Tilbury (1987) (1987)

March 27, 2022 11:15 AM

In 1940, when there are British forces in Iceland, a country boy goes to Reykjavik to work for the army and to find what became of his childhood sweetheart. He soon discovers that she's having an affair with a British soldier. Moreover, he starts to suspect that the soldier, instead of being an officer and a gentleman, is in fact a very peculiar kind of monster.

Currently streaming on Shudder

posted by rodlymight (5 comments total)

This is also part of the Folk Horror collection released by Severin last year. Extras on the Tillbury disc include:

Audio Commentary With Director Viðar Víkingsson And Screenwriter Þórarinn Eldjárn, Moderated By Film Scholar Gudrun D. Whitehead

With Enough Tilbury Butter, Anything Is Good — Interview With Karl Ágúst Úlfsson

A Boy From The Country — Interview With Kristján Franklin Magnúss

White Spot In The Back Of The Head (Viðar Víkingsson, 1979) (33 mins)
This early student film from the director of TILBURY transposes the ghostly Icelandic legend of The Deacon of Dark River to 1970s France.

“The Moon Fades, Death Rides”
Viðar Víkingsson discusses the folkloric origins of White Spot In The Back Of The Head
posted by miss-lapin at 11:43 AM on March 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

I didn't find this to be that great, but it is interesting. And short.

The Tilberi itself is an interesting slice of Icelandic witch lore. And it's theme of colonization-anxiety is not exactly subtle but a little different in how it is the British (and later, Americans) doing the colonizing. It's also flipped from most folk horror with the protagonist coming from the country to the big city instead of how it usually goes, but they don't make much of that.

The director was obviously a fan of David Lynch, with hallucinatory sequences set to jazz music intruding into the middle of scenes. I'm actually surprised to see that it predates Twin Peaks. It also prefigures The Witch in the category of butter as satanic gateway drug.

I mostly made this post to dump on the protagonist, though. The only actual bad outcomes in this movie are 100% on Auden and his jealousy and christian rectitude.
posted by rodlymight at 12:11 PM on March 27, 2022 [2 favorites]

a little different in how it is the British (and later, Americans) doing the colonizing

I guess this isn't actually different in itself, but what I meant was that it's from the point of view of the colonized, instead of the colonizers.
posted by rodlymight at 12:16 PM on March 27, 2022

I haven’t seen the film, but it’s worth remembering that Iceland was a pretty-thoroughly colonized possession of the King of Denmark for hundreds of years, something that only ended when Denmark was occupied during WWII, and the UK and US were happy to go along because of their air force bases on the island.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:26 PM on March 27, 2022 [2 favorites]

I kind of liked this one but yeah it is weak. This one really reminded me lot of Canadian films of the 80s - particularly Big Meat Eater. I wonder if there is some argument you can make about that? In anycase, the dance scene in Tilbury was a particular highlight (and maybe the hot tub puking?) Sadly not on the Severin disc but worth a look if you liked this (must be someone other than just me?) - Draugsaga (1985) by the same director.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:32 AM on March 28, 2022 [4 favorites]