Lee Allen's Blog - Posts Tagged "robert-wynne-simmons"

Blood on Satan's Claw: or, The Devil's Skin by Robert Wynne-Simmons

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A bewitching folktale of terror.

The discovery of a skull buried in a field begins the horror that befalls the rural community of Chapel Folding.

The children begin to act strangely, their childish games and squabbles developing a more sinister nature, a cult forming around the girl who holds a vicious claw.

Now a disease is spreading throughout the village, visible by the fur growing on the skin. Evil, malignant and contagious, has taken root, the idyllic countryside blighted and cursed in a war for the soul.

'Blood on Satan's Claw; or, The Devil's Skin' is the novelisation of the 1971 film 'The Blood on Satan's Claw', a story of supernatural horror, devil worship, demonic possession and religious mania, and one of the forebears of the folk horror sub-genre. Written by Robert Wynne-Simmons, who wrote the original screenplay and co-wrote the reworked version alongside director Piers Haggard, the novel combines a vivid depiction of its rural setting and its inhabitants with slow-burning, ominous plotting to produce a vision of nightmarish, vintage horror.

Set in the early 18th century, this is a time when the beliefs and customs of folklore and old Paganism still held firm and Christian fears of witchcraft and Satanism were at the height of hysteria, beliefs combining and conflicting, with the English Civil War and England's witch trials still in living memory. Exploring the epidemic qualities of terror and hysteria, which we've witnessed so often throughout history and continue to this day, Wynne-Simmons crafts an atmospheric narrative of compelling and creeping dread.

Following a dizzying amount of characters, with the switch between narratives sometimes feeling a little disjointed, it has the feel of a story once told orally, transcribed on to the page from a tale around the campfire. At its centre is teenager Angel, who, under the influence of the devil, becomes sorceress and seductress, a pawn in his plan to return to the realm of flesh and bone. Meanwhile, surrounding the cult building around her are those who hope to combat the evil, yet many may fall before it is thwarted, as the superstition and horror mounts to a final crusading attempt to prevent Satan setting foot upon the earth.

A folk horror classic, 'Blood on Satan's Claw' creeps beneath the skin to explore the influence of superstition and the supernatural on the human mind.



View all my reviews
Follow me on Facebook
Follow me on Instagram
Follow me on Threads
Follow me on Twitter