Local Haunts was released at the end of March by Influx Press, and has been on sale for around two months at the time of writing. I’ve resisted talking more about it on here so far, largely because I wanted to see what the general reaction was rather than pre-empting it. Thankfully, after having done a number of events in which the response has been … Continue reading Local Haunts (Influx Press, 2025)
Having already written about the Weather Words film for Caught By The River (link here), I won’t add much more about the project. For more specific details, read that piece. It’s the first and probably only film project of mine in 2018, partly due to funding problems and partly due to other big projects taking time (finishing my PhD, editing first novel, drafting second, selling … Continue reading Short Film – Weather Words (Colin Riley feat. Robert Macfarlane)
On a rather muddled day in early autumn, I decided to visit M.R. James. In recent years, I’ve become interested in the places that James frequented, usually because they have had clear and profound effects upon his ghost stories. Visiting them with a sense of curiosity seems to invert the man’s clichés back upon him; walking in search of the known as opposed to the … Continue reading Wanders: M.R. James’ Grave
This November sees the 50th anniversary of one of Hammer Studios’ strongest and most complex films: Roy Ward Baker’s Nigel Kneale adaptation, Quatermass And The Pit (1967). Sometimes known under the title of Five Million Years To Earth, the film takes Kneale’s BBC script from the original broadcast serial and turns it into something far more unnerving than the other films produced by the studio in … Continue reading Quatermass And The Pit (1967) @ 50
Note – Since the publication of this article, a publisher of Aickman’s has been in touch with more details surrounding the photographs. They were taken by his friend Jean Richardson on a number trips taking place in the mid 1970s and not on one singular trip (as Aickman’s limited wardrobe falsely suggests). The stone is King Doniert’s Stone in Cornwall whilst the coastline with the … Continue reading Responses: Robert Aickman’s Holiday Photos
Above is Greenteeth, my film adaptation of the short story by Gary Budden which can be read in his upcoming volume of short stories. It is currently up for a fantasy award and follows the pressures on a young woman in a struggling part of north London whose social worries begin manifest in more folkloric ways through the legend of Jenny Greenteeth. The film came … Continue reading Short Film – Greenteeth
Above is the trailer for my only narrative film this year, Green Teeth. There has been a huge gap in my film projects recently, caused by writing a second book and having a huge chunk of time taken up with a project that fell through late last year. Green Teeth as a project came along quite by chance when adventuring on several walks with the … Continue reading Trailer – Green Teeth
I cannot remember when exactly I first read Alan Garner’s The Owl Service (1967). Like its inspiration, The Mabinogion, or the Stone of Gronw that sits at the centre of its mystery, it seems to have always been there. It’s an unusual feeling because the novel is not particularly old by standards of literature – it turns fifty on the 21st of August – and yet it feels old. It may … Continue reading Owls and Flowers: Alan Garner’s The Owl Service At 50
As typical when finishing a book that attempts to build a canon, as I have tried to do with Folk Horror, the signalling of its publishing means a whole host of new potential examples surface and come to light. Though there were things in the Folk Horror book that I simply left out by sheer chance – Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz (2007) being a key … Continue reading Folk Horror Curios
Celluloid Wicker Man 