The most comprehensive collection of its kind begins with the definitive genre documentary of our time, Kier-La Janisse’s award-winning WOODLANDS DARK & DAYS BEWITCHED. From there, experience 19 of the best-known, least-known, rarely-seen and thought-lost classics of folk horror from around the world, all restored from the best available vault elements with Special Features that include short films, audio commentaries and exclusive featurettes. The ultimate genre exploration continues with the original WOODLANDS soundtrack by Jim Williams and a reading of the classic short story ‘The White People’ by actress Linda Hayden, as well as a 126-page illustrated book curated by Janisse and designed by Luke Insect featuring all-new writings by renowned film scholars, authors and historians.
DISC 1:
WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED
Kier-La Janisse, USA, 2021
192 mins | 1.85 | Color | Region Free
English and Portuguese with English subtitles
Stereo
HD Digital Master
WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED explores the folk horror phenomenon and its culturally specific manifestations in international horror, from its first wave in the 1970s to today.
Special Features:
Video Introduction By Writer/Director/Producer Kier-La Janisse (9 mins)
Animating Folk Horror — A Conversation with Ashley Thorpe (12 mins)
Animator Ashley Thorpe discusses his processes and inspirations for the animated sequences he created for the film.
Outtake: What is Folk Horror? (2 mins)
Expanded definitions of folk horror cut from the film’s introductory sequence.
Outtake: Harvest Hymns — The Sounds and Signals of Folk Horror (22 mins)
Historians and Composers—including Marc Wilkinson, John Cameron, Jim Williams, Pentagram Home Video and more—weigh in on the sounds of folk horror from trad to electronica.
Outtake: Terra Assombrada — Expressions of Folk Horror in Brazil (7 mins)
Filmmaker Dennison Ramalho and Scholars Carlos Primati and Laura Loguercio Cánepa discuss the impact of Brazilian folk literature and songs on folk horror.
Folk Poetry (5 mins)
WITCHFINDER GENERAL star Ian Ogilvy and BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW’s Linda Hayden recite classic folk poems set to Super 8 footage.
86 mins | 1.85:1 | Color | Region Free
English Stereo | Closed Captions
4K restoration from the original negative
The seminal American folk horror film, unavailable on home video for decades, now debuts in a new 4K restoration. A rogue 18th century preacher and his followers make their way downriver to establish a new settlement beyond the western frontier and encounter a forest enchanted by strange spirits that will bring an apocalyptic madness upon them.
Special Features:
Audio Commentary With Colin Dickey, Author of “Ghostland: An American History In Haunted Places”
The Secret Is In The Trees — “Nightmare USA” Author Stephen Thrower Interviews Avery Crounse (29 mins)
Crying Blue Sky
Alternate Longer Cut restored in 2K from Director’s personal 35mm answer print
Plus Bonus Short Films:
The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow (Sam Weiss, USA 1972) (13 mins)
Genre icon John Carradine narrates this atmospheric animated adaptation of Washington Irving’s classic story, newly scanned from 16mm for this release by educational film archive AV Geeks. Courtesy of Pyramid Films.
Transformations (Barbara Hirschfeld, USA 1972) (8.5 mins)
A fascinating feminist experimental film shot on location in Vermont about a group of witches performing white magic. Courtesy of the Vermont Archive Movie Project (VAMP). vamp.vtiff.org
Backwoods (Ryan Mackfall, UK 2018) (15 mins)
A scholar drifts from his path and finds himself in a house he takes for deserted. Based on H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Picture In The House.” Courtesy of Myskatonic Films.
65 mins | 1.33:1 | Color | Region Free
Serbian mono with optional English subtitles
HD master from Public Service Media Radio Television of Serbia
Based loosely on by Milovan Glišić’s classic 1880 Serbian vampire story After Ninety Years – which preceded Bram Stoker’s Dracula by nearly two decades – Djordje Kadijevic’s adaptation is a subversive, darkly erotic take on Glišić’s pastoral tale of a group of rural villagers beset upon by the infamous vampire Sava Savanovic, who has taken up residence in their local flour mill.
Special Features:
Radical Fairy Tales — Interview With Director Djordje Kadijevic
Plus bonus short films newly remastered in HD from archival film elements at Public Service Media Radio Television of Serbia:
Štićenik (Djordje Kadijevic,1973) (45 mins)
A terrified young man is being pursued by a mysterious man in black. He hides out in nearby mental hospital, but can he escape his fate?
Diary Of An Inmate (10 mins)
An interview with Štićenik actor Milan Mihailovic
Devičanska Svirka (Djordje Kadijevic,1973) (60 mins)
A man travelling through the countryside is drawn to a strange castle, which is reputed by the locals to be haunted. There he meets a beguiling young woman who ensnares him in her world of secrets.
Prisoner Of Song
An interview with Devičanska Svirka actor Goran Sultanovic
107 mins | 2:35:1 | Color | Region Free
Czech mono with optional English subtitles
HD restored master supplied by the Czech Film Center
Otakar Vávra’s film about 17th century witch hunter Jindřich František Boblig and the horrors he visited on the small village of Velké Losiny has been called an Eastern European counterpart to Michael Reeves’ WITCHFINDER GENERAL and Michael Armstrong’s MARK OF THE DEVIL.
Special Features:
Audio Commentary With Czech Film Historian And Curator Irena Kovarova
The Womb Of Woman Is The Gateway To Hell (22.5 mins)
A filmed appreciation by essayist and critic Kat Ellinger and film historian Michael Brooke. Courtesy of Second Run Films.
The Projection Booth Podcast (62 mins)
The renowned film podcast’s episode on WITCHHAMMER, with host Mike White and guest critics Samm Deighan and Rahne Alexander.
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VIY
Konstantin Ershov, Georgiy Kropachyov, Soviet Union, 1967
76 mins | 1.33:1 | Color | Region Free
Russian mono with optional English subtitles / English mono
HD restored master supplied by Mosfilm
Based on the classic novella by Nikolai Gogol, VIY remains the height of Soviet fantasy cinema. In 19th century Russia, a seminary student is forced to spend three nights with the corpse of a beautiful young witch. But when she rises from the dead to test his faith, it will summon a nightmare of fear, desire and the ultimate demonic mayhem.
Special Features:
From The Woods To The Cosmos — John Leman Riley On The History Of Soviet Fantasy And Sci-Fi Film (34 mins)
Trailer
Plus Bonus Silent Short Films: Satan Exultant (1917, 20 mins), The Queen of Spades (1916, 16 mins) and The Portrait (1915, 8 mins)
77 mins | 2.40:1 | B/W | Region Free
Norwegian mono with optional English subtitles
Restored in 2K from the original negative
Considered a classic of Norwegian cinema, a group of colleagues venture to a remote cabin to look for a missing friend and are spooked by an old legend: that the cabin had belonged to a man who killed his sister and her lover and then drowned himself in the lake. Since then, it is said that anyone who stays in the cabin will be driven to the same fate.
Special Features:
Audio Commentary With Film Historians Jonathan Rigby And Kevin Lyons
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TILBURY
Viðar Víkingsson, Iceland, 1987
57 mins | 1.33:1 | Color | Region Free
Icelandic mono with optional English subtitles
Restored in 2K from the original negative at the Film Museum of Iceland
This made-for-TV film shares the Icelandic lore of the Tilbury, a creature who could be summoned by women in times of financial hardship and starvation. But the gifts of the Tilbury come with their own brand of destruction. Set in 1940, during the British occupation, a country boy discovers his childhood sweetheart is having an affair with a British soldier, but suspects it could be one of the evil creatures.
Special Features:
Audio Commentary With Director Viðar Víkingsson And Screenwriter Þórarinn Eldjárn, Moderated By Film Scholar Gudrun D. Whitehead
With Enough Tilbury Butter, Anything Is Good — Interview With Karl Ágúst Úlfsson
A Boy From The Country — Interview With Kristján Franklin Magnúss
White Spot In The Back Of The Head (Viðar Víkingsson, 1979) (33 mins)
This early student film from the director of TILBURY transposes the ghostly Icelandic legend of The Deacon of Dark River to 1970s France.
“The Moon Fades, Death Rides”
Viðar Víkingsson discusses the folkloric origins of White Spot In The Back Of The Head
90 mins | 1.85:1 | Color | Region Free
English mono | Closed Captions
Restored in 2K from best surviving 35mm positive print
When a group of Indigenous activists attempt to repatriate ancestral artifacts found in a cave on Australia’s Kangaroo Island, one of them is shot evading police and taken to a local hospital. When the patient dies in her care, the doctor attending to her experiences strange visions relating to violent events from the past.
Special Features:
Audio Commentary With Director Mario Andreacchio, Moderated By Film Historian Jarret Gahan
Trailer
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KADAICHA
James Bogle, Australia 1988
88 mins | 1.85:1 | Color | Region Free
English mono | Closed Captions
Mastered from only surviving broadcast quality video master
Though conceived as a commercial horror film, this tale of teens being condemned to death in their dreams by an Aboriginal magician as recompense for a housing development having been built on a sacred burial ground also serves as an admission of national guilt.
Special Features:
Audio Commentary With Director James Bogle, Moderated By Veteran Film Journalist Michael Helms (Fatal Visions)
The Final Girl Of KADAICHA (13 mins)
An audio interview with actress Zoe Carides, conducted by film historian Jarret Gahan.
Composing KADAICHA (17.5 mins)
An audio interview with composer Peter Westheimer, conducted by film historian Jarret Gahan.
Behind The Scenes Of KADAICHA (7 mins)
Recently-unearthed footage of director James Bogle and the cast and crew in a typical day on set.
103 mins | 1.85:1 | Color | Region Free
English mono | Closed Captions
Restored in 2K from 35mm original negative
In 1950s Australia, after 9-year-old Celia hears the disturbing fairy tale of “The Hobyahs” in school, it colors her interpretation of real life conflicts such as her parents’ struggling relationship, the threat of communism and the country’s plague of rabbits. Ann Turner’s award-winning film paints a disquieting picture of innocence trying to make sense of the harsh and complex world around her through escape into dark fantasy.
Special Features:
CELIA And Me (40 mins)
A new interview with director Ann Turner
From Crawfords To CELIA (17 mins)
An interview with veteran editor Ken Sallows
The Rabbit In Australia (24 mins)
This short documentary produced by Australia’s national science agency CSIRO in 1979 traces the introduction of the European rabbit to Australia and subsequent attempts to control its population, which includes the rabbit cull of the 1950s that serves as the backdrop for Ann Turner’s CELIA.
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ALISON’S BIRTHDAY
Ian Coughlan, Australia, 1981
97 mins | 1.85:1 | Color | Region Free
English mono | Closed Captions
Restored in 2K from 16mm CRI
Getting its first official release since the VHS era, this Australian paranormal cult is unearthed! During a Ouija board session with her teenaged friends, 16-year-old Alison gets a message from beyond the grave not to go home for her 19th birthday. Fast forward three years later to the week of her 19th: she gets a call from her mother that they’re having a party to celebrate and they want her there… alone.
Special Features:
Extended Interviews From NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD With Producer David Hannay And Cast Members Joanne Samuel And Belinda Giblin
The Devil Down Under — Satanic Panic In Australia From Rosaleen Norton To ALISON’S BIRTHDAY
A new video essay narrated by film scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, based on her chapter of the same name from the book “Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s.”
103 mins | 1.33:1 | Color | Region Free
Polish mono with optional English subtitles
Restored in HD from original negative by WFDIF in Warsaw
A domestic hit in Poland on first release, Marek Piestrak’s stunning wintry werewolf film is a sexually-charged folktale that pits a 19th century Polish patriot against the ghost of his unfaithful wife, who haunts him from beyond the grave as a she-wolf.
Special Features:
Unleashing The She-Wolf — An Interview With Director Marek Piestrak
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LOKIS: A MANUSCRIPT OF PROFESSOR WITTEMBACH
Janusz Majewski, Poland, 1970
100 mins | 1:66:1 | Color | Region Free
Polish mono with optional English subtitles
Restored in HD from original negative by WFDIF in Warsaw
A pastor and ethnographer visits a remote corner of 19th century Lithuania where folk customs associated with the area’s pagan past still have a hold on the population. There he finds himself the guest of a strange old family consisting of a sadistic Count and his mad mother, who—legend has it—was raped by a bear on her wedding night; the Count himself reputed to be the product of this bestial assault.
Special Features:
Wild Country Of The Were-Bear — An Interview With Director Janusz Majewski
98 mins | 2.35:1 | Color | Region Free
English 5.1 / English 2.0 | Closed Captions
Restored in 4K from 35mm answer print
A white lawyer arrives to a remote area in Northern Ontario to defend Indigenous activists who are blocking a logging company’s clearcut of old growth on their land. A pacifist by nature, and perceiving himself as sympathetic to Indigenous concerns, he finds his values shaken when he is paired with an angry, rogue Indigenous activist named Arthur (Graham Greene) who insists on kidnapping the head of the logging company to take him deep into the forest—where he hopes to teach him the price of his destruction.
Special Features:
Archival Video Introduction By Director Ryszard Bugajski
Courtesy of Maria Mamona
Audio Commentary With Scholar And Anthropologist Shaawano Chad Uran (White Earth Anishinaabe)
Plus Bonus Short films:
The Ballad Of Crowfoot (Willie Dunn, 1968) (10 mins)
Often referred to as Canada’s first music video, Mi’kmaq/Scottish folk singer and activist Willie Dunn’s The Ballad Of Crowfoot is a powerful look at colonial betrayals, told through a striking montage of archival images and a ballad composed by Dunn himself about the legendary 19th-century Siksika (Blackfoot) chief who negotiated Treaty 7 on behalf of the Blackfoot Confederacy.
Audio Commentary For The Ballad of Crowfoot With Kevin Howes And Lawrence Dunn, Co-Producers Of Creation Never Sleeps, Creation Never Dies: The Willie Dunn Anthology
You Are On Indian Land (Michael Kanentakeron Mitchell, 1969) (32 mins)
A landmark film that documents a 1969 protest by the Kanien’kéhaka (Mohawk) of Akwesasne, a territory that straddles the Canada–U.S. border. You Are On Indian Land screened extensively across the continent, helping to mobilize a new wave of Indigenous activism. It notably was shown at the 1970 occupation of Alcatraz.
Consume (Mike Peterson, 2017) (20 mins)
Inspired by true events, residential school survivor Jacob Wematim (Julian Black Antelope) struggles to hang onto his land and Indigenous identity as his personal demons resurface and manifest in the form of the Wendigo spirit.
98 mins | 1.85:1 | B/W | Region Free
Italian mono with optional English subtitles
Restored from the original negative at RAI TV in Rome
A stunning story of obsessive love, set in a rural Southern Italian village where Christianity has integrated many of the old superstitious beliefs. Daliah Lavi (THE WHIP AND THE BODY) plays Purif, who is distraught when her lover is betrothed to another. Her erratic behavior is interpreted as demonic possession—leading the villagers to turn against her with physical and sexual violence.
Special Features:
Audio Commentary By Film Historian Kat Ellinger
“The Kid From A Kibbutz” — Daliah Lavi And The Road To IL DEMONIO (27.5 mins)
A newly-commissioned video essay written and narrated by film historian Tim Lucas and edited by filmmaker and programmer Chris O’Neill
Once Upon A Time In Basilicata
Brunello Rondi biographer Alberto Pezzotta looks at IL DEMONIO and the themes that dominated the director’s eclectic career
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DARK WATERS
Mariano Baino, Russia/UK/Ukraine/Italy, 1993
89 minutes | 1.85:1 | Color | Region Free
Italian stereo with optional English subtitles
Mastered in HD from the original negative
In Mariano Baino’s groundbreaking debut, a young Englishwoman drawn to an island in the Black Sea in an attempt to discover her mysterious connection to a remote convent—a crumbling edifice that has been constructed over a labyrinth of Lovecraftian horrors.
Special Features:
Audio Commentary With Writer/Director Mariano Baino
Deep Into The DARK WATERS (50 mins)
The cast and crew recall the making of DARK WATERS in this archival documentary featurette.
90 mins | 2.35:1 | B/W | Region A
English 5.1 / English 2.0 | Closed Captions
HD Digital Master
During the Civil War in 17th-Century England, a small group of deserters flee from a raging battle and are captured by an alchemist who forces them to help him find a hidden treasure. Crossing a vast mushroom circle, which provides their first meal, the group succumbs to the terrifying energies trapped inside the field.
Special Features:
Audio Commentary With Director Ben Wheatley, Producer Andy Starke And Sound Editor Martin Pavey
Letterboxd Magic Hour Episode One: Kier-La Janisse X Ben Wheatley (45 mins)
Ben Wheatley talks folk horror with WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED director Kier-La Janisse in this special online interview conducted for the release of Wheatley’s IN THE EARTH.
Please Hear Me — The Music of A FIELD IN ENGLAND (6 mins)
Composer Jim Williams and Ben Wheatley discuss the sounds and musical influences of A FIELD IN ENGLAND.
Ben Wheatley In Conversation With Pete Tombs (23 mins)
A fascinating discussion between Wheatley and film historian/author (“Immoral Tales,” “Mondo Macabro”) Pete Tombs that gets deep into the DNA of A FIELD IN ENGLAND.
Camera Tests (10.5 mins)
Trailer
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ANCHORESS
Chris Newby, UK, 1993
108 mins | 1.66:1 | B/W | Region A
Closed Captions
Mastered in HD by the British Film Institute
Based on the true story of Christine Carpenter, a 14th-century peasant who becomes transfixed by a statue of the Virgin Mary, and petitions to be walled into a cell attached to the church as a religious hermit. Alone in her cell she receives dark and sensual visions, while in the outside world, her defiant mother (played by musician Toyah Wilcox) is accused of witchcraft.
Special Features:
Lockdown 1329 (13.5 mins)
A new video essay by ANCHORESS director Chris Newby that explores parallels between COVID lockdown in the UK and Christine Carpenter’s experience as an anchoress, featuring outtakes from the film.
A Short Trip To Shere (2.5 mins)
ANCHORESS director Chris Newby documents the location of the real Christine Carpenter’s anchoress cell at St. James’ Church in Shere, England.
90 mins | 1:33:1 | Color | Region A
English mono | Closed Captions
Mastered in HD by the British Film Institute
Alan Clark (Scum) directs David Rudkin’s epic tale of myth and identity whereby a sanctimonious Vicar’s son has a spiritual and sexual awakening after being visited by a series of angels, gargoyles, and the ghosts of Edward Elgar and a long-dead Pagan King. Penda’s Fen is the most magical of ALL British Folk Horror films, what Scholar Sukhdev Sandhu called “A lasting vision of heresy and pastoral horror.”
Special Features:
Audio Commentary by James Machin and Matthew Hale, Editors of the book “Of Mud & Flame: The Penda’s Fen Sourcebook”
The Landscape of Feelings: The Road to Penda’s Fen (16 mins) A Documentary on the making of Rudkin and Clarke’s groundbreaking Drama, featuring interviews with Writer David Rudkin and Producer David Rose as well as contributions from Clarke collaborators such as Writer David Yallop, Actor Sean Chapman and Playwright David Leland. Courtesy of The British Film Institute.
Plus Bonus Short Film:
The Pledge (Digby Rumsey, 1982) (22 mins) Based on the short story by early 20th Century Fantasy Writer Lord Dunsany, The Pledge concerns a group of Highwaymen who make a pact to save the should of their hanged partner. A dark, luscious film co-edited by an uncredited Peter Greenaway and featuring music by Michael Nyman. Courtesy of The British Film Institute.
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ROBIN REDBREAST
James MacTaggart, UK, 1970
76 mins| 1:33:1 | B/W | Region A
English mono | Closed Captions
Mastered from BBC protection tape master, the only surviving element
Veteran British chiller writer John Bowen penned this legendarily terrifying BBC teleplay, now considered a precursor to THE WICKER MAN. Nora Palmer moves to a quiet village in England after a break-up. The locals are warm enough at first, but their sinister intentions are gradually revealed. Is Nora paranoid or is she the center of a wicked pagan plot of indescribable horror?
Special Features:
Audio Commentary With William Fowler And Vic Pratt, Curators And Authors Of “The Bodies Beneath: The Flipside of British Film & Television”
Interview With John Bowen (12 mins)
The celebrated writer discusses his career and the origins of ROBIN REDBREAST. Courtesy of the British Film Institute.
Plus bonus short film:
The Sermon (Dean Puckett, 2018) (12 mins) In an isolated church community in the English countryside, a powerful hate preacher prepares to deliver a sermon to his flock, but his daughter has a secret that could destroy them all.
BONUS CDs:
WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED
ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK
Composed by Jim Williams
THE WHITE PEOPLE
By Arthur Machen
Read by Linda Hayden
Music by Timothy Fife and Missionary Work
Arthur Machen’s hugely influential short story, first published in 1904, in which a discussion between two men on the nature of evil leads to the revelation of a mysterious Green Book—the diary of a young girl, in which she describes her initiation into a secret world of folklore and magic. Here the story is brought vividly to life with an incredible reading by Linda Hayden (BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW) and a remarkable original score.
ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS — 126+ Page Book
Curated by Kier-La Janisse, this beautifully-illustrated book designed by Luke Insect features new writing by Andy Paciorek, Stephen Volk, Mitch Horowitz, Dawn Keetley, Sarah Chavez, Stephen R. Bissette and Dejan Ognjanović alongside a selection of illuminating archival pieces and a breakdown of all the films in the set.
Usually I'm not enthusiastic about whatever merch Severin bundles with their sets, but holy moly does that look like a cool set of thing-a-ma-jigs. Looks amazing. Can't afford it or the shipping cost, and will be staying away from buying from Severin directly again, but dang, I'm jealous!
This is an incredible set. I wish it were available for Halloween this year, but it'll just have to be the first thing set aside for next season (what I don't watch beforehand, of course). Only two double-dips for me...VIY and A FIELD IN ENGLAND.
This is an incredible set. I wish it were available for Halloween this year, but it'll just have to be the first thing set aside for next season (what I don't watch beforehand, of course). Only two double-dips for me...VIY and A FIELD IN ENGLAND.
I'm actually OK with this one coming after Halloween. I like my Halloween viewing to more supernatural in flavor.
A lot of these surely do have some supernatural element, but I'm looking more for straightforward ghosts and goblins and vampires and werewolves and the like. Those are what I think of when I think of Halloween.
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