October 15th – Conrad Aiken – ‘The Vampire’ (1916) – Read it here.
Follow the challenge here.

Another war trauma poem – I absolutely love this one. There’s so much going on here. I really think this is one of my favourite depictions of the war, and of the chaos and visceral sorrow, and of the horrors of it.

And darkness fell. And like a seaOf stumbling deaths we followed, weWho dared not stay behind.There all night long beneath a cloudWe rose and fell, we struck and bowed,We were the ploughman and the ploughed,Our eyes were red and blind.

I love this image of people following the basilisk-eyed pale woman, demanding their allegiance, and how they all die for her, and fight for her, and search frantically for her before ‘drenching sweet daisy fields with death’. The imagery is so evocative and powerful.

I think my favourite stanza might be the last one:

Until at dusk, from God knows where,
Beneath dark birds that filled the air,
Like one who did not hear or care,
Under a blood-red cloud,
An aged ploughman came alone
And drove his share through flesh and bone,
And turned them under to mould and stone;
All night long he ploughed.

Honestly, the aged ploughman stuck with me longer after reading the poem for the first time than the actual vampire did, but I do love the spectre of war, or war-ravaged Europe, or honour/glory perhaps, as a vampire-woman.

The imagery of the vampire woman definitely brings Jean Rollin to mind, though. Fascination, and Lèvres de sang / Lips of Blood, for sure. The allure of something seductive, beautiful, and dangerous, drawing people to their bloody doom is married in my mind to Rollin’s imagery.

(I’ve actually started a Letterboxd list for myself on vampires I enjoy in films, which is public, and here, if of interest.)

For this response, I thought I would recommend some of my favourite war metaphor horror and war/military aggression and oppression trauma movies that I’ve seen to date. It’s not always a vampire!

El páramo / The Wasteland (2021) dir. David Casademunt. Lucía and her son live isolated from society in a flat place where there’s practically no life. The small family unit formed by mother and son hardly ever receives visitors, and their goal is to lead a quiet existence. At first they succeed, but the appearance of a mysterious, violent creature that starts stalking their small house will put the relationship that unites them to the test.
~Saloum (2021) dir. Jean Luc Herbulot. Three mercenaries extracting a drug lord out of Guinea-Bissau are forced to hide in the mystical region of Saloum, Senegal.
~His House (2020) dir. Remi Weekes. After making a harrowing escape from war-torn South Sudan, a young refugee couple struggle to adjust to their new life in a small English town that has an unspeakable evil lurking beneath the surface. (Also on my Emigration Horror list).
~ The Lodgers (2017) dir. Brian O’Malley. (Adding this one as it’s an allegory for the Irish struggle for Independence and Home Rule set in the aftermath of WWI). 1920, rural Ireland. Anglo-Irish twins Rachel and Edward share a strange existence in their crumbling family estate. Each night, the property becomes the domain of a sinister presence (The Lodgers) which enforces three rules upon the twins: they must be in bed by midnight; they may not permit an outsider past the threshold; and if one attempts to escape, the life of the other is placed in jeopardy. When troubled war veteran Sean returns to the nearby village, he is immediately drawn to the mysterious Rachel, who in turn begins to break the rules set out by The Lodgers. The consequences pull Rachel into a deadly confrontation with her brother – and with the curse that haunts them.
~In My Mother’s Skin (2023) dir. Kenneth Dagatan. Stranded in the Philippines during World War II, a young girl finds that her duty to protect her dying mother is complicated by her misplaced trust in a beguiling, flesh-eating fairy.
~ La Llorona (2019) dir. Jayro Bustamante. Accused of the genocide of Mayan people, retired general Enrique is trapped in his mansion by massive protests. Abandoned by his staff, the indignant old man and his family must face the devastating truth of his actions and the growing sense that a wrathful supernatural force is targeting them for his crimes.
~Ilargi guztiak / All the Moons (2020) dir. Igor Legarreta. During the final throes of the last Carlist war, a little girl is rescued from an orphanage by a mysterious woman who lives deep inside the forest. (I am including this one because I think you can read it as the consequences of war for children, and how trauma in childhood can trap you forever in one state, until you find the key to releasing yourself. It’s not purely about this, this is only one [partial] reading of the film, but I think this can be read into it.)
~ Cold Skin (2017) dir. Xavier Gens. (At its heart, an anti-war film.) A young man who arrives at a remote island finds himself trapped in a battle for his life.
~زیر سایه / Under the Shadow (2016) dir. Babak Anvari. After Shideh’s building is hit by a missile during the Iran-Iraq War, a superstitious neighbor suggests that the missile was cursed and might be carrying malevolent Middle-Eastern spirits. She becomes convinced a supernatural force within the building is attempting to possess her daughter Dorsa, and she has no choice but to confront these forces if she is to save her daughter and herself.
~El laberinto del fauno / Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) dir. Guillermo del Toro. In post–civil war Spain, 10-year-old Ofelia moves with her pregnant mother to live under the control of her cruel stepfather. Drawn into a mysterious labyrinth, she meets a faun who reveals that she may be a lost princess from an underground kingdom. To return to her true father, she must complete a series of surreal and perilous tasks that blur the line between reality and fantasy.
~El espinazo del diablo / The Devil’s Backbone (2001) dir. Guillermo del Toro. Spain, 1939. In the last days of the Spanish Civil War, the young Carlos arrives at the Santa Lucía orphanage, where he will make friends and enemies as he follows the quiet footsteps of a mysterious presence eager for revenge.
~불가사리 / Pulgasari (1985) dirs. Shin Sang-ok, Chong Gon Jo. In feudal Korea, a group of starving villagers grow weary of the orders handed down to them by their controlling king and set out to use a deadly monster under their control to push his armies back.