Gwaed Ar Y Sêr

Wales has always been the poor man of the UK when it comes to films made in its native language, and although that’s finally starting to change thanks to high profile successes like The Feast, it’s only as a result of decades of effort. In situations like this, there is often a focus on trying to win support by showing films deemed to be highly artistic or otherwise wary, so genre fare, despite its popularity with viewers, tends to struggle. In 1975, however, the Welsh Film Board was persuaded to take a gamble on a little horror film with a lot of ambition, and Gwaed Ar Y Sêr was born.

The years have not been kind to this film and the opening scenes, shot at night, are quite hard to follow due to visual noise, but bear with it – this isn’t anything like as much of a problem later on. In its own way, it adds an element of mystery to a film which has close ties to the folk horror tradition. This is a tale whose principal character – an anti-hero of sorts – is disturbed elderly outcast Shadrach (Gray Evans), who leads a gang of possibly-cursed schoolchildren in a familiar folk horror quest: getting rid of outsiders. In this case, though, the outsiders are not necessarily from very far away. Instead, they are resented for their status, for a fame which automatically places them at odds with the children and their modest ambition to get some real attention.

The film sets out its stall early on with the murder of a local radio DJ, who is sent a parcel containing a deadly snake (one assumes that the killers had exhausted all other options). There isn’t much gore but there’s lots of energy to the scene, and the shock effect will have been more pronounced for local viewers at the time given that this is real life presenter Hywel Gwynfryn, playing himself. Although the other killings don’t quite live up to this, they offered Welsh viewers of the time the chance to see a number of other real life celebrities dispatched. There’s a particularly entertaining one involving a footballer, whilst a harpist falls prey to a nicely thought-out scheme which fails to deliver proper thrills only because there is, basically, no special effects budget.

In the meantime, life goes on. A couple of detectives – one of them complete with deerstalker – wander around pursuing leads without much success. The local vicar rides his bicycle with cultivated primness around centuried stone cottages and roughcast modern edifices. Birds twitter loudly in the trees. The children are taken on a trip to the local quarrying museum (many people who grew up in the UK will remember similar experiences) where they are shown a series of pieces of machinery which, in this context, one can imagine being put to very unpleasant purposes.

Making do with very small scale blood effects and the odd dash of green paint, the film is unlikely to make much of an impression (beyond the comedic) on a modern horror audience, but it has survived thanks in part to a reputation for terror with few equals. The reason for this is the stuff of local legend. With children from Llanrug in Arfon playing the roles of Shadrach’s minions, the entire school was allowed to go and see the result – many of them at a very young age, with no previous experience of watching horror. There are few forms of promotion more powerful than word of mouth stemming from traumatised youngsters determined to inspire the envy of others.

These days, viewers are more likely to be distressed by the film’s assorted misogynistic and racist stereotypes, though they are not particularly bad in the context of the era, and the whole thing is so daft that it’s difficult to take any aspect of it to heart. Its appeal is now primarily as a curiosity piece, but for all its flaws, it’s also a testament to the grassroots efforts which would finally put Wales on the cinematic map.