Hollow - Adam dials in his verdict

The Found-Footage film is a small but burgeoning sub-genre of horror cinema, the most famous being the lower-than-low budget The Blair Witch Project which took the world by storm back in 1999. Other films have followed in its path, some adding successfully to the genre; the post 9/11 Manhattan dinosaur disaster movie Cloverfield (2008) & Spanish zombie film with a twist [REC] (2007) being two of the most prominent to date.

Cannibal Holocaust (1980) is generally accepted as being the first to utilise ‘Found-Footage’, an odd coupling between 1970s ‘snuff movie’ urban legends & the home video camera (an initial premise best exploited in 1993’s Man Bites Dog). But it wasn’t until the influential but little known The Last Broadcast (1998) & the ensuing worldwide interest resulting from Blair Witch that the ‘Found Footage’ film as a genre really began to take off. These range from the sublime but diminishing creeps of The Paranormal Activity series (2007 - present) & the deft daftness of Norway’s Trolljegeren (2010), to a raft of predictable demonic possession/exorcism-gone-wrong films like The Last Exorcism (2010) & The Devil Inside (2012).

British additions to the genre are scarce to the point of non-existence, which seems at odds with the country’s reputation for being one of the most haunted in the world. Michael Axelgaard and Matthew Holt’s Hollow (2012) attempts to redress this, with a film that tries valiantly but ultimately fails to escape from the long dark shadows of its more successful predecessors. Beginning with a Police evidence caption (a technique first seen in Cloverfield ) from the fictitious ‘East Anglia’ force, Hollow follows a small party of fairly unlikeable young people heading into the wilds of Suffolk for a weekend visit to a dead relative’s cottage. Fortunately for us, one of their number has seen fit to bring along his video camera to record this trip to the English countryside. So far, so clichéd.

Eerie Anglia present - Unvisited Vastness from Eerie Anglia on Vimeo.

(Caveat - there's a lot of black screen in this video)

A piece first performed at English Heretic's AGM 2012

Glacial Isostatic Rebound

Glacial Isostatic Rebound by Randy Ortiz

Visits Randy Ortiz's site to scroll through the glacial isostatic rebound.

Films Were Made

Films Were Made
 
Volume 1 ‘The Region at Work’

A look at films and film makers in the East of England 1896-1996

with chapters on
Industry, Farming, The Coast, Transport, Wartime, & Regional Television

Since 1896 people have operated motion picture film cameras in the East of England recording and making films in the counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Only a fraction of the films made have survived, but those that have show us what life was like, what film makers were making, and what we were watching and doing. These may be local films, home movies, cinema films, television films, educational films, publicity films etc. This book looks at some of these films and the people behind them, and is based on films preserved in the East Anglian Film Archive. This is a unique and wonderful research collection of material reflecting local history in the form of moving images of the past. This is Volume 1 entitled “The Region at Work” of a two part work by David Cleveland, founder of the East Anglian Film Archive in 1976 – the first regional motion picture film archive in the country. The Archive is owned and run by the University of East Anglia.

Hardback A4 size, 282 pages, 422 illustrations (28 of which are in colour)

Price £27

Available upon receipt of cheque for £30 from
David Cleveland
48 High Street
Manningtree Essex C011 1AJ

We cannot restore or repair everything that is lost

1953 Flooding in Essex

The Prime Minister (Mr. Winston Churchill):
 

I beg to move, That this House desires to record its deep sympathy with the Governments and peoples of the Netherlands and Belgium in the personal suffering and material loss inflicted on them by the unprecedented violence of the sea on the night of 31st January to 1st February, 1953, and its approval of the practical measures of assistance which have been extended by Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom; and further offers warm thanks on behalf of the people of the United Kingdom for the spontaneous generosity of friendly nations within and without the Commonwealth which has been freely proffered for the relief of the hardship and loss suffered by so many of Her Majesty's subjects on that occasion; And that this House, deeply moved by the calamity which befell this country on the same night, records its sympathy with all those who suffered bereavement, injury or material loss by tempest or flood; takes note of the declared intention of Her Majesty's Government to treat the catastrophe on a national basis; welcomes the welfare measures to mitigate suffering and distress and the measures to repair the damaged sea defences which were put in hand; acknowledges with gratitude the unremitting labours, during and since the disaster, of local and statutory authorities, police forces, voluntary organisations, and civilian workers, including voluntary workers; pays tribute to the magnificent work done by members of Her Majesty's Forces and the Forces of her Allies; and pledges its support in seeking the solution to the problems left by the disaster, many of which are recognised to be of a long-term character. The shock felt by the whole nation on hearing, for the first time, of the great storm which swept over the North Sea coasts during the night of 31st January has been followed, as the toll of tragedy and devastation has been counted, by a surge of deep concern and sympathy for all those who suffered. It is that sympathy and concern, especially for the relatives of those who died, which we wish to put on record today. We are resolved that the nation shall do everything within its power to make good the distress which this sudden disaster has brought to so many thousands of our fellow countrymen. We cannot restore or repair everything that is lost, but we shall seek to combine the generosity of the individual and the resources of the State so as to replace as best we may the homes and the furnishings which the seas by their invasion have destroyed.

Great as our own afflictions have been, the thoughts of the British Empire turned throughout these days to our neighbours in the Low Countries, whose ordeal was far harder than our own. I am indeed glad that our Armed Forces were able to lend their help to the people of the Netherlands, whose courage and resolution have again proved worthy of their famous past. We and they, too, have been encouraged and sustained by the generous and spontaneous offers of help which have poured in upon us from overseas. They have not only come from countries in our own Commonwealth and Empire, which have never failed us in our hour of need, but from peoples and Governments of many other lands.

Finally, we remember with gratitude and admiration the many thousands who worked day and night to bring relief to those in danger and distress—the Armed Forces of the Crown, the police, the local authorities, the Red Cross and St. John, the Civil Defence organisations, mustering at once at the sound of the alarm, the Women's Voluntary Services, most effective and intimate, the Salvation Army and the Church Army, and all the magnificent voluntary organisations which we never called upon in vain.

Then there are a vast number of unknown, but not less honourable, individuals who have shown themselves willing to prove that they are good neighbours in the hour of need, and who will unite or are capable of uniting effectively in good planning to prevent a renewed disaster. All engaged in this showed once again in various ways the quality and strength of our civilisation.

from the House of Commons debate on 19th February 1953, in Hansard vol 511 cc1456-580

Women threw down banks and works, and burned instruments and tools

The Star Chamber (from a drawing taken in 1836) from Old and New London Vol. II (1881) by Edward Walford

"that diverse were set on work by Sir Cornelius Vermuyden to make trenches for the draining, that 300 persons came to the workmen, and Harrison, Gibson and Moody threatened to kill the workmen: and Brown, Stockwell, and William Scott told them if they would leave their work that would appease the multitude; or else they might go on at their peril: that labourers were hurt; 8 wheelbarrows, 180 deal boards, planks, many shovels, spades, pickaxes, and other materials and instruments were burnt. That one Mr Hawthorne was thrown into the river, and kept in with poles a great while; that they cried out, "Drown him! Kill him! Break his arms of legs!" That James Moody, Harrison, Henry Scott, and Edward Gibson did cry out, "Throw him into the river! Break his arms and legs!" Others were beaten with dry blows, Hawthorne's face was hoodwinked with a cloak or coat, and so cast into the river, and Richard Scott and others laid hands on him, and struck and beat him; but bid them not to duck him over head least he should be drowned, but rather to break his arms or his legs, and so let him go; and some of the rioters poured water in at the necks of some of the workmen; and one run at the deponent with a drawn knife and cut his clothes, and some cried out, "Cut his throat! Break his legs!" and made them swear never to come there again. They set up a gallows and threaten to hang such of Sir Cornelius Vermuyden's men as would come thither again. The women assembled themselves to the number of 200 in 1629 diverse days and times, and threw down banks and works, and burned instruments and tools."

from Reports of Cases in the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission (1886) edited by S. R . Gardiner