Posts in: Film and TV

Penda’s Fen, folks. I never heard of this movie before yesterday and now I can’t get it out of my head. Pagan, anarchist, localist, seventies British folk horror. There’s so much going on in it.

Penda’s Fen title card



My daughter Darcy has declared this Spooky Saturday. She says this involves Starbucks for breakfast, putting up more Halloween decorations, carving the pumpkin, a campfire, and more of the Spooked podcast. They’re still asleep at the moment so I’m watching Horror of Dracula.




It’s May 1st and you know what that means, don’t you? Time to watch The Wicker Man!


Something made me think of Lodge 49 today and I want to take this opportunity to recommend that weird and wonderful and tragically cancelled show to everyone - especially those who have an interest in occulture and/or love for slackers and losers.


The Black Belt was a region in the American South known for its rich, black soil. It was home to many cotton plantations and, consequently, enslaved black people. During the Great Migration, large numbers of black people moved out of the South into northern cities, taking the blues and other cultural creations with them. Not all moved, though. Alabama Blackbelt Blues is a documentary by Alabama Public Television on the continuing blues tradition in Alabama’s portion of the Black Belt. (Watch the trailer here.)

If you like the blues, you’ll like this documentary - simple as that. It’s given me a whole list of singers and musicians to listen to. And, unsurprisingly, the names of John and Alan Lomax come up regularly as collectors and preservers of this music. I plan to explore their collections more thoroughly soon.

Listen: “Trouble So Hard” by Vera Hall