HALLOWE'EN : MOSS AND SHADOWS

Much of the contemporary visual 
language of the supernatural comes from cinema.

  Countless Demeters have loosed their cargo on the shores of our imaginations in recent years and as a result Hallowe'en is infused with suburban dread; the glint of metal under streetlights,neighborhoods 
under lockdown, houses not quite big enough to hide in. 

Fears of the Other, traceable back to the Eisenhower years side with  techno savvy folk devils 
of northern Europe and Japan.  

These are just the ripples on the surface of a deeper, shared vocabulary; a dark pool of  imagery to draw from in order to confront and deflect fear. For all their current prominence, cinema, tv and netflix are newcomers. What floats on the surface is only the most recent manifestation of what occupies the depths. 

Ben Wheatley has begun the temporal re-wilding of Brit horror by reintroducing  the  landscape  to the cast-list. For the suburban lawns of John Carpenter's USA, read Barrett Estates and Fields In England. The endless  forests of Witchfinder General which seemed to stretch from the 16^th century to the early 1970's (actually M.O.D. Land at the time of filming) are now  Reservations recast and ripe for the horror of boredom, routine and the managed visitor experience.

Ulverstons' Candlelit Walk began 7 years ago as a slow and gentle 
flicker down the length of a river. 
Established by the unfettered and much missed Geoff Dellow, (street musician, potter, cobble repairer), the first were  redolent of coffin walks and thick with the musk of moss and leafmould. Flood defence work and increasing numbers led to a move to a larger and less confining setting. (photo:Lyndsay Ward)

It's a community effort: there's a committee, a roster of performers, artists and volunteers that run the making sessions, raise funds, do the books, put the event up and take it down. Undeniably something has been lost since the move, but a lot has been retained and built on; the moss has been allowed to grow. The trail of candles and flares is still best taken slowly; smoke doubles as marsh gas and the trees hang with homemade charms, shadowscreens, eyes (photo: Iain Raven) and phosphorescent fruit and veg.
(photo:Lindsay Ward) 

The scale of the event is important. Adults turn up in elaborate home made costume;  teenagers spin off to enact their own timeless rituals;  smaller kids who last year backed away when faced with some foul apparition now announce "it's just a bloke" and reach out for confirmation, inching further forward each year. 

I usually make some a/v; for the sake of continuity there's usually the sounds and images of running water and unspecified nighttime gatherings. This year a volunteer cast met in the woods and at other familiar sites. Under  Hammer and Tigon greenery and grey skies, we placed daemon children and Silent Observers by the river that runs along the original route. A macabre domestic scene with echoes of Beatrix Potter played out under low ancient ceilings. 

For the Walk, we project the results onto an open-air screen hung against a wall of ivy. An eldritch usherette points to seats and offers dubious snacks. Slowly, the focus of the evening changes from the procession into a series of clusters around storytellers, a clairvoyant, musicians, an aerialist, installations, stalls and tableaux. Our seats fill and others watch from around an Arbor where vinyl DJ Ste Tyson  fuses tweedy BBC cabbage-stabbing SFX with  clammy fogbank synths.