Short Film – Weather Words (Colin Riley feat. Robert Macfarlane)

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)

adamscovellSeptember 3, 2018Leave a comment

Film, Folk Horror, Uncategorized

Quatermass And The Pit (1967) @ 50

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

adamscovellOctober 23, 2017May 27, 20181 Comment

Landscape, Literature, Psychogeography, Short Film, Uncategorized

Short Film – Greenteeth

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

adamscovellOctober 9, 2017October 9, 20171 Comment

Folk Horror, Landscape, Literature, Psychogeography, Short Film

Trailer – Green Teeth

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

adamscovellAugust 14, 2017Leave a comment

Folk Horror, Landscape, Literature, Uncategorized

Owls and Flowers: Alan Garner’s The Owl Service At 50

I cannot remember when 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 here. 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 … Continue reading Owls and Flowers: Alan Garner’s The Owl Service At 50

adamscovellAugust 7, 2017August 10, 20173 Comments

Film, Folk Horror, Television, Uncategorized

Folk Horror Curios

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

adamscovellMay 29, 2017May 29, 20173 Comments

Film, Folk Horror, Landscape, Television, Uncategorized

Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange

At the time of writing this, my book on Folk Horror is a few weeks away from being printed. By the time you read this, however, it should be available to buy. I’ve written about the detail of the book earlier when it was due to be published late last year. However, I wanted to get a few words down again now that it is … Continue reading Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange

adamscovellMay 8, 20172 Comments

Art, Folk Horror, Uncategorized

Responses: John Dee’s Obsidian Mirror

Late last year, I became obsessed with visiting a certain item in the British Museum. Deliberately choosing to work in or near Bloomsbury, I would often wander into the building in between working, making my way straight to one of the room’s (on the right of the building) with a confidence and determination that clearly unnerved my various tourist companions. I would stride into the … Continue reading Responses: John Dee’s Obsidian Mirror

adamscovellMarch 20, 20173 Comments

Art, Landscape, Uncategorized

Responses: Derek Jarman’s Landscape Paintings

I’ve written extensively about Derek Jarman’s short super-8 film, Journey To Avebury; one of his earliest experiments in film that channels so much of the genii loci of English landscapes, ubiquitous in the more interesting of English arts. His walk through the Wiltshire landscape after the intense stint of work on the sets for Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971) seems to have had a larger … Continue reading Responses: Derek Jarman’s Landscape Paintings

adamscovellFebruary 20, 20173 Comments

Television, Uncategorized

Nigel Kneale and Fascism

“Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.” – Kurt Vonnegut. Rather like J.G. Ballard, Nigel Kneale had a certain knack of preempting future social, technological and cultural trends. Kneale’s work is perhaps less appreciated than Ballard’s because the medium he predominantly worked in, television, is far and … Continue reading Nigel Kneale and Fascism

adamscovellJanuary 30, 2017January 30, 2017Leave a comment