Severin Films to Release ‘Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched’ and 19 More Gems in Massive Folk Horror Compendium
Max Weinstein
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Built around the acclaimed folk horror documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, Severin Films has assembled a massive home media box set that’s due December 7, 2021.
Dubbed “All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror,” the new collection includes 20 feature films, three CDs, a 126-page book, 15-plus hours of short films, and featurettes. Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched director Kier-La Janisse carefully curated the package, which will be released alongside standalone editions of both her film and Avery Crounse’s 1983 folk horror treasure, Eyes of Fire.
All 19 features that accompany Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched have been fully restored, and other highlights include the documentary’s original soundtrack by Jim Williams and a reading of the classic short story “The White People” by actor Linda Hayden. The book features lavish illustrations and is designed by Luke Insect, with new writings by seminal film scholars, authors, and historians.
Below are specs on the behemoth release, which is limited to just 4,000 units:
“DISC 1:
Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched
Kier-La Janisse, USA, 2021
192 mins | 1.85 | Color
English and Portuguese with English subtitles
Stereo
HD Digital Master
WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED explores the folk horror phenomenon and its culturally specific manifestations in international horror, from its first wave in the 1970s to today.
Extras:
Video Introduction By Writer/Director/Producer Kier-La Janisse
Animating Folk Horror — A Conversation with Ashley Thorpe
Animator Ashley Thorpe discusses his processes and inspirations for the animated sequences he created for the film.
Outtake: What is Folk Horror?
Expanded definitions of folk horror cut from the film’s introductory sequence.
Outtake: Harvest Hymns — The Sounds and Signals of Folk Horror
Historians and Composers—including Marc Wilkinson, John Cameron, Jim Williams, Pentagram Home Video and more—weigh in on the sounds of folk horror from trad to electronica.
Outtake: Terra Assombrada — Expressions of Folk Horror in Brazil
Filmmaker Dennison Ramalho and Scholars Carlos Primati and Laura Loguercio Cánepa discuss the impact of Brazilian folk literature and songs on folk horror.
Folk Poetry
WITCHFINDER GENERAL star Ian Ogilvy and BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW’s Linda Hayden recite classic folk poems set to Super 8 footage.
Trailer
DISC 2:
EYES OF FIRE
Avery Crounse, USA, 1983
86 mins | 1.85:1 | Color
English Stereo
4K restoration from the original negative
The seminal American folk horror film, unavailable on home video for decades, now debuts in a new 4K restoration. A rogue 18th century preacher and his followers make their way downriver to establish a new settlement beyond the western frontier and encounter a forest enchanted by strange spirits that will bring an apocalyptic madness upon them.
Extras:
Audio Commentary With Colin Dickey, Author of “Ghostland: An American History In Haunted Places”
The Secret Is In The Trees — “Nightmare USA” Author Stephen Thrower Interviews Avery Crounse
Crying Blue Sky
Alternate Longer Cut restored in 2K from Director’s personal 35mm answer print
Plus Bonus Short Films:
The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow (Sam Weiss, USA 1972)
Genre icon John Carradine narrates this atmospheric animated adaptation of Washington Irving’s classic story, newly scanned from 16mm for this release by educational film archive AV Geeks. Courtesy of Pyramid Films.
Transformations (Barbara Hirschfeld, USA 1972)
A fascinating feminist experimental film shot on location in Vermont about a group of witches performing white magic. Courtesy of the Vermont Archive Movie Project (VAMP). vamp.vtiff.org
Backwoods (Ryan Mackfall, UK 2018)
A scholar drifts from his path and finds himself in a house he takes for deserted. Based on H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Picture In The House.” Courtesy of Myskatonic Films.
++++
DISC 3:
LEPTIRICA
Djordje Kadijevic, Serbia, 1973
65 mins | 1.33:1 | Color
Serbian mono with optional English subtitles
HD master from Public Service Media Radio Television of Serbia
Based loosely on by Milovan Glišić’s classic 1880 Serbian vampire story After Ninety Years – which preceded Bram Stoker’s Dracula by nearly two decades – Djordje Kadijevic’s adaptation is a subversive, darkly erotic take on Glišić’s pastoral tale of a group of rural villagers beset upon by the infamous vampire Sava Savanovic, who has taken up residence in their local flour mill.
Extras:
Radical Fairy Tales — Interview With Director Djordje Kadijevic
Plus bonus short films newly remastered in HD from archival film elements at Public Service Media Radio Television of Serbia:
Štićenik (Djordje Kadijevic,1973)
A terrified young man is being pursued by a mysterious man in black. He hides out in nearby mental hospital, but can he escape his fate?
Diary Of An Inmate
An interview with Štićenik actor Milan Mihailovic
Devičanska Svirka (Djordje Kadijevic,1973)
A man travelling through the countryside is drawn to a strange castle, which is reputed by the locals to be haunted. There he meets a beguiling young woman who ensnares him in her world of secrets.
Prisoner Of Song
An interview with Devičanska Svirka actor Goran Sultanovic
++++
DISC 4:
WITCHHAMMER
Otakar Vávra, Czechoslovakia, 1970
107 mins | 2:35:1 | Color
Czech mono with optional English subtitles
HD restored master supplied by the Czech Film Center
Otakar Vávra’s film about 17th century witch hunter Jindřich František Boblig and the horrors he visited on the small village of Velké Losiny has been called an Eastern European counterpart to Michael Reeves’ WITCHFINDER GENERAL and Michael Armstrong’s MARK OF THE DEVIL.
Extras:
Audio Commentary With Czech Film Historian And Curator Irena Kovarova
The Womb Of Woman Is The Gateway To Hell
A filmed appreciation by essayist and critic Kat Ellinger and film historian Michael Brooke. Courtesy of Second Run Films.
The Projection Booth Podcast
The renowned film podcast’s episode on WITCHHAMMER, with host Mike White and guest critics Samm Deighan and Rahne Alexander.
—-
VIY
Konstantin Ershov, Georgiy Kropachyov, Soviet Union, 1967
76 mins / 1.33:1 / Color
Russian mono with optional English subtitles / English mono
HD restored master supplied by Mosfilm
Based on the classic novella by Nikolai Gogol, VIY remains the height of Soviet fantasy cinema. In 19th century Russia, a seminary student is forced to spend three nights with the corpse of a beautiful young witch. But when she rises from the dead to test his faith, it will summon a nightmare of fear, desire and the ultimate demonic mayhem.
Extras:
From The Woods To The Cosmos — John Leman Riley On The History Of Soviet Fantasy And Sci-Fi Film
Trailer
Plus Bonus Silent Short Films: Satan Exultant (1917), The Queen of Spades (1916) and The Portrait (1915)
++++
DISC 5:
LAKE OF THE DEAD
Kåre Bergstrøm, Norway, 1958
77 mins | 2.40:1 | B/W
Norwegian mono with optional English subtitles
Restored in 2K from the original negative
Considered a classic of Norwegian cinema, a group of colleagues venture to a remote cabin to look for a missing friend and are spooked by an old legend: that the cabin had belonged to a man who killed his sister and her lover and then drowned himself in the lake. Since then, it is said that anyone who stays in the cabin will be driven to the same fate.
Extras:
Audio Commentary With Film Historians Jonathan Rigby And Kevin Lyons
—-
TILBURY
Viðar Víkingsson, Iceland, 1987
57 mins | 1.33:1 | Color
Icelandic mono with optional English subtitles
Restored in 2K from the original negative at the Film Museum of Iceland
This made-for-TV film shares the Icelandic lore of the Tilbury, a creature who could be summoned by women in times of financial hardship and starvation. But the gifts of the Tilbury come with their own brand of destruction. Set in 1940, during the British occupation, a country boy discovers his childhood sweetheart is having an affair with a British soldier, but suspects it could be one of the evil creatures.
Extras:
Audio Commentary With Director Viðar Víkingsson And Screenwriter Þórarinn Eldjárn, Moderated By Film Scholar Gudrun D. Whitehead
With Enough Tilbury Butter, Anything Is Good — Interview With Karl Ágúst Úlfsson
A Boy From The Country — Interview With Kristján Franklin Magnúss
White Spot In The Back Of The Head (Viðar Víkingsson, 1979)
This early student film from the director of TILBURY transposes the ghostly Icelandic legend of The Deacon of Dark River to 1970s France.
“The Moon Fades, Death Rides”
Viðar Víkingsson discusses the folkloric origins of White Spot In The Back Of The Head
++++
DISC 6:
THE DREAMING
Mario Andreacchio, Australia, 1988
90 mins | 1.85:1 | Color
English mono
Restored in 2K from best surviving 35mm positive print
When a group of Indigenous activists attempt to repatriate ancestral artifacts found in a cave on Australia’s Kangaroo Island, one of them is shot evading police and taken to a local hospital. When the patient dies in her care, the doctor attending to her experiences strange visions relating to violent events from the past.
Extras:
Audio Commentary With Director Mario Andreacchio, Moderated By Film Historian Jarret Gahan
Trailer
—-
KADAICHA
James Bogle, Australia 1988
88 mins | 1.85:1 | Color
English mono
Mastered from only surviving broadcast quality video master
Though conceived as a commercial horror film, this tale of teens being condemned to death in their dreams by an Aboriginal magician as recompense for a housing development having been built on a sacred burial ground also serves as an admission of national guilt.
Extras:
Audio Commentary With Director James Bogle, Moderated By Veteran Film Journalist Michael Helms (Fatal Visions)
The Final Girl Of KADAICHA
An audio interview with actress Zoe Carides, conducted by film historian Jarret Gahan.
Composing KADAICHA
An audio interview with composer Peter Westheimer, conducted by film historian Jarret Gahan.
Behind The Scenes Of KADAICHA
Recently-unearthed footage of director James Bogle and the cast and crew in a typical day on set.
Trailer
+++++
DISC 7:
CELIA
Ann Turner, Australia, 1989
103 mins | 1.85:1 | Color
English mono
Restored in 2K from 35mm original negative
In 1950s Australia, after 9-year-old Celia hears the disturbing fairy tale of “The Hobyahs” in school, it colors her interpretation of real life conflicts such as her parents’ struggling relationship, the threat of communism and the country’s plague of rabbits. Ann Turner’s award-winning film paints a disquieting picture of innocence trying to make sense of the harsh and complex world around her through escape into dark fantasy.
Extras:
CELIA And Me
A new interview with director Ann Turner
From Crawfords To CELIA
An interview with veteran editor Ken Sallows
The Rabbit In Australia
This short documentary produced by Australia’s national science agency CSIRO in 1979 traces the introduction of the European rabbit to Australia and subsequent attempts to control its population, which includes the rabbit cull of the 1950s that serves as the backdrop for Ann Turner’s CELIA.
—-
ALISON’S BIRTHDAY
Ian Coughlan, Australia, 1981
97 mins | 1.85:1 | Color”
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