Tilbury

Working through a Severin boxset of "folk horror" films called "All These Haunts Be Ours". Brilliant set, filled with mad films like this. It takes an old Icelandic folk monster tale and transplants it to WWII Iceland while British and US troops are occupying, and it largely works. It's very weird, occasionally surreal, and quite compelling. MartinTeller gave this 87; I miss his reviews - would have been good to read his thoughts on this. I think he's doing the same boxset. Anyway, I liked this.

A crazily fascinating and recursive text that I would argue should be seen last in any syllabus, because for each awesome element there’s something that should give deliberate pause and weight. There’s a sexual energy in nearly every frame that makes you wonder what made it in Icelandic TV back then, and I got strong Fire Walk With Me overtones. Then there’s definite masculinity and national identity insecurities that bleed into clearly anti-Semitic territory. Puke Butter With Me.

So, uh, am I the only one who noticed the monster is a hook-nosed beast who distributes poisoned candy to children and also a character who is literally a Nazi explicitly says it's a Jewish plot and then the witch has a wall of menorahs in her apartment? Looking at other online reviews only saw one other person notice this and def makes me wonder if I'm just being too sensitive but, I dunno, the film literally says the monster is a Jew. But yeah, very weird one.