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A review by amusedmuse
Blood on Satan's Claw: or, The Devil's Skin by Robert Wynne-Simmons
3.0
"Blood on Satan's Claw: or, The Devil's Skin" is the novelization of the 1971 landmark British folk horror film of the same name, written by its original screenwriter. The novel is narratively better, or at least clearer. The film, as it should be, is more showing than telling and in the process certain plot points are harder to grasp. The violence, especially the scene where a young woman is raped and murdered, is easier to ingest on the printed page than film, but never the less may make this book a work to be avoided for some.
The story and its themes are stereotypical binary folklore: women are both more mystical and thus more prone to evil or darkness; men represent civilization, rational thinking and authority; Christianity must prevail against an ancient pre-Christian evil. It's still a weird and engaging story, just rooted in traditional tropes.
As with the film, there's no good reason for why the devil cult is allowed to grow so out of hand. The narrative justification does not make sense, nor does the true motivation for why the person most capable of stopping it choses not to. It's not about punishing the village or setting an example, it's just Patriarchal stubbornness about how things should be done. It's akin to the part in "Dracula" where Van Helsing and the menfolk philosophize in another building, after having put Mina to bed swathed in garlic, instead of actively watching for Dracula: they assume their authority is true, extends over all things, and will go unquestioned. And they are wrong; the supernatural doesn't give a pair of dingo's kidneys what these authoritarian men think is the proper way things should proceed. I suppose this only reinforces the binary themes of the work instead of illustrating that a binary approach to the world is shortsighted and foolish.
The story and its themes are stereotypical binary folklore: women are both more mystical and thus more prone to evil or darkness; men represent civilization, rational thinking and authority; Christianity must prevail against an ancient pre-Christian evil. It's still a weird and engaging story, just rooted in traditional tropes.
As with the film, there's no good reason for why the devil cult is allowed to grow so out of hand. The narrative justification does not make sense, nor does the true motivation for why the person most capable of stopping it choses not to. It's not about punishing the village or setting an example, it's just Patriarchal stubbornness about how things should be done. It's akin to the part in "Dracula" where Van Helsing and the menfolk philosophize in another building, after having put Mina to bed swathed in garlic, instead of actively watching for Dracula: they assume their authority is true, extends over all things, and will go unquestioned. And they are wrong; the supernatural doesn't give a pair of dingo's kidneys what these authoritarian men think is the proper way things should proceed. I suppose this only reinforces the binary themes of the work instead of illustrating that a binary approach to the world is shortsighted and foolish.