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Thursday, October 16, 2014

70s British 'Cautionary' Children's Horror Programming made ours PALE


If you don't know SCARFOLK -- check it out. There's nothing I can add, because they have magick psionic tendrils that vibrate like spider web strands when anyone dares quote or discuss the town beyong cautious, brief, respectful praise. I will tell you that they're sooo British that their newly released book 'Discovering Scarfolk' isn't even available in the U.S., you have to go to Amazon UK and deal with all that currency exchange and overseas shipping.

BUT - we can see, at last a lot of the origins of the amazingly specific and haunting motifs at work, namely scary 70s British TV and Board of Education shorts aimed at children, both cautionary, imaginative and in general vibing off the local richness of Stonehenge, druids, human sacrifice, and psychedelics.

One show that apparently scared every kid who saw it is called CHILDREN OF THE STONES:


Also, check out 'The Hauntological Society" for summaries and capsules of old British shows, like A Come Andromeda.

And the magazine The Unexplained -- and to think of all the time I wasted reading Ranger Rick!! Would love to find these somewhere.

Lastly, a British Public Information film called The Finishing Line.


And to think what we missed by having only one public-funded TV channel and prudish corporate-driven censorship that forced everything into treacly mush!

Here's an interview with Scarfolk writer Richard Littler discussing these and other horrors you'll want to unearth, if you're daft.

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