{"id":967,"date":"2007-12-31T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-31T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=967"},"modified":"2007-12-31T23:59:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-31T23:59:00","slug":"the-scary-countryside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=967","title":{"rendered":"The Scary Countryside"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jason Pitzl-Waters notes an upcoming Guillermo del Toro movie:<\/a><\/p>\n

The duo will be co-producing <\/em>Born, a film adaptation of [Clive] Barker’s story about a family who gets more than they bargained for when they move to the English countryside.<\/em><\/p>\n

The scary countryside is a staple of British–and frequently North American–film-making. Perhaps that clich\u00e9 is the flip side of the Frazerian<\/a> notion of the countryside as repository of ancient beliefs and practices. <\/p>\n

In movies, ancient practices are always scary. When my book Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America<\/em><\/a> was in production, the first cover design (not used) was referred to as the “Children of the Corn<\/a> cover” in honor of the movie stereotype.<\/p>\n

Urban directors make these pictures for urban audiences — who already harbor odd fears about nature and wildlife, like purse-snatching elk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In British film, every picturesque village is controlled by a secret cabal of child-sacrificing Satanists, disguised, for instance, as the local branch of the Women’s Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The editor and publisher of our county newspaper came to dinner last night (they are married to each other) and we got to talking about this very cinematic phenomenon. <\/p>\n

We decided that the secret cabal in charge hereabouts would have to be the [Blank] County Cattlewomen. Don’t get yourself on their bad side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jason Pitzl-Waters notes an upcoming Guillermo del Toro movie: The duo will be co-producing Born, a film adaptation of [Clive] Barker’s story about a family who gets more than they bargained for when they move to the English countryside. The scary countryside is a staple of British–and frequently North American–film-making. Perhaps that clich\u00e9 is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[23,21,36],"class_list":["post-967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-england","tag-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-fB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6275,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6275","url_meta":{"origin":967,"position":0},"title":"The Scary Countryside 2: Children of the Stones","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 23, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The original \"Scary Countryside\" post. As mentioned above, \"the scary countryside\" is a staple meme of television and movies on both side of the pond, but in the UK there is the additional refinement of \"the scary countryside where people practice strange and ancient rites.\" That does not work as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/4\/4c\/Children_of_the_Stones.jpg\/250px-Children_of_the_Stones.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11101,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11101","url_meta":{"origin":967,"position":1},"title":"“Pagans,” a Short Documentary Film","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 25, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"? Oooh, scary Pagans! We spend a lot of time with the curtains drawn, gazing at candles, right. We wear black robes . . .\u00a0 Seriously, there is some good stuff here: Pagans, a short documentary. To tell the story of the dramatic rise of neo-paganism in America, though, you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9099,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9099","url_meta":{"origin":967,"position":2},"title":"“Come Out and Fight Me for My Throne . . . “","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 12, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 . . . says Janet Farrar melodramatically in this 1977 broadcast from the Irish national network Raidi\u00f3 Teilif\u00eds \u00c9ireann. Author and screenwriter Stewart Farrar and his wife Janet, both from London in England, met through witchcraft and founded their own coven. In 1976 the couple moved to Ireland, accompanied\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4161,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4161","url_meta":{"origin":967,"position":3},"title":"Pentagram Pizza for May 1","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Four toppings this evening. . . \u2022 This made me laugh. \u2022 Some occult-cult films from the past reviewed by Peg Aloi. \u2022 Teaching a course in \"world religions\" is not as simple as it looks, once you start sorting out \"religion,\" \"religious,\" and questions of group identity. \u2022 In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/pentagrampizza-126x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1225,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1225","url_meta":{"origin":967,"position":4},"title":"2012 Apocalypse Porn","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Even some Mayans are finally getting fed up with the whole 2012 end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it apocalypse porn.(You know it's porn because there is no real goofiness, humor, or affection.)A little while ago I received a copy of 2012: Science or Superstition, a video from Disinformation.It's got it all: Hopis, Islamic astrology, reverse\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":295,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=295","url_meta":{"origin":967,"position":5},"title":"More Pagan movies While we\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"More Pagan movies While we are waiting to see Colin Farrell as Alexander the Great, an Icelandic-Canadian cinematic version of Beowulf is also in the works, and from the Web site Beowulf and Grendel looks visually stunning. Although the original story is set probably in Denmark, this one is filmed\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}