Any form of regional genre film should be first in the queue for restoration and rediscovery. It’s a hardline motive that should be baked into national film culture. So many important visual, social, personal and, of course, regional affectations are crystallized in these movies that their value is close to priceless. As Indiana Jones says, “It belongs in a museum!” The dialects and humour of these pieces of art being trapped in amber then shelved to mould is one of our biggest crimes as modern filmlovers. Especially films like Gwaed ar y Sêr (Wil Aaron, 1975), a Welsh-Language horror/dark comedy, shot in preserved county Gwynedd and budgeted to £6,000, funded by the Welsh Film Board. Obscurity doesnt come much greater and its execution doesn’t come much funnier (and ironic) to how outsiders are perceived and dealt with by a town’s natives.
In the fictional town of Gruglon, shot beautifully chilly and pastoral, crowned novemberishly in fog and hill, the community routinely has children’s choir shows and recitals in the town hall, and to boost the area’s stature and dignity, they’re bringing in Welsh celebrities to take part in a huge county variety show. Featuring real life celebrities such as folk singer Dafydd Iwan, radio DJ Hywel Gwynfryn and rugby kicker Barry John in the lineup, it’s a cause for excitement and gossip. What transpires, fairly rapidly, is a murder mystery as, one-by-one, the line-up begins to be murdered by a mysterious and malevolent set of pranks and booby traps. Led by Shadrach, the conductor of the children’s choir, the dynamic changes across power lines as the children of Gruglon become less angelic and more, to quote Chief Inspector Bevan, “Little Devils!”
It’s powerfully interesting to see how celebrity is metabolized in a small town. For the adults, it’s a time to be excited. For the kids (as quietly boorish but playful as they seem), it’s seen as the way to steal their spotlight. Why should the men from the radio and TV impress our town more than us? Let’s re-enact their death at lunchtime, “Playing on the eternal beach of childhood,” states the rector. Gilded into this 57-minute exploitation black-comedy are themes of rural religion as seen through serpentry and purity, the blinkered lens of youthful innocence, mine life hangover and town-life rumour. Totems of Welsh life, projected through the eye of sinister horror’s needle.
It’s also a gas, especially at this time – I cannot think what it would’ve been like to be in mid-70s Wales and see Barry John blown up by a football filled with dynamite or see children your age, speaking Welsh tongue, getting to enact some sort of wickedly fun and punitive revenge on adults. As for things like the police, who feel like they’ve been airlifted from another film into this one, have huge American affectations such as their own theme tune and affectionately have jovial nicknames, or Eleanor “Telynores” Dwyryd overfeeding a police officer with cake, the whole thing feels like an abstract transmission from a valley that was sent decades ago, and only until now have our strangest receivers been powerful enough to decode it.
As the film ends and your signal fades, the children’s voices rings out in their final chorus onstage. Angelic, pure, serene. An almost alternative dimension to where they were during the events, attentions once more angled towards them in their glory as they sing:
“Do not reject me, good Jesus.“
Er gwaetha pawb a phopeth
Ry’n ni yma o hyd
The Reptile House
Gwaed Ar Y Sêr premieres for the first time with English subtitles at Weird Weekend III, in a double bill with O’r Ddaear Hen, 12:00 on Sunday 30.10.22, part of the Outwith strand. Get your tickets here.
The Reptile House is the alias of Findlay, which is the nickname of the author himself. A banner under which all collective writing, art, submissions and soon-to-be-screenings is nestled. Reflected in the dark terraces of The Reptile House is cinematic pain and oscillations coming from old Adidas brochures. Always open to collaboration. @antibloom