Cursed Castle on the Mountain: The Black Queen of Zagreb

This week, folklore YouTuber The Jolly Reiver heads:

... to Medvedgrad Castle north of the Croatian capital of Zagreb to look at the story of the Black Queen that was said to have terrorised locals until her fatal confrontation with the devil.

Inside Predjama Castle: Slovenia’s Most Haunted Castle

Folklore YouTuber The Jolly Reiver takes us to:

"Predjama Castle, considered to be the most haunted in all of Slovenia. Here you'll learn about the last stand of Erasmus of Lueg, the 'Robin Hood of Slovenia', as well as the spooky tales of the supernatural associated with this site."

HALLOWEEN HORROR: Late Night With The Devil (2023)

On Halloween night 1977, in a bid to win the ratings war, late night talk show host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) hosted a live demonic possession on his show, Night Owls.

The (faux) documentary, Late Night With The Devil, screens the whole show, intercut with black and white, candid, behind-the-scenes footage when the talk show cuts to commercials.

It opens though with an account of Jack's rise to fame (narrated by Michael Ironside), his involvement with The (the very real) Grove, the tragic death of his wife Madeleine (Georgina Haig), and his constant struggles - and failures - to score better ratings than The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

The documentary segues smoothly into Jack's Halloween special episode of Night Owls, which opens with an obviously fake psychic, Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), who clashes with magician-turned-professional sceptic Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss).

Eventually, Christou (who might actually be sensing something) ends up projectile vomiting blood over Haig before he is taken off to get medical attention, making way for the evening's main attraction.

Then  the show (and film) introduces us to young Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), who was rescued from a brutal Satanic cult (who all, otherwise, died by fire rather than allow the FBI to take them in). Her saviour was parapsychologist author June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon), who became the girl's guardian and then started working with her, trying to understand if she really was possessed by a supernatural entity.

From the get-go, Lilly is a demonic Jan Brady with a dead-eyed thousand yard stare, but once June reluctantly calls forth whatever is inside the young girl - she refers to it as Mr Wiggles - her transformation is terrifying and impressive.

Even amongst an impressive line-up of older actors, Torelli gives a bravura performance as the centre of attention, who manages to be nightmarishly creepy even when seemingly trying to be nice and not channelling dark forces from the great beyond. 

Dark secrets are laid bare, convictions are challenged, people die graphic deaths, and general shenanigans ensue.

The build-up, and pacing, directed by Cameron and Colin Cairnes from their own script, is methodical and steady, giving the gradual of collapse of the Night Owls talk show into chaos and carnage a genuine sense of believability.

Perhaps this really is recently unearthed footage from a legendary episode of American '70s late night talk show folklore...

This is the stuff creepypasta and urban legends are born out of.

Kind of aiming for similar territory as our Ghostwatch (with a liberal dash of The Exorcist), Late Night With The Devil does a spectacular job of maintaining verisimilitude while seeding clues through its simple and straightforward storyline, right up until the end.

It just fails to stick the landing by seemingly breaking its format to peel back the curtain for anyone who hadn't already twigged why everything was happening.

Maybe a documentary bookend, akin to the opening of the film, digging more into Jack's background might been better, but then again the repeated image of Jack shouting into the camera "turn off your television" is still very striking (and very Invasion of The Body Snatchers).

I guess it could be classed as found footage, but don't be put off by that, this isn't hours of shaky cam as teenagers run through woods in the middle of the night, this has higher aspirations than that.

In truth, while "found footage" can be more miss than hit with me, I do have a particular soft spot for this story format sub-genre, the mockumentary presenting something supernatural as if it were real, especially when they are done well - which Late Night With The Devil is (barring that one niggle of mine).

HALLOWEEN HORROR: The Witch (2015)

Robert Eggers' The Witch: A New England Folktale is a masterpiece of engrossing storytelling, a rare intelligent horror film that relies on character and atmosphere rather than cheap jump scares and excessive gore.

In New England of 1630, farmer William (gravelly-voiced Ralph Ineson) is exiled from his village for his particular interpretation of the Christian religion, and takes his family to live in an isolated farmstead on the edge of a creepy forest.

He and his wife, Katherine (Game Of Thrones' Kate Dickie), ban their children from going into the forest, telling them they must stay within the boundary of the farm.

One day, their teenage daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) is playing peek-a-boo with the family's newest arrival, baby Samuel (Axtun Henry Dube/Athan Conrad Dube) when the newborn suddenly disappears... and the family's real troubles begin.

William claims the child was taken by a wolf, but increasingly the family come to believe it was the work of witchcraft.

The Witch can be seen as a metaphor for the current problems in America, something unknown strikes at the heart of the devout family, then retreats back into the woods and watches the flames of paranoia engulf the insular community, occasionally fanning the fire from its hiding place in the trees.

Much of the horror, in fact, comes from the religious intolerance  at the core of the family's fundamental beliefs; in a very real sense they make their own fear by cultivating brutal ideas about eternal damnation, sins of the flesh etc that confuse and terrify the younger members of the family.

The family does more to tear itself apart than the overt actions of whatever is in the woods.

It is easy to see from this how such shocking events as the Salem Witch Trials could come about, with random (but ultimately explicable) events and misspoke words (taken at face value) ultimately leading to burning people at the stake.

As William's family try to move on from the loss of Samuel, good intentions turn to disasters. Then we find ourselves questioning the initial motivations of these deeds and we have to wonder how much of their situation arises from William's own pride and hypocrisy?

By no stretch of the imagination is The Witch a mainstream schlock horrorfest. If you thought The Boy was a slow-burner, then this is positively glacial by comparison (even though the first 'incident' happens within the opening ten minutes), but it all helps build the tension and draw you in.

So dismal is the family's world that much of the time it looks almost like a black and white movie - which makes the odd moments of red all the more striking and important - and the script's period dialogue gets a bit mumbly at times (although not approaching the near-comical levels of Tom Hardy's character in The Revenant), but there is no missing the intent of what is being said, even if the odd sentence eludes you.

The acting from all concerned is incredible, accentuating the sense of verisimilitude that makes the events all the more believable.

To really get the most out of The Witch, you need to close the curtains, turn out the lights, turn off all your mobile devices, and allow yourself to sink into the stark 17th Century setting, focusing on the unfolding drama on the screen rather than whatever drama is unfolding in the Twitterverse.

Overall, the film is more a well-researched historical drama and psychological thriller than a blockbuster horror flick.

With period folklore shaping the 'supernatural' elements of the story, The Witch is worthy to stand alongside The Wicker Man, Blood On Satan's Claw and, even, The Blair Witch Project with its understated, but unnerving, approach to the genre that is absent many modern horror tropes.

Now I love a good monster movie as much as the next man, but I do wish there were more subtle and smart horror films like The Witch being made to balance out the genre's offerings.

The Whisperer In Darkness (2011)

It should be written into American law that if ever a Hollywood suit has the cockamamie idea of trying to do a big budget adaptation of an HP Lovecraft horror story they should be forced (possibly at gunpoint) to first watch the HP Lovecraft Historical Society's Call Of Cthulhu and The Whisperer in Darkness to see how it can be done well and with due respect to the source material.

The Whisperer In Darkness was 2011's cinematic offering from the foremost producers of Lovecraftian replicas and gaming props, The HP Lovecraft Historical Society, and like its predecessor retains its verisimilitude through the use of black and white film - although unlike Call Of Cthulhu this one is a talkie!

Taking Lovecraft's tale as its base, the movie expands the set-up and adds in an entirely original finale to give the story a classic three act structure, rather than ending on the shock revelation of the short story. It also attempts to humanise Lovecraft's protagonist more, giving him an emotional investment and a more 'traditional' Hollywood style ending - while still managing to neatly stitch in a suitably Lovecraftian twist.

The Whisperer In Darkness tells of Miskatonic University folklore professor Albert Wilmarth (Matt Foyer) and his sceptical investigations into supposed 'monster' sightings in the most remote hills of Vermont after some particularly violent flooding.

His search for the truth begins with footprints around the property of the isolated home of Henry Akeley (Barry Lynch) and quickly spirals into madness as he unearths more than he was bargaining for and discovers the future of mankind is at stake.

Like their inspiration, film-makers Sean Branney and Andrew Leman rely primarily on suggestion and atmosphere and it's only really when the true face of the central creatures are revealed in the final act that the excellence of the tale wobbles slightly.

Saving both time and (more importantly) money, the team went with CGI animation for the alien Mi-go instead of the costlier and more time-consuming stop motion (which I get the impression a lot of fans would have preferred).

By no means a deal breaker, but there is no escaping the truth right in front of your eyes when you watch the movie that the CGI Mi-go, especially in close-up, really stand apart from the rest of the film (and not in a good way).

We'd waited a long time for this movie to appear (more than two years I believe since the original announcements and teasers) and I'd have gladly waited longer, but I totally understand the HPLHS's desire to get the film done and for a decent budget (as it is Sandy Petersen, creator of the Call Of Cthulhu RPG had to step in and help with the funding to get the movie finished).

They also, rather cheekily, added in a new, most 'unLovecraftian' character in the form of a little girl, Hannah (Autumn Wendel), whose life is in jeopardy because of the alien creatures in the hills, and Wilmarth takes her under his wing and attempts to protect her from a possible fate worse than death.

Whether he succeeds is for you to find out when you purchase the movie directly from the HPLHS. The two-disc DVD set includes a disc chock full of extra features including a bevy of informative behind-the-scenes documentaries, trailers and deleted scenes.

You won't regret the purchase. This ranks as one of the strongest adaptations of Lovecraft's stories of indescribable monsters and things man was not supposed to know.

Outside of HPLHS's own productions, the only live-action Lovecraftiana  at that time that came close to getting under my skin - as Lovecraft's words have the power to do - were John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness and Cigarette Burns (from the TV series Masters Of Horror), even though neither of these are actually Lovecraft stories, and Stuart Gordon's Dagon and Dreams In The Witch-House, the latter also from Masters of Horror.

Thus John Carpenter and Stuart Gordon would be exempt from my proposed law above; everyone else - watch these movies before you dare even contemplate trying to bring Lovecraft to the big, or small, screen yourself.