Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Folk horror as speculative sociology: H.P. Lovecraft and the Wicker Man

 

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The films feature a recurring archetype: the arrival of a stranger, the discovery of a secret cult, then a vicious murder, perhaps a sacrifice, designed to propitiate pagan gods. The metropolitan visitor, the outsider from the mainland, comes into a situation strange to them and to us. Here the enlightened laws of the nation do not pertain. In these forgotten spaces, there are other laws: rules and rituals that are both familiar remnants of some tribal memory yet utterly strange. The locals understand, while we do not.

The stories feature a recurring archetype: the discovery of a secret cult, by a stranger, and the discovery that this cult’s beliefs are substantially factually correct. The metropolitan visitor, the outsider from the university, comes into a situation strange to them and to us. Here the enlightened laws of scientific common sense do not pertain. In these forgotten spaces, there are other laws: rules and rituals that are both familiar remnants of some tribal memory yet utterly strange. The locals understand, while we do not.

Their rootedness in place becomes uncanny. Once, almost everyone was so rooted. But now — in the discontinuous world of modernity, where relationships are casual and work comes and goes — such belonging feels strange and even sinister.

being inside a myth is terrifying, a fall from the industrialised, supermarket world into one possessed by abysmal powers

Modern Mythology

Modern Mythology is interdisciplinary web journal: an open…

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