The Blood on Satan's Claw review
Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. For those who know me you know about my love for horror films so once a month I’m going to review and discuss a scary flick. We’ll look at the classics, some new films, and I want your suggestions on what I should review. I’ll do my best to cover all the different genres within the genre – slashers, ghosts, monsters, etc.
SPOILER ALERT! – These will be reviews so if you haven’t seen the movie you’ll want to watch it first before you read this. Let’s do this.
the blood on satan’s claw review
I think you have to watch it just based on the title, right?! The Blood on Satan’s Claw is a 1971 folk horror film which is a genre I don’t touch on much but certainly should. Mixed reviews by many but has garnered the fans as time goes on.
In a quaint, English village a farmer unearths something while tilling his land. Not human but not sure what. The prominent judge in the village thinks nothing of it but things begin to happen. As a woman is taken away after having an experience in a house overnight, she appears with what looks like a claw instead of a hand. A man tries to cut off the hand of an attacker, but it ends up being his own. Things are happening here – an ancient evil is being awoken. Children begin killing each other and sprouting fur – the skin of the devil to reconstruct the beast – as the evil takes over. Black masses begin taking place, there is a great scene where we see the demon in what appears to be human form speaking in incoherent tongues. After the judge returns from London, he is ready to end the chaos. They find the children and townsfolk at an old church getting ready to perform a ritual when the demon and the succubus Angel are killed, freeing the village from the madness.
This film oozes folk horror. I LOVE The Wicker Man (original, of course) but this movie was really enjoyable. Folk horror is a genre that deals with dark subject matter but is beautiful to watch when done right. These films usually seem to take place in a quiet, off the beaten path location – usually somewhere in England. Beautiful rolling hills, meadows, babbling rivers – tranquility. A place you would want to live out your retirement. Storybook settings that hide evil. It’s usually a community that is old fashioned or set in their ways and does not accept outsiders. Oh, and it’s all about paganism, wicca, or some other ancient religion. While those are broad strokes on the genre, this film does have most of that. I was in love with the locations and the simple (yet very similar in some ways to The Shining) score. Good British acting of course and couldn’t get enough of Linda Hayden as Angel Blake. She has such an interesting and mesmerizing look that just works so perfectly as this evil, young temptress. Pacing was a slow burn as they call it, and it worked well. Not overly violent either so sorry gore hounds.
This film does have a scene which is a bit tough to watch though. Cathy, the sister of the boy Mark who was killed is picking flowers (for his grave of course) and is surprised upon by two other boys from the village. They coerce her into coming with them to a church with the rest of the children in town and Angel who then conducts a black mass as I mentioned earlier. While I love the conceptualization of the demon, the Cathy character is stripped naked, stabbed, raped and murdered in this scene. The biggest challenge with this being the fact this is a young girl – not even 18 – that this is happening to. It’s a ritualistic, cult thing which is of course taboo, and I understand the context but can’t imagine this was pleasant to shoot. As Rob Zombie once said, art is not safe.
Coming in at 90 minutes, it’s just the right time. I’ve enjoyed a beautiful English setting and seen some demonic forces. A full day I’d say. Please watch The Wicker Man as well as The Witchfinder General if you dig folk horror and if you REALLY like it, then I suggest you watch the documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror. The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic is in Cornwall and is near the top of my list of places to visit in England. In addition to that, a great trip would include visiting all the beautiful sites from these spooky films. Soon enough!
Enjoy the trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RMySPyhMUY