The Blood On Satan's Claw
Show notes
FolknHell dig up The Blood On Satan’s Claw, Piers Haggard’s 1971 folk horror classic, originally released as Satan’s Skin, and ask, "Is it one of the true pillars of the genre, or just a disjointed rural nightmare with excellent eyebrows?" Spoilers throughout, obviously. If you have not seen the film, consider this your warning from the edge of the field.
This episode, Andy Davidson, Dave Houghton and David Hall head into the furrows for The Blood On Satan’s Claw, Piers Haggard’s 1971 tale of rural panic, possessed children, suspiciously hairy patches and authority figures making one terrible decision after another.
Often named as part of folk horror’s so-called Unholy Trinity alongside The Wicker Man and Witchfinder General, this is a film with impeccable credentials: an isolated village, something nasty unearthed from the land, old evil pushing up through the soil, and a community that reacts to crisis with all the calm restraint of a mob holding rope.
The chaps discuss the film’s odd portmanteau origins, its brilliant but bumpy structure, Angel Blake’s alarming rise as the leader of the village children, the deeply uncomfortable mix of sex, violence and moral panic, and whether this is actually the most openly supernatural member of the Unholy Trinity. There is also time for Anthony Ainley’s excellent priest, Patrick Wymark’s magnificently unpleasant judge, the skull with the living eye, Satan being assembled like a rural occult flat-pack, and the heroic return of the wobbly sword.
Scores are cast, claws are counted, and the big question is asked: is The Blood On Satan’s Claw a great folk horror film, or just a flawed but essential one?
The Blood On Satan’s Claw is absolutely folk horror. Rural isolation, threat from the land, old evil, corrupted youth, religious authority, mob justice and deeply strange local behaviour all come bundled together in one filthy little 1971 package.
It is also messy, abrupt and sometimes baffling, but that is part of its strange power. The FolknHell score: 19 out of 30.
FolknHell Score
out of 30
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Folknhell is the folk horror podcast where Andy Davidson, Dave Houghton and David Hall dig into strange cinema, argue about whether it really counts as folk horror, and score every film out of 30.
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