The Folklore Tapes label has launched a Kickstarter for a major project reimagining 1969 film The Watchers as a book, album and live show. Marking the label’s 15th birthday, their take on The Watchers will, we’re told, “expand upon the film’s atmospheric legacy, drawing out its folkloric undertones and exploring the cultural and psychic landscape it inhabits.” The Kickstarter, which you can find here, is for a soundtrack album featuring Calder Valley musicians Bridget Hayden, Thorn Wych, Sam McLoughlin, Radiophonic Labs, Edd Sanders, dbh, David Chatton Barker, and Ramsey Janini, an A5 book exploring the film and its legacy that features new interview material with director Dick Foster as well as contributions from Todmorden’s UFO enthusiast community and previously unseen stills from the making of the film, such as the one above. The project will culminate in an immersive live adaptation of the film taking place at the stunning Todmorden Hippodrome theatre, with additional screening of the film and Q&A with Marilyn Gaunt.
Described by writer Kelly Loughlin as a “semi-rural folk horror,” The Watchers may feature the earliest depiction of an alien abduction in British cinema. Filmed around the moors of Todmorden by RCA students in 1969 and directed by Richard ‘Dick’ Foster, the film weaves together themes and stylistic elements that would later become hallmarks of British folk horror — as seen in works like Nigel Kneale’s Beasts (1976), David Rudkin’s Penda’s Fen (1974), and Alan Garner’s Red Shift (1979).
Yet, despite its thematic resonance and creative acheivments, The Watchers remains a largely overlooked gem — standing shoulder to shoulder with these classics, but still waiting to be fully acknowledged.
