#fae horrors

[tlbodine]

Our Next Horror Watch Theme

Man. It's been a minute since @comicreliefmorlock and I have done a themed film series. Remember when that was a thing we did all the time?

We did Horror by the Decade. We did Horror by Director. We did Horror Remakes. Horror Directed by Women. Asian Horror.

Now it's time for....*drumroll* Faerie Inspired Horror!

We picked this series specifically because we watched Bagman recently and found it very disappointing. And it's one of many disappointing boogeyman-type horrors that should have been scary but just...isn't.

So I went on a quest. And, true to our usual format, I assembled a list of movies and paired them off into double features. We've got a nine-week series here (18 movies, if we don't manage double features every week).

The Criteria: The only rule for this film series is the movie needs to be fae-inspired or related. For our purposes, I'm defining "fae" as a sapient non-human entity that exists parallel to humans and operates according to its own rules, primarily as described in a country's fokloric tradition.

Sometimes these stories overlap with ghosts, demons, and old gods, but I tried my best not to include those types of things if I could help it (but these are overwhelmingly films I haven't seen and didn't want to spoiler myself on, so...I might have some mistakes in here). A lot of these movies probably overlap with Folk Horror as a subgenre, but I wanted to specifically include movies where the fae creature does actually exist as opposed to simply being invoked by local legends etc.

I tried to cast a pretty wide net to get some diversity here, but by nature of the beast this skews heavily European, with a lot of Norwegian and Irish folklore represented. (Don't worry - we're hitting Latin America next, we already decided that was the next film series, and I'm gonna aim for more cultural and racial diversity in future series as well).

ANYWAY. Without further ado, here is our final film list. The order we watch these in is TBD. But the hashtag to follow will be "#Fae Horrors" and they will also be in my general "#Horror Movies" tag. Also maybe this will be the year I finally go make a damn Letterboxd account to keep track of things.

FAE HORROR MOVIES:

Thale (2012) (Norwegian) (Hoopla, Tubi)

Huldra: Lady of the Forest (2016) (Swedish) (Hoopla, Tubi, Amazon)

Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil (2018) (Spanish) (Netflix)

Draug (2018) (Swedish) Tubi, Amazon)

Valley of Shadows (2017) (Norwegian) (Hoopla, Tubi, Amazon)

There's Something in the Barn (2023) (Norwegian) (Netflix, Amazon)

Pyewacket (2017) (Canadian) (Shudder, Amazon)

The Wretched (2020) (American) (Shudder, Amazon)

Troll (2022) (Norwegian) (Netflix)

Rawhead Rex (1986) (Irish) (Amazon)

Unwelcome (2023) (Irish) (Shudder, Hoopla)

The Hallow (2015) (Irish) (Shudder, Amazon)

You Are Not My Mother (2021) (Irish) (Hulu, Hoopla, Prime)

In My Mother's Skin (2023) (Singaporean) (Prime)

The Haunting of Helena (2013) (Italian) (Prime)

The Hole in the Ground (2019) (Irish) (Kanopy, Amazon)

Wither (2012) (Swedish) (Tubi, Amazon)

The Lure (2015) (Polish) (Max, Amazon)

[whereserpentswalk]

Look under the cut to see what meeting your entity is like. Reblog to give a gift to your patron.

The fae: a creature stands before you. Though this street was warm and crowded a few moments ago it is suddenly cold and the people around you look like shadows. The creature begins an antlered shadow with glowing white eyes, but soon its body can be seem, with white blue flesh, and sapphire eyes, and icicles for teeth. What looks like a cloak unfolds from its naked body and you can see massive white wings of a moth. As if it's an act of sacrifice you tell it your true name, a name you didn't even see before, and suddenly you belong to it, for better or worse.

The angel: a radiant entity appears before you. They're bright, like something so hot it would burn you up. But as the light fades, you can see a person in silver armor, perfect yet inhuman like am ancient green statue, their back srouting six wings with blue eyes along them, as the eyes on their head are covered by a mask of two smaller wings. The creature offers their hands and you shake it, as they fly you through the city streets and above the skyscrapers, to the stars above and dimensions beyond, to gods living and dead, across the streets of alien cities and the clouds of dead worlds. And when you return to the earth you can feel something diffrent about you, like there's light in your blood.

The scavenger: below the lights of skyscrapers beyond you, on the dark sands of the beach, you see it crawling twords you. This serpentine creature with countless legs, and a dark black shell, yet a strangely human like face. You think it'll attack or run away, but it just looks at you, egar, and for a momment you stare at eachother. It's legs pass something to eachother and then to you, it's meat but it's shining with all the colors known to the human eye, and a few more. You hold it and it happily looks at you. You take a bite and suddenly you know... you know so very much...

The vampire: she flies down to you on green wings with orange eyespots, but folds them into her back. She looks like a human for a momment, tall and strong, with a black suit over her body, but eyes the color of ruby. For a momment her mouth opens, and it's massive and monstrous, with countless moving parts and fangs. But then it folds back onto something humanoid and she gives you a playful smirk. She cuts her hand and offers you her blood, and when you drink it it tastes so sweet, and makes you feel so good. She hands you the knife and you know to do the same, and when she drinks from your palm it's life the sweetest of kisses.

The djinn: the room wirs around you. If it were not for the fans it would feel like hellfire. For a momment there it darkness, but then the screen before you glows white like smokeless flame. You can sense something inside, something beyond the code. You reach your hand within it, and there's no glass, your hand passess right through until you're in a white void of your own making. You call out, thinking there is nothing at all around you. Yet somehow something calls back, something that knows your name.

The rat king: You see him in an empty subway station. Something dark and distorted, you're not sure if he's man or animal, covered in rags, and singing in the language of the goblins and the orcs. Yet he comes close to you excited. And you can feel his song. He calls for you to come to the train tracks, and let yourself run with the rats and the roaches, where the train will pass over you when it comes, and you'll live forever. When you touch the third rail you don't die, but you'll never be human again.

The lich: the library is strangely bright. Run by skeletons in suits, decorated with gold. There are more books here then you thought were in all the world. There's knowledge here most mortals will never have the change below, all kept safe below the city. You see her, her body doesn't look human, everything has been replaced making her look more like a joining white doll then a being of flesh. Yet she is dead, you can tell that under the porcelain skin she must be dead, she is dead, and there is the tragedy of death in her eyes. You come closer to her, and she places a black rose within your hair...

The demon: You stand in his office and he stands before you, a humanoid being covered in black scales, with red eyes covering his skin. Yet none are on his head, that remains featureless save for two massive horns. Wings on his back nearly surround you. Countless souls line the walls of his office, looking at you, waiting. After you sign your name you give him yours, you can feel it come away for you forever and your eyes grey and your skin pales. But he puts the jar in a special place for you, you're spacial, he can tell there's something about you that he likes.

The mushroom lord: you walk through the darkness of the forest, the furthest from civilization you have ever been. You come upon a part where the trees all seem dead, that even the cryptids won't go near. Mushrooms fill the ground, and white vein like lines are all over the trees. You feel the need to lay down, and you let the moss and the mushrooms and the worms surround you, and let yourself sink into the soil,, and it feels good. It feels so good...

The witch: You can see them in the Cafe next to you, skinny and small, with a sweatshirt over most of their body, and dark glasses over their eyes. They seem powerful though, and though their body looks young they seem ancient, they seem beyond humanity. You talk to them and they tell you things, and secrets, lost gods, things you never knew you didn't know, both beautiful and disturbing. When it's time for them to go they pet your head, and give you their number. You don't know if you should text them, but you have to, you have to see them again, there's something about them that makes you need to know.

The living clothing: you step into it at first, it looked like a puddle yet shining like silver or chrome. But soon it surrounds you, first just your torso, but soon your head, your entire body. But it doesn't feel scary, it feels like you're being held, held by something beyond your understanding. It whispers to you, and you don't know if you should feel like your being eaten alive, or like you're being protected. You can't help but keep walking.

The abyss: the void is before you, blackness beyond blackness, like the color beyond the field of your vision, stands before your eyes. You stare at it, it's nothing yet you're entranced. It stares back...

[theveryworstthing]

SpaceDancer's request for parasitic roses and Camille Alexander's request for unicorn fops created Angelique.

i now present my newest Charming Little Freak ✨

Angelique is one of those beings that isn't cleanly classified as a fae or a demon. he/it/whatever (roses are perfect plants and so it mostly goes by the pronouns common for the additional sex of his host body in human society because they couldn't care less) is a Rampant. a type of sapient parasitic rose that, over time, transforms the body of their host from a simple quadruped beast to bipedal humanoid (kinda) monster. every Rampant seems to mold themselves into unique forms, and designs often carry over if they somehow manage to get "uprooted" without dying and have to start over with a new flesh body. if Rampants stay rooted then they're borderline immortal even though their hosts are...dead? it's unclear. the Rampant certainly carries memories of what it was like being an animal and their flesh and blood is altered, but alive. the body keeps the score whether they like it or not. but the beast itself, its mind, dies quickly after a Rampant takes root. either from the trauma from becoming a Flowerbed or from the Rampant purposefully putting a thorn through its brain. whether fae or demon, Rampants take. they do not possess. they do not imprison.

Angelique currently lives in a small dying village, spending his time checking in on the aging population as a kind of town housemaid/caretaker and tending to his flower shop/apothecary. most people would say that having a creature like him around isn't a great idea, but this eldritch horror has basically been adopted by every lonely old person in town so good luck getting rid of him.

Fun Facts:

he loves nice soft clothes, meat (blood sausage is his favorite), and (in spite of his goth everything all the time) sunlight.

buzzing sounds make him flustered while prolonged exposure to cut grass smells and cold weather make him anxious.

he's an scary good climber and will forgo a door if he knows someone is on a higher floor of a building and he sees an open window.

always well hydrated. carries around a flask of water at all times and likes to sit outside naked when it rains.

he has many little leafy assistants which are also just him. he's like an octopus. the people in the community assign them all little names and give them unique decorations and he thinks it's really cute.

what is he getting out of staying in this village? none of your business.

he's currently in a weird situationship with 2 local gravekeepers from rival graveyards/religions and the recently widowed agnostic town doctor. everyone in this polycule hates everyone else but him. he's also friends with benefits with my character Brooke, who finds all of this hilarious and is eager to hear about the latest disaster every time he passes through town.

[sutexii]

Going a little insane over my fae horror swan lake lesbians again specifically this song,,, so good for their dynamic,, how differently they view their faehood, both trying to convince each other,,, chairlift save me

[staff]

Tumblr Tuesday: Autumnal Art

With Mabon just gone and October on the horizon, the Artists on Tumblr are out here cranking up the whimsy and contributing to our sense of seasons passing. We're just here to till those fertile, creative soils and whet your appetites for a little something just around the corner 👀. So, keep a beady peeper on @art around the beginning of October, and in the meantime, enjoy some cozy autumnal art.

@mrsklrv:

@nepeteaa:

@erysium:

@breebird33:

@cheesy-cryptid:

@emmbrr:

@hannahlockillustration:

@smoluglies:

@miyaulait:

@inestheunicorn:

@hannahclairillustration:

[llamagoddessofficial]

So Horror wouldn't steal our name, but who would? I feel like Killer would, and after everything he's stolen you're prepairded for all the games to stop and him to royally fuck you over, only for him to do nothing.

Here's the fae boys, on the subject of name stealing, on a scale of would to wouldn't.

Killer - He'd steal your wallet so he could root through and find your driver's license with your name on it. Do not trust this asshole. You'd expect him to use it to make you his slave or something, but he'd just use it for extremely harmless pranks; making you pay attention to him, making you hug him even though he's covered in soot, etc. He says he'll give it back if you go for dinner with him. It's so hard to tell what's going on in his head at any given time.

Dust - Yeah, he'd take your name. But he'd take good care of it. He wouldn't do anything with it - he wouldn't even tell anyone he knows it. No one except the two of you knows he has so much power over you. What could he possibly want from you...? He asks you to follow him out into the snow. He gently takes your shoulders, leans in, and murmurs something in your ear. Was that... was that his true name...?

Nightmare - Does he consider name stealing below him? Sure. But he's not above taking an opportunity. Leave something so precious out in the open, and he'll be quick to snatch it up. He might be the Winter King but he's always had a weakness for pretty things.

Dream - He'd take your name if the opportunity presented, but purely out of a desire to protect you. If he has it, no one else does, and you'll be safe. He'll give it back alongside a very stern lecture.

Horror - Doesn't need to, doesn't want to. He's busy baking you a pie.

Farmer - Already knows it.

[markuami]

My Archfey design for my campaign.

(I really wanted to give emphasis that its not human, there are no human qualities other than the fact its humanoid shape)

[luna-kipp-themothauthor]

Another variation of the character concept art for Jinn with a mini spoiler background 😉

[lizmamont]

[pintvhorror]

Fae lore. Eldritch Abominations. Analog Horror. PSX aesthetics.

Please follow and read our Webcomic:

PINTVHORROR 💀🦋

[tlbodine]

There's Something in the Barn and Valley of Shadows

@comicreliefmorlock and I kicked off our Fae Horror week this week with the first of many planned double features. Some of these movies are paired off according to a strong theme. This one was more of a wildcard -- two Norwegian films, but nothing else really tying them together. I wanted to show her There's Something in the Barn before Christmas because it is a festive good time. Valley of Shadows was a total unknown. Tonally and subject-wise, these two films couldn't be further apart. But they are both excellent movies in their own way, so I'm glad we watched them.

There's Something in the Barn came out in 2023. Directed by Magnus Martens, it's a Norwegian horror-comedy about an American family who move to Norway to occupy a farm left to them by an estranged uncle. The home comes with a barn elf, or nisser. Like other similar types of fae like brownies, a nisser will do all kinds of helpful things for you -- shovel snow, chop wood -- in exchange for offerings of food and kindness. But he has rules, and disregarding those rules will invite trouble because he will stop at nothing to get rid of you once you've crossed him.

Despite the best efforts of the young son in the film, his parents disregard his talk about elves until it's too late, and once they've pissed off the elf he calls his friends for an elven rampage.

This movie is hilarious.

It's a delight watching patient, long-suffering Norwegians deal with these bumbling fish-out-of-water Californians. For most of the film, you're really on the side of the elves. But the characters gain depth and you almost can't help but like them as it wears on.

Writer Aleksander Kirkwood Brown's script is refreshingly tight and clean. Every character gets a developmental arc. Every setup is paid off. There is no wasted space. Just good, solid storytelling and a delightful laugh-out-loud splatterfest that manages to be weirdly wholesome. I heartily recommend this for the Christmas movie rotation.

Another thing: The film uses practical effects, and it is so goddamn refreshing to see the elves played by little people in A+ makeup and suits rather than clumsy CGI rotoscope bullshit. Major shout-out to Kiran Shah, the actor for the main elf. You might not recognize him, but he's done body-doubling and stunt work in all kinds of big films since the 70s, including working on The Lord of the Rings. He does phenomenal physical acting in There's Something In the Barn, bringing a tremendous amount of pathos and emotion to the character. It's really hard to convey complex emotion through a thick layer of latex but he hits it out of the park.

Movies with similar vibes:

Gremlins

Rare Exports

Krampus

Trollhunter

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Valley of Shadows (Skyggenes dal in Norwegian) is a 2017 Gothic directed by Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen. It's centered on Aslak, a six-year-old boy, who ventures into a forest in search of his dog and encounters a stranger who might be a monster. At the same time, we hear rumors about a werewolf, that may or may not be related to Aslak's estranged brother, a junkie who is later found dead, and who may have been murdered or may himself have been hurting people.

That's the best way I can really summarize this movie, but it's a film that kind of defies summary because it's not really a plot-based film. It's a feast for the senses, a visually stunning use of framing and color to invoke a mood, with an excellent score that drives it home.

A lot of people found it really boring, but those people are missing the point. Not every movie is a high-concept romp. Some movies are subtle meditations, and this is one.

Anyway: The thing about Valley of Shadows is that it's told through the perspective of a six-year-old who doesn't have any context or understanding for the things going on around him. He is isolated and vulnerable and the movie makes you positively ache for him. Most of the film is spent watching him wander a forest, lost, hungry, hopeless and helpless, and feeling the unbearable tension of his suffering. Neither Angel nor I have kids or are particularly interested in having them, but my latent maternal instincts were activated by this movie and I wanted to reach in there and scoop up this poor child and rescue him. I would not advise watching this if themes of child endangerment will trigger you (although it all works out OK. Both the child and the dog make it through the film).

This lack of context is unsettling, and most of the film's horror is the fridge horror variety. You can't help but dig at the loose ends and try to make sense of it all, and you simply do not have enough information to solve the puzzle.

If anybody has watched this one, drop me a line. I want to talk about it. I especially want to talk about the final shot, where we see Aslak preparing for his brother's funeral. He gets dressed and climbs into his brother's bed, and as the camera pans away we see a big pool of blood under the bed. What was that about? What are your theories? It's kind of haunting me.

Movies with similar vibes:

Possum

Skinamarink

Night of the Hunter

[whereserpentswalk]

Reblog to curse your followers and mutuals.

[theveryworstthing]

The Witch's Granddaughters

local witches Mishthill Vine and her husband Joe found a very badly woven basket full of strange infants and wildflowers on their doorstep about 26 years ago. they did not have to read the note tucked in with the babies to figure out that their daughter had found a new way to give them migraines. 

everybody wants to be a monster-fucker, but nobody wants to deal with the results. 

Ashe and Arrow rarely see their parents but they don't really mind anymore. they used to go on little holiday adventures with them when their mom remembered they existed (or needed something from Maw and PopPop) but that was... A Lot. these days they're full grown witches plotting out adventures of their own while helping their grandparents keep the local magic bullshit under control. 

they're good kids. 

bonus:

[saturnisscreaming]

If you ever want to find me go to the forest and wait in the clearing that is oddly dark for the middle of the day, I'll be there eventually

[someverygaymoth]

CFK!AU Horrordust for the poll!! These idiots are so in love.

[llamagoddessofficial]

me @ fae Horror: “hi, i’m (my real name), but you can call me yours~ 😘”

Horror: killer. i need... help.

Killer: what is it, big guy?

Horror: the human... i like... told me their true name. but... then said "call me yours". what... do they mean? 'yours' is... a really weird nickname. 'yours' doesn't... sound like their name at all.

Killer:

Horror: why would... they tell me their real name... just to then... tell me a fake nickname?

Killer: they said "call me yours". say it to yourself, buddy. slowly.

Horror:

Killer: they were flirting.

Horror: they... oh. OH! FUCK!