In 1945, an old man killed in the British countryside. The crime generated screaming headlines and remains a subject of fascination decades later. It was incredibly brutal; the victim was found in a field propped up on the ground with his own pitchfork. But it became more popular when people started to wonder if maybe Witchcraft included.

Directed by Rupert Russell, The Last Sacrifice Digging into the mysterious death of Charles Walton, which happened on Valentine’s Day 81 years ago. The murder proved to bewilder even Robert Fabian, Scotland Yard’s most famous detective at the time, who was called to the rural crime scene to lend his expertise. Although he identified at least one potential suspect, he was unable to close the case.

In the following years, as the documentary details, various theories have circulated as to why Walton was targeted. Was it mistaken for robbery? Or more salaciously, is Walton perhaps some kind of blood sacrifice to ensure a strong harvest?

The idea of ​​a police officer—unfamiliar with the local culture—falling into an isolated community determined to solve a strange murder informed David Pinner’s 1967 novel Ritualwhich became the basis of Robin Hardy’s 1973 film The Wicker Man. It ends badly for the police, who are seduced by the mystery created by the locals and, famously, burned alive in a rite meant to make their crops grow.

That is the basic structure of most of the horror stories of the people, which always follows an outsider who realized too late their seemingly strange environment harbors ancient evil, originating from humans (Satanists, pagans, or witches, sometimes three at once) or from the earth itself. And so The Last Sacrifice exploring, The Wicker Man just one of many British folk horror movies of the ’60s and ’70s that capture the tension between old world traditions and modern intrusions.

If you want an encyclopedic review of human horror, the best resource is 2021 Woods are Dark and Days Are Lostwhich runs for over three hours and explores the genre’s origins and many branches, well beyond British film and TV. The Last Sacrifice might even give you ideas for your watchlist, though the carefully edited clips include two narrative films (The Blood Beast Horror, The Devil Is Outand yes, The Wicker Man) as well as retro TV specials and documentaries from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s.

That latter element is the maker The Last Sacrificewhich also includes contemporary interviews with journalists, authors, and other experts, particularly interesting. It’s wild to watch a fictional movie compared to a terrifying sequence taken from, say, a BBC investigation that depicts “real” witches performing “real ceremonies.” The documentary repeatedly shows how popular witchcraft and the occult were in the 1960s and ’70s. We have met more than one publicity-hungry man who claims to be the “King of the Witches” and have seen talk-show interviews that prove that even the mainstream media is eager to cash in on this exciting trend.

One of the vintage interviews, however, was with Charles Walton’s nephew. Nearly 30 years after he helped find her body, he’s still upset that random strangers thought black magic had something to do with it. To that, The Last Sacrifice introduces a third theory involving an 1875 murder that took place in a nearby village, where a woman was killed by a neighbor who suspected that she had cast a deadly spell on his animals.

Could someone have believed that Walton himself was a witch and taken matters into their own hands? Perhaps the old man was blamed for a farmer’s bad luck and, like many accused of witchcraft throughout history, became a scapegoat for superstitions. as The Last Sacrifice Pointed out, even supercop Fabian “jumped on the bandwagon” and introduced supernatural suspicions about the case in his memoirs—observations that were strangely absent from his official reports written at the time of the murder.

At this point, we may never know who killed Charles Walton or why. But the allure remains. Continue around the credits to hear an ex Teletubbies The performer described her own strange experience while filming a children’s TV show not far from where Walton’s body was found. It’s a final freaky note in a movie that brings admirable texture to an otherwise historic true crime tale.

The Last Sacrifice hit Shudder February 16.

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