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The Isle (2018) on Kanopy: Isolated Folk Horror

28 May

The folk horror of The Isle is eerily cold and disorienting, yet with an intriguing Celtic flair.

Movie poster for "The Isle" featuring a lone female figure in a white blouse and dark skirt standing partially obscured behind a large tree trunk in a dense, fog-filled forest covered in vivid green moss. The title "THE ISLE" is displayed in lettering at the bottom.

The story has been seen before, so for me it was more about how the world was built and how it contributed to the horror. The Scottish island, set in 1846, did the trick with its fog constantly seeping in and its unsettling cliffs sprouting just far enough apart to create the illusion that there was nowhere to hide.

The story follows three sailors who wash ashore after a shipwreck and find themselves among a tight-lipped handful of locals. Why would only four people live on an island? Where did everyone else go? The restraint in answering these questions is where the horror comes in, a chilling sense that maybe these sailors are being bamboozled and sidetracked simply because the residents want company. My recommendation: surrender to the atmosphere and let the overcast skies, the locals’ hesitancy, and the craggy rocks build the bleak suspense.

Beneath the ghostly surface (with a curse well-played, in my opinion), the movie is about the myths and fears permeating isolated communities that have limited outlets to construct a better reality and survive beyond their history. There’s a connection to the likes of The Wicker Man and The Lighthouse in this tradition, treating world-building as a character rather than just a backdrop. Fans of literary horror in that vein should be intrigued by The Isle.

The pacing, while quick to unsettle me in the beginning, tested me a bit in the middle, but it’s a deliberate ambiguity designed to leave certain answers unresolved, and I enjoy a film that takes pride in letting the world linger on you days after just as much as the characters.

Watch now on Kanopy (Free with your library card).

Comment below your thoughts once you’ve had a watch.

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Written by:
Sean Willey
Information and Digital Services Assistant

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Horror/Thriller Book Club April Pick: Memorials by Richard Chizmar

14 May
Book cover of Memorials by Richard Chizmar. The background shows a dark, wooded roadside, with a narrow road curving. In the foreground is a small roadside memorial with a wooden cross, a teddy bear, flowers, and lit candles. The title “memorials” appears in lowercase across the center, and Richard Chizmar is shown all capital letters at the top.

We’ve all seen them, those crosses along the roadside, perhaps a few dead flowers around them, or the painted white bicycle, and then we think, ‘How so very tragic. Someone’s life ended right here.’ That’s the thinking that propels Billy, Melody, and Troy to hop in their van to create a documentary for their American Studies project – who builds them and what they mean. But also, what secrets linger around that tarnished ground?

April’s read for the Hoboken Public Library’s Horror/Thriller book club was a slow-burn suburban horror with childhood nostalgia and cultish dread. Chizmar follows the Stephen King style: Quiet, character-driven, and with heart at the center of the dread. Memorials (in my humble opinion) is almost 500 pages straight out of King’s playbook.

Go into Memorials expecting the pacing and inching creepiness of The Blair Witch Project.

The first stop: Billy’s hometown, and the first memorial marks the spot of his parents’ death. The project is personal. They continue through the Appalachian backwoods in search of more stories.

Things do eventually get weird. Memorials show up with a strange symbol. Eyes are cast on the three children. Mysterious figures appear in video footage. The same people are seen miles apart, etc.

But the deeper they go, the more they don’t realize the strangeness they’re entering – a hitchhiker appears and disappears, locals treat them with uneasy hostility, and their van is tampered with.  

Do the local communities (or the three young students) know the web spinning around them?

Memorials is a step down from Chizmar’s Boogeyman series, but I did like (and I kept this in the back of my mind during the read) that I felt for Troy, Billy, and Melody. At times Memorials is too slow, but if you enjoy small-town horror, a good 80’s setting, slow-burn suspense, and find yourself getting a little uncomfortable itch every time you see a roadside memorial then Memorials could be a good choice for your next read.

Interested in the Horror/Thriller Book Club? Please email reference@hobokenlibrary.org, or register for our next meeting by searching under Events on our website.

Have you read Memorials? What did you think? Comment below.

You can reserve it in the BCCLS system here.

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Written by:
Sean Willey
Information and Digital Services Assistant

Tags: ,

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