It’s been a while since our last Primal Stream, what with the holidays, horrifyingly magical (or magically horrifying) weather events, and the ongoing effects of the pandemic — so this week is all about catching up with some of the streaming titles that might have slipped by lately.
First and foremost, 2021’s most essential physical media offering is also 2022’s mother lode in the streaming realm, as several of the features from Severin Films’ superb All the Haunts Be Ours folk-horror box set are now streaming on Shudder. It’s a joyous selection of films, including Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, a documentary on the history of folk horror by Kier-La Janisse (House of Psychotic Women) that won the Graveyard Shift jury award at the 2021 Nashville Film Festival. Janisse’s doc is a good place to start with the genre, and at three hours, it is substantial enough to ground any viewer in the particulars of the subject. Other films from the box set that are streaming in beautiful new HD scans on Shudder include Clearcut, Alison’s Birthday, the vampire butterfly Leptirica and the title of most interest to fans of independent cinema in the early ’80s — Avery Crounse’s Eyes of Fire.
A story of Revolutionary War-era America in territories before they were saddled with white-people names, Eyes of Fire follows renegade preacher Will Smythe, who takes his sect and vamooses down the river after the larger village congregation decides they’re tired of his shameless adultery. Smythe and his crew of followers — including several families, the eventual voice of one of the Animaniacs and an Irish Witchgirl Womanchild named Leah who understands the ways of magic even as the rest of the erstwhile cult are beginning to wonder why — all find themselves in a section of the woods shunned by Natives. There’s something in the land, in the trees. And despite the varied assortment of bad omens they encounter in this process, the Rev. Smythe gets a case of Manifest Destiny and things get real messy, with magic spells and muddy nudity and a truly spectacular bog witch. It’s a landmark of independent film, thankfully rescued from VHS/LaserDisc oblivion with a sterling 4K restoration, as well as (on the Blu-ray) Crounse’s first cut of the film, Crying Blue Sky, which runs about 23 minutes longer and really gives a much more textured sense of the settlement that Smythe and his band flee. It’s a work of vision and unsettling imagination.
Agnes via Amazon Prime Video, others
A beautiful and somewhat grimy story about the aftermath of possession stories that horror films tend not to get into, the latest film from Oklahoma auteur Mickey Reece (Mickey Reece’s Alien, Climate of the Hunter, The Arrows of Outrageous Fortune) is both a satisfying genre film and a perceptive character study that gets into unexpected emotional places. Reece always finds something unexpected in the human condition, and anyone looking for an unexpected take on a concept they might think is played out should give Agnes a try. As an added bonus, in addition to an unconventional nose surgery, this film features quite an effective performance from Sean Gunn as a stand-up comic (and a cameo from Nashville’s own Thashana McQuiston). This film also makes for a great companion piece with Hans-Christian Schmid’s 2006 film Requiem.
Depeche Mode 101 via Apple TV+ and on Blu-ray
Finally out on Blu-ray (and streamable in an HD version), the greatest music documentary of the ’80s is now something within the reach of even casual viewers. This 1989 doc comes to us from D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus and David Dawkins, as well as much of the “bus kid” material that was shot by Joel DeMott and Jeff Kreines — though I can’t really get into their documentary Seventeen right now, just know that it’s the best documentary ever made about America. Whatever your thoughts on Depeche Mode as a band, this is a remarkable touchstone into an era that simultaneously feels like part of modern times but that also feels a lifetime away. The concert footage is great (including the infamous show at Nashville’s long-lost Starwood Amphitheatre that was so tragically underattended that no A-list synth-pop band would play Nashville for decades), and it’s interesting to also see the humanizing touch brought to the band and their British keyboardy ways. (It’s a delight seeing primary songwriter Martin Gore and living mystery Andy Fletcher tooling around Music Row circa 1988, and the classic black-and-white “91 Rock” logo pops up on T-shirts in a couple of scenes.) The big innovation for this film was combining the concert footage and band interviews with a bus of Depeche Mode fans, following the band during the last week of the Tour for the Masses, leading up to the 101st show of the tour at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. That show, without a drummer or guitarist, sold more than 60,000 tickets, and it’s an amazing experience for any fan of music — or anyone who just wants to learn what the process of being a synth-pop artist entails.
