So recently, I see a lot of attention rightfully being given to the excellent Folk Horror documentary, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, released this fall and currently available on Shudder. I made reference to it just last week. It is a comprehensive and thoughtful study of, if not exactly a genre (as it questions whether generic boundaries might usefully be set in this case), then a mood, a mentality of film. The director, Kier-La Janisse, with a very wide range of filmic examples and drawing on a variety of critical, academic, and film practitioner voices, effectively surveys a rich international landscape of the meetings of folk culture and practices and horror filmmaking, sometimes revealing a lingering fear of the past, or of the inevitable future, or, particularly in those outside of the English tradition, simply drawing on elements of traditional folklore and thus exhibiting striking cultural specificities. It’s fascinating stuff.
This is not, however, Janisse’s first foray into cataloguing and analyzing an extensive collection of films. I first encountered her oeuvre through her engrossing book, House of Psychotic Women: an autobiographical topography of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films. I’d never really encountered a work such as this before. At once deeply personal, grounded in thoughtful analysis, and wide ranging in its scope, it walks quite a line between memoir, scholarship, and compulsive fandom.
Janisse focuses on “horror and violent exploitation films that feature disturbed or neurotic women as primary or pivotal characters,” films with which she has a very personal relationship, with which she has been obsessed throughout her life as a mirror of her own personal struggles. The appendix alone (which actually comprises about half the book, presenting short descriptions of all the included movies) is worth the price of admission, lucidly detailing a tremendous number of films (some at least heard of by a mainstream audience, but many quite obscure, even to genre enthusiasts) through a reflective and compelling lens and inspiring the reader (or, at least me) to seek out as many as it is possible to find. She approaches each respectfully, on its own terms, however artistically serious or exploitively irreverent its own creators may have considered it. From Troma productions to the New French Extremity, from Rape-Revenge flicks to Austrian Art House cinema, and far, far more, these films are taken seriously and appreciated as meaningful artifacts of psychological life, of shared culture.
But the first half is really the heart of the book. Here, Janisse neither approaches the films chronologically nor generically, but rather, autobiographically, bouncing from one to the next as it is more or less useful for reflecting on some aspect of her own life, of her own character, of her own story. Her project is nicely set up in the preface:
“Over the past ten years I started keeping a log of these films, accompanied by rambling, incoherent notes and occasionally wet pages. I have drawers full of these scribblings: they’re spilling out of manila envelopes in my closet and they’re all pieces of a puzzle that I have to figure out how to put together. But my starting point was a question, and that question presented itself easily: I wanted to know why I was crazy – and what happens when you feed crazy with more crazy.”
The result is anything but rambling or incoherent, but it is unlike any kind of film criticism or description I’d read before (it’s possible that something like this has long existed in some kind of academic-adjacent circles, but it was new for me). The work is richly researched and informed by a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of film history and a kind of scholarly rigor, but it is utterly led by the personal; it is absolutely a program of self-inspection, explicitly and shamelessly subjective in its view of the films under discussion, and then, in turn, using those films as tools to interrogate the author’s own thoughts and choices, all while investigating how and why those films have had such a draw for her – what functions they have served.
Janisse is unflinching in presenting her own struggles with depression, substance abuse, self-destructive behavior, and, in fact, outwardly destructive tendencies. Her relationships with family and friends and lovers all come under the microscope as necessary elements of analysis. There is horror in the films, in her story, and in the act of self-revelation. And somehow, as an author, she pulls off this trick wherein her life’s very real difficulties illuminate the films being discussed just as much as those films shed symbolic and psychologically enlightening light upon those very trials and tribulations.
As someone who has taken up a project of writing about horror, discussing the material that I am so often drawn to, this book is as inspiring as it is intimidating. To approach the content from such a personal place, all while really doing the work, both in terms of research and in terms of self-analysis, is an impressive and moving feat. And it seems such an effective way of discussing the material. We already sail an endless sea of film criticism, literary theory, movie reviews, and fan responses. And all of those can be fine things – I certainly consume my fair share – I also, in this blog, seek to contribute something as well. But it is noteworthy how novel her peculiarly intimate approach is, naturally offering what nobody else can, as nobody else has lived her life. It is a great reminder that anyone with thoughts, responses, and feelings has something to add to the conversation (but also, that it is best added with real precision and thoughtfulness).
Furthermore, the book is just beautiful. From the cover, drawing on imagery from Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, to the sensational vast array of black and white film stills and posters that are peppered throughout, to the 30-something full color pages in the center of the book, collecting striking poster art and images from the referenced films, the whole volume is an art-object, deserving a place on any coffee table. If only I had one…
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Just as an aside, speaking of mentally unstable female characters in films, thanks to the Gaylords of Darkness podcast bringing it to my attention, last night I watched the 1952 Marilyn Monroe thriller Don’t Bother to Knock (directed by Hammer and Amicus mainstay, Roy Ward Baker) and wow, it is a treat. I don’t really want to describe it much as I think it’s better to go in cold, but apparently, it was her attempt to be taken seriously as an actor and not only a sex symbol starlet and it is a striking, off kilter performance in an interesting, odd, and sometimes quite tense little picture. I hadn’t even heard of it before, so if you can find a copy somewhere (and I see it’s available to rent on many platforms in the US – I can’t speak for other markets), I think it’s worth your time.