that were never put in print! Mike Ashley collected one, “Lock Your Door,” which is quite good. You can only get the scripts/production notes at the BBC, but it’s still an exciting development. He also wrote a number of novels, including children’s, mostly of a supernatural character. As for his essays, letters, book reviews, and other published materials, you could spend a lifetime going into this. He really was incredibly prolific. 

SP: So what’s next?

AM: I can't magic Blackwood back into publication, but I can at least show people where this stuff is. Until I posted on Wikipedia, you had to read his bio-bibliography to find this information, which is like £50 a pop and puts it out of reach of most people. And I think that's unfair. Blackwood shouldn't just be the property of the elite. He wrote for everyone and everyone should still be able to enjoy him. 

I've exhausted all the literary sources, and now have all of his printed weird tales (bar one, which the British Library is currently photocopying for me). The next stage will be to go through his auto-biography, and various other secondary reading, and prepare annotations. A good day for weird fiction!

SP: Thanks so much! Please keep us posted about your efforts. And thanks for sharing this final link, Ghost Stories for Christmas: The Definitive Collection. This BFI collection contains adaptations from a variety of classic horror writers and is the perfect holiday gift for every horror fan!

House of Psychotic Women: Interview with Kier-La Janisse

 

This Wednesday, November 28th, Kier-La Janisse is coming to Philadelphia to introduce her new book, House of Psychotic Women, and to screen the Spanish horror film Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll. Presented by Joseph Gervasi (of Exhumed Films and Diabolik DVD), the event will be held at the Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Art, a great new space that has had a lot of exciting film, art and music events in the last year. Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (Carlos Aured, 1974) stars Paul Naschy and concerns a serial killer and three very odd sisters. Its alternative title, House of Psychotic Women, inspired the title for Janisse’s book. Doors are at 7:30 pm and the event is $8.

Janisse is extensively involved in the North American horror community. She’s been a contributing writer for Rue Morgue, Fangoria, Filmmaker and others, and has already published one book with horror/cult publishers FAB Press, A Violent Professional: The Films of Luciano Rossi. She’s co-produced the documentary EUROCRIME! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the ‘70s and been the subject of the documentary Celluloid Horror. Janisse has programmed films at Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse and Fantastic Fest, at Canada’s CineMuerte horror film festival, etc. She edited Fantasia International Film Festival’s former online magazine Spectacular Optical and founded The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. She also founded and curated the now-defunct Montreal film center, Blue Sunshine. Learn more about her at her personal site, Big Smash! Productions. 

House of Psychotic Women is an autobiographical study of female neurosis in horror and exploitation cinema. Probably the first book of its kind, House has been getting rave reviews and I’m very excited to read and review it myself. On Wednesday, Janisse will bring copies of her book to sell and will answer questions about it and Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll. 

Janisse was kind enough to answer some questions about her book, recent film screenings and future projects. 

Satanic Pandemonium: How are you choosing films for your recent book tour/appearances? I believe all the screenings so far are covered in your book, but do you follow any other criteria?

Kier-La Janisse: So far all the films are things that are covered in the book, but there is some talk about doing it at some festivals tied in to new films that fit the theme, which I've discovered people are a lot more interested in than I had anticipated. A lot of times when I select the films, or give programmers a selection to choose from (it mostly tends to be a collaboration with the programmers for those venues, more so than me just being an outside curator), I'm looking for films that I feel don't get enough play on the big screen or that are representative of some of the major themes in the book: destructive familial/pseudo-familial relationships, overcoming childhood trauma, and the externalization of that trauma as a physical being or force. Or else, as in the case of The Entity, which I've selected for a few events, it relates directly to my retelling of a personal story in the book. Of course you also have to think about the draw of the film, so sometimes I don't pick certain films that are major entries in the book (Antichrist, Possession, The Piano Teacher) because they get frequent bookings for the big screen already, or have had their theatrical release too recently, which isn't as interesting for programmers as playing something rare.

SP: What are a few of your favorite films that you wrote about in House of Psychotic Women?

KJ: Well, The Piano Teacher for sure. Frighteningly, the character of Erica Kohut is one I can relate to a lot, and thinking about her keeps me in check. Obviously if I was just like her I wouldn't have written this book, but I do sometimes relate to the characters that are the most exaggerated reflections of my own issues. The Brood, Antichrist and Possession I think of as a triptych: they're really all the same film, and I love them all. I love The Haunting of Julia and Marnie. Marnie is totally fucked up, but very fun to write about. And Rebecca - actually one of my big regrets about the book is that I didn't cover more of the paranoid woman films from the ‘40s, but I just hadn't seen enough of them at the time. Films that have less to do with psychotic women but were in the book because of how they were important to me at a key age, like Born Innocent, Streetwise, Christiane F. and Out of the Blue, are also some of my favourites. And Toys Are Not For Children is completely disturbing and not very well known, so I'm programming that for an upcoming event at SF Indie. 

SP: As a fellow horror fan with a traumatic childhood, there were a few films that I saw at a relatively early age and really related to on that level. Many of them certainly fall within territory covered in your book, like The Stendhal Syndrome. Are there are films like this that affected you at an early age

KJ: Stendhal Syndrome came out when you were at an early age? Ha ha. I feel so old now. Well, Carrie was a big one. It's funny because although I talk in the book about relating to Carrie White, her mother is really the psychotic woman of the film. So the film's inclusion in the book is kid of two-fold. I read Carrie over and over again as a kid, I remember doing my book report on it multiple times throughout my schooling, all the way up to my graduating year! The Watcher in the Woods I found very scary, especially since it dealt with a missing girl named Karen, and that was the name of my sister who had run away from home. 

SP: You’ve become a pretty recognizable/well-known figure as a horror fan, writer and festival programmer. Can you talk a little about your overall experience being a woman within the mostly male-dominated horror genre?

KJ: I have?? Tell that to the distributors who don't call me back when I try to book films! Ha ha. Actually as far as my experience as a woman in the genre, the only time it ever even came up was one year at Fantastic Fest I had to be on the international team for their annual Fantastic Feud, and Paul McEvoy from Frightfest announced into the microphone in front of 300 people that our team had lost "because we have a girl on our team." I know now that he's not as bad as all that, but at the time I was furious. But other than that, I've never felt that anyone treated me differently. If anything, most of the male genre fans seem stoked when women accomplish things in the genre world.

SP: I’ve heard nothing but good things about your book so far. What kind of feedback have you been getting from horror fans?

KJ: I've only read a handful of reviews, which luckily have been good, but other than that, I sometimes see people recommending it on Facebook. Very few people have talked to me directly about it though - maybe it makes them uncomfortable. Some of my friends have told me they liked it, but I haven't heard much at all from people I don't know other than this handful of reviews I mentioned. BUT - Tim Lucas, who I don't really know personally but who's a genre legend from Video Watchdog and of course his mammoth Mario Bava book, raved about it on Facebook the day he got it in the mail, and that was stunning to me. That was a huge compliment to have Tim Lucas plug my book. Of course I'm still waiting for all the bad reviews from people who will think it's a self-indulgent pity-party, but I tried really hard to have some levity in the book so that it wouldn't come off that way. I definitely don't think my life has been as tough as some reviewers have made it out to be, but people adapt to different things I guess, it all depends on what you're used to. So it's been weird reading some reviews where people characterize my stepfather as a monster, but perhaps that's a failing in my writing that I don't convey enough how important he was to me. I would not be working in the genre now if it wasn't for him; despite our turbulent relationship he was the one who really made genre films a staple of my childhood. 

SP: What are your plans for the future, especially in terms of writing projects?

KJ: I have a few things I'm working on for other people's books - an essay on kids' horror films and children's spectatorship in the 1940s for a book called Fragments of the Monster: Recovering Forties Horror (being edited by Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare, Kristopher Woofter and Charlie Ellbe); working on some reviews and an essay for a book about Made-for-Television films that is being put out by Headpress, and I wrote an essay on Nelvana's The Devil and Daniel Mouse and Rock and Rule for a prospective Carlton University textbook which should come out next year. Aside from that, my own next book project will be called A Song From the Heart Beats the Devil Every Time (a line from The Devil and Daniel Mouse) about the effects of the counterculture era on children's programming, with a focus on the immediate post-counterculture years of the ‘70s, and going up through the ‘80s a bit. Basically just an excuse to spend the next few years watching fucked-up kids shows like Chocky. 

SP: I understand your small film venue, Blue Sunshine, was closed semi-recently. Do you miss it? And do you have any plans to do something similar in the future?

KJ: Well I loved Blue Sunshine, it was probably my best exercise in independent exhibition in terms of both personal fulfillment and community impact. Ultimately our overhead - rent and electricity - was too stifling; even when we went through months where almost every show was sold out we still somehow ended up in debt. But we were locked into a two-year lease, and so the cash flow just became more and more dire, and my partner and I were literally starving and selling our personal belongings just to make it through to the end of the lease. Once the lease was up, we were out of there - I think we could have made it work in a less expensive venue - we took on an expensive place for the central location and the fact that it was really well-maintained - but after the two years we were so burnt out form being broke that we needed time to recover. I don't know if I'll do it again - I do think it can work, but I've been doing it too long and put too much of my money into exhibition, now I want to just be one of the people that pays $5 to get in. Other people who aren't as jaded can take over where I left off, and in fact one of our former programmers and volunteers has started up something of his own called The Noah, so now I get to just go watch movies and not have to be the one putting it on.

Thanks so much, Kier-La! See you Wednesday.