**DEADLINE EXTENDED** TO FEBRUARY 15, 2021
THE BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW (1971)
Horror Homeroom’s special issue #4 – Spring 2021
Piers Haggard’s groundbreaking The Blood on Satan’s Claw was released on April 14, 1971. To celebrate its 50th anniversary, we will be running our fourth special issue on Blood on Satan’s Claw and its profound and persistent influence.
Check out the trailer for Blood on Satan’s Claw:
Among other things, The Blood on Satan’s Claw was crucial in shaping the folk horror tradition. In his influential 2010 three-part BBC documentary, A History of Horror, specifically, near the end of part two, “Home Counties Horrors,” Gatiss shifts from discussing the dominant Hammer films of the 1960s to articulating a “new” kind of horror film that avoids what he calls “the gothic clichés.” “Amongst these,” he claims, “are a loose collection of films that we might call folk horror.” Gatiss interviews Haggard, who says, “I suppose I was trying to make a folk horror film.”
We invite submissions on any aspect of Blood of Satan’s Claw–its contexts, its themes, its influences and its influence–for for a special issue to be published on April 14, 2021, celebrating this anniversary milestone. Emerging and advanced scholars, popular writers, and fans are invited to submit abstracts that explore the film from any angle. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
—Blood on Satan’s Claw in the folk horror tradition (see Adam Scovell)
—BOSC as a “cult” film
—BOSC in the context of 1960s and 1970s horror
—BOSC and 1970s counterculture (see, e.g., Tanya Krzywinska)
—BOSC’s influence in the 21st century
–the Blood on Satan’s Claw Audible Original Drama, adapted by Mark Morris and narrated by Mark Gatiss, Reece Shearsmith, Alice Lowe, Ralph Ineson et al. (2018)
—BOSC and its representation of violent crime, including the murder of Sharon Tate by followers of Charles Manson and the Mary Bell child murders
—BOSC and representations of eighteenth-century England in horror (e.g. Paul Newland’s discussion of the Enclosure Act of 1773)
Angel Blake (Linda Hayden)
–central themes in BOSC: gender, sex, sexual violence, religion, idolatry, paganism, Satanism, witchcraft, landscape, cults, youthful rebellion, rural England etc.
—BOSC in the context of other films directed by Haggard
—BOSC and Tigon Pictures
Please submit abstracts of 500 words and a brief bio to Dawn Keetley and Elizabeth Erwin at horrorhomeroom@gmail.com and dek7@lehigh.edu by February 15, 2021. Articles will be limited to 2,500 words and should be written for a general audience. Completed essays will be due March 12, 2021 in order to ensure publication on the 50th anniversary (April 14, 2021). We welcome all questions and inquiries!
Select Bibliography
Harmes, Marcus K. ‘The Seventeenth Century on Film: Patriarchy, Magistracy, and Witchcraft in British Horror Films, 1968-1971’. Canadian Journal of Film Studies 22:2, 2013, pp. 64-80.
Krzywinska, Tanya. ‘Lurking beneath the Skin: British Pagan Landscapes in Popular Cinema’, in Cinematic Countrysides, edited by Robert Fish. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007, pp. 75-90.
Newland, Paul. ‘Folk Horror and the Contemporary Cult of British Rural Landscape: The Case of Blood on Satan’s Claw’. In British Rural Landscapes on Film, edited by Paul Newland. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016, pp. 162-79.
Scovell, Adam. Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange. Leighton Buzzard: Auteur, 2017, esp. chapter 2.
For our previous special issues, check out #1 on Friday the 13th and #2 on Misery. #3 on Lovecraft Country is forthcoming in January.
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