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The Witches of Pendle Hill Lancashire – The UK Blair Witch?

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The Blair Witch Project (1999) to some was no more than a few youngsters running around the woods at night while filming each other, screaming and blowing nose bubbles on camera.

But to me (someone who has an overactive imagination) it was much more. Yes it was low budget and yes you didn’t get to see everything that you wanted to but, you have to put yourself in their shoes and think what it would be like to have the events that took place happen to you. Read more here

Heather - The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Heather from The Blair Witch Project (1999) looking a bit worse for wear. Credit DigitalSpy.com

The recent release of Blair Witch (2016) wasn’t much different and I have read other critics name it a carbon copy of the first movie.

They are mere fools. The sequel follows James Donahue the now, all grown up brother of Heather (snot bubble from the first movie) desperate to find the truth of what happened to his beloved sister. Its not a huge story line, but it didn’t need to be, as what this movie offered was a chance to follow James on his journey of discovery and try and piece together the evidence.

Who, or what is the the Blair Witch? When the same occurrences start to appear to James as they did to his sister, it wasn’t because the director was using the same old scares tactics, but it was to tell us that James was on the right tracks.

I don’t want to spoil it too much for you but you get a glimpse of the witch and it is a scary as fuck.

But if you think the one witch mofo is scary how about twelve of them?  The UK is home to some of the richest witching history the world has to offer, so it didn’t take long when I decided to see what creepy shit we had closer to home.  Ladies and Gents I give your the Witches of Pendle Hill.

Sighting of a Witch at Pendle Hill

Sighting of a Witch at Pendle Hill. Credit to Mirror.co.uk

The Witches of Pendle Hill were mostly from of two families the Demdike and Chattox and were believed to be competing against one and other for the profits brought in by healing, begging and extortion. During the 17th century they were trialled for the murder of ten people using witch craft. Ten of the witches were hung and two died in prison before the trial.

Witch Hanging

This was one of the best documented witch trials of the 17th century and the stories have therefore been told through the generations. The witches stories have left such a mark on the Pendle villages that to this day some locals do not like to talk about it.

For years now the Pendle woods at the base of the hills have been a number one destination for Halloween and many will sit on the hill at night hoping to encounter the spirits of the dead.

They held televised seance where the medium claims he did contact one of the very witches and was told that she and the others witches with her did not appreciate the media crews presents.

grave encounters

Credit: Grave Encounters

This started to sound like to story of a movie to me so I decided to dig a little deeper. I found countless statement from people that have experienced ungodly encounters linked to the coven.

Reports of people being visited, struck and even strangled by hands that were not there. Unfortunately I at iHorror was not the first to see a story in the cases and the BBC beat me to the punch. Damn, im sure I could have squeezed some budget out of the editor for a field trip! 

Here’s the Documentary, Enjoy. Oh, and if you are wondering why I didn’t mention  Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000), its because I would rather pretend it didn’t happen.

Have you been to the Pendle hills and do you have any stories to share? Comment below.

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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