One of the only things I liked about living in Ottawa was the strong film community. Every other week there seemed to be a film festival or independent screenings of some sort. Strangely, one of my favourite venues was the Ottawa Public Library. It was in that small basement theatre that I experienced some of my most rewarding cinematic experiences.

One of those occurances was a screening of The Goblin Man of Norway, with director Howard Byrackk in attendance, and shown as part of a tribute to The World Film Society, held in cooperation with The Norwegian Film Committee. I’m usually not one for documentaries, but an early experience with The Legend of Boggy Creek ingrained in me a love for all things cryptozoological and pseudo-cryptozoological.

The Goblin Man of Norway revolves around the discovery of technology dating before recorded history, and the attempt by some scholars to link this artifact to creatures of Myth. As the film progresses and the study of the creature turns from the theoretical to the practical, this initial excitement is tempered by, and eventually replaced in whole with barely suspressed fear and paranoia. As one participant extols, “It reinforces the notion that what has been dismissed as mere story may indeed be a record of the actual.” Taken at face value, this idea of cyclic history could be considered to be a positive step toward understanding our own nature through the uncovering of the distant past. However, upon further reflection such considerations may be seen as a double-edged sword. Some legends may be better off buried and half-remembered.

While I had heard good things about Byrackk’s previous outings, including his critically acclaimed film The Lost Are Now Found, I was unprepared for a documentary with this kind of cold beauty. The Goblin Man of Norway is an eerie example of the form, with its strange combination of Errol Morris-style reenactments, Norse mythology, and imagery that evokes John Carpenter’s The Thing. The creature itself is unnerving, not only in its appearance but in the implications suggested by its very existence.

The Q+A afterwards was one of the most intriguing, yet volatile, I’ve ever been witness to. Director Howard Byrackk was genial and engaging, even when taking exception to accusations that he was exploiting this scientific find in an attempt to create unnecessary controversy and further his own notoriety. Oddly, one of the people protesting Byrackk’s methods was Mark Hoyt, one of the geomorphologists who discovered the creature. Hoyt interrupted a question directed at Byrackk and proceeded to accuse the filmmaker of misrepresentation. Hoyt’s objections centred around a belief that Byrackk had distorted the scientific basis of the findings in favour of cheap scaremongering. For some, this intrusion dispelled the feelings of foreboding that the film conveys, but as the confusion died down and the lights came up I was left with a lingering sense of unease. Hic sunt dracones.

I was convinced that, considering it’s origins, I would never get another chance to view it. The only copy I could track down was a VHS release distributed exclusively through reference libraries and assorted education institutions in Norway. Thankfully, it appears that the documentary recently served as a springboard for the development of a video game, and the company creating the game has obtained the rights to use The Goblin Man of Norway in their promotions. You can find the first third of the documentary in question here, listed under Developer Diary (March 27, 2008). While this means that we probably shouldn’t expect a proper DVD release, at least this rare work is finally available in North America.

It’s the final Tuesday installment of Scarred, and today we’re bringing you the nightmarish experiences of the duo behind The Blair Witch Project. Considering the tone of that landmark horror film, is it any surprise what scared these two men?

First up is Daniel Myrick, whose latest project was the murderous cultist film Believers.

The moment when the kid runs into Bigfoot in the woods in, “The Legend of Boggy Creek.”

Scared the pee out of me when I was young. Still get goosebumps.

Eduardo Sanchez has also been keeping busy, most recently with Altered, a tale of alien abduction and vengeance.

The PATTERSON-GIMLIN film is probably the scariest single piece of media that I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t know if you call it art or entertainment, but it chilled me to the core when I first saw it as a kid and it still creeps me out every time I see it.

Years later, the spirit of that little piece of filmmaking became a major contributing factor to the initial idea that later became THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Actually, our goal at the time was to make a feature-length documentary filled with PATTERSON-GIMLIN style moments. I can only hope that we came close to succeeding.

With all the current emphasis on the grindhouse aspects of the 70s, one thing from that era that seems to be shoved aside is the mainstream acceptance of various pseudo-sciences, from UFOs to Cryptozoology. I was too young to catch the full force of that trend, but it still trickled down through the years enough that me and my cousin devoured every book about unexplained phenomenon we could get our hands on. Years later, I can vividly remember many of the stories I learned from my self-education. There’s nothing like the possibility of strange and wondrous things wandering the world to fuel the imagination of a little kid.

One of the first and best shows to deal with the unexplained was In Searh Of… Cool Kooky Hip and Groovy has been kind enough to post an album of eclectic music from the show.

When I first heard that screenwriter and producer Joseph Stefano had passed away, my most vivid thought wasn’t of his script for Psycho or his creation with Leslie Stevens of seminal television creature feature The Outer Limits. No, my attention was riveted by the news that the writer for Snowbeast had died.

Made-for-TV in the 70s, Snowbeast involves a sasquatch which terrorizes a ski resort, not unlike Jaws in the snow. Snowbeast is legendary at the studio where I work, and it comes up in conversation at least once every two or three weeks, so it saddens me that someone who created a work that brought so much joy into the lives of so many has left us.

So here’s to a man who, despite his reservations towards the genre, was remarkably talented nonetheless. Rest in peace, Mr. Stefano.