Popular reviews

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  Review by claire 👁️ diane ★★★★★ 5

  Hoop-Tober #11

  Instantly a central touchstone for my movie mythology. The ultimate in a kind of cosmic evil. Some malevolence, some malignant elemental force spread across the land, living in the land, permeating, haunting, waiting. Nothing is creepier, for me, than the sheer mundanity of Evil's unleashing in this film. Nothing as eerie as that evil eye in the soil. Just that bizarre unearthing conjures something inscrutable. But the eye is just a symbol of some nameless and horrible opening,

  I love that the film does not truly have a central protagonist. And I love that it let's its mystery remain a haunting abstraction and open question. What is happening, who is doing it, where did it come from, why?…

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 4

  CW: rape

  One worst parts is the false rape accusation. Statistically, these are rare and narratives that use them to demonize women are especially hurtful, promoting a fiction that has rooted itself so firmly police often refuse to even investigate rape claims. The actual rape scene is brutal, sickening, disturbing, and by all standards, should be the moment the devil-worshipers are irrevocably cast as the villains in this story. And yet, the way the story is built, and the figures it uses, make it hard to hate them.

  It is a common enough narrative that witches were falsely persecuted women, killed for anything from sexuality to political opposition to simple misogyny; films featuring witches, devil-worshiping or not, tap into that…

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  Review by nathaxnne <3 [hiatus] ★★★★★ 19

  The English Civil War was an era of vast tumult and upheaval. All seemingly solid and established institutions were being overthrown, warred with, corrupted, dissolved. It was a time of great renewal and creativity and freethinking. The Scientific Revolution was also taking hold, blossoming forth from/into complex alchemical systems capable of finely sensing and modulating the seen and unseen worlds. A chord was struck in spacetime, a chord which resounded in Dismay 1968 and after, a dark mirror flung up from the abyssal peaks and valleys of time, whereupon one age can gaze upon another as if through a dark glass. 'Witchfinder General', 'The Blood On Satan's Claw', 'The Wicker Man', the unholy trinity of British folk-horror of that twinned…

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  Review by Blake Bergman "Various Spaghetti" ★★★★

  "The Blood on Satan's Claw" is an early 1970's British Folk Horror effort from Piers Haggard. Dabbling with a career of television and a few film efforts, "The Bood on Satan's Claw" has become Piers most notable entry as the film has garnered a bit of a cult following. Similar to something in energy as "The Wicker Man" (1973), which was actually released two years prior, "The Blood on Satan's Claw" is a deep atmospheric build into the smaller mentalitied village life within the context of the British countryside. Subject to isolation ingrained in tandem with superstition, the people within the area hold dear the close principles of religious values and matters of devil with a very up-close within its…

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  Review by Slig001 ★★★★½ 1

  Blood on Satan's Claw is folk horror done right! Set in 17th century England, Piers Haggard's film begins with the accidental unearthing of an ancient skull. This is followed by a series of strange events affecting the villagers - madness, possession, weird skin growth and more. The film was originally conceived as three separate stories before being merged into one narrative. The fractured plot actually works to the film's credit - as we see the effects of the unleashed evil spreading across the village population. It's all set off by a brilliantly realised surreal atmosphere; braced by an inventive and off kilter score by Marc Wilkinson. This lends the film a real imposing aura of suspense - it's never clear…

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  Review by Josh Gillam ★½

  Strange things begin happening in a sleepy rural village in 18th Century England after a mysterious skeleton is unearthed, with the local judge (Patrick Wymark) going to investigate and discovering a sinister conspiracy, in Piers Haggard’s supernatural horror co-starring Linda Hayden, Barry Andrews, Michele Dotrice, Simon Williams and Anthony Ainley.

  Over the years the film has built quite a cult following, and there are definitely a lot of genuinely creepy moments throughout, building an unsettling atmosphere that’s punctuated by memorable and off-kilter imagery. Haggard really has an eye for the period, bringing it to life through little details that make the villagers’ slow descent into corruption all the more unsettling, as seemingly innocuous traditions are warped and given ominous new…

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  Review by Marna Larsen ★★★★★ 8

  Basically every witchcraft movie I've seen, I wanted it to resonate with me like this one did, but there was always something missing. And I think it might be simply a lack of pastoral surroundings. It's always in a building or something and as much as I love the creepy building trope, and as much as I love how it is utilized in movies like Lords of Salem (which I know is a pretty modern and probably slightly derivative reference but shut up because it's my review and I will reference what I want) it just doesn't completely work to take any type of movie about an earth religion and set it indoors. The Witch comes a bit closer to…

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  Review by Patrick Pryor ★★★ 2

  I really liked The Blood on Satan's Claw's down'n'dirty mudpunk period look: know-nothing God-fearing Dark Age villagers slathered in dirt and blood and piss terrified of weird bones in a field. And I liked how the movie works as the inverse of a Witchfinder General torture-the-innocent-until-they-confess devil hunt. A skeptical magistrate actually needs HARD EVIDENCE (by ye olde standardes) to convince him that something witchy this way comes in the dark primeval woods of 17th century England? Way to play my folk-horror loving heart like a lute from hell, Satan's Claw!

  Too bad the movie drags with a bunch of splintered storylines of spooked villagers that don't particularly build or pay off. But those black magik nature rituals with the evil eyebrowed Angela and her murky furry demon pal who looks like he rolled out of muck bubbling in a crevasse on the windswept Moors. WHAT A LOOK.

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  Review by belial_carboni ★★★★ 2

  Blood on Satans Claw just carved my brain raw! Surreal 70s folk horror that's oozing with style and creepy atmosphere. From the second that guy discovered that freaky face thing buried in the sand I was paying attention! Unsettling and haunting it slowly sneaks up on you and gets under your skin. Then without much warning it goes from 0 to 100. One second it's all Little House on the Prairie and then BAM! Guy is cutting his own hand off! People are randomly growing fur and claws...things get weird! And in typical folk horror fashion everything boils over into an ending filled with fire and bloodshed. If I start seeing random fur patches on my body after watching this I will not be impressed!

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  Review by Bob McCully ★★★★

  I've been hoof-slapped by some supreme F.O.L.K. H.O.R.R.O.R. The Blood on Satan's Claw, aka Satan's Skin, licks its lips before gnashing its ancient teeth into your skull.

  Deliciously ambiguous and unexpectedly gnarly, we enter this small village as a mysterious Satanic force starts to infect the wily teens. The curse of Satan manifests itself as a patch of fur on their flesh. A brutal cult emerges, led by the sinister and beautiful Angel, spawning depravity in the woods. Slayings and lecherous violence blooms out of this mob of demonic youngsters. Beware the cloaked figure in the corner. How will this village survive their wrath? Grab a sword, judgement awaits.

  Originally intended to be an anthology horror film then condensed into…

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  Review by Evan T ★★★★

  Textbook folk-horror. A 70s monument of chanting paganism, buried body parts, and sexually deviant teenagers, so not a stone’s throw from your average exploitation. So free of inhibitions that it risks toppling over, which is a small gripe for such a singularly down-and-dirty work. Mark Wilkinson’s score is the half of it, falling somewhere between every giallo ever made and Rosemary’s Baby. The Wicker Man’s chief competitor. In other words: fucking awesome, and as British as can be.

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  Review by Helen_S ★★★ 6

  Mildly disappointed with this watch. Still found it suitably weird and entertaining but through the middle parts found myself looking at the clock way too often. Not the quality film I remembered it as. Music's great for the most part. There were some bits that woulda fit more on Laurel and Hardy.