The Ballad of Tam Lin
Dir Roddy McDowall, UK 1971 BFI, £19.99 (Blu-ray)
How to class The Ballad of Tam Lin… It’s Folk Horror. It’s an Art film. And it’s very much of the Sixties.
The film is based at times remarkably closely on the centuries-old song from the Scottish borders in which a young man, Tam Lin, is held in thrall by the Queen of the Fairies; on the night he is about to be sent to Hell, he is rescued by his pregnant young lover, Janet, who drags him off a white horse and holds on to him while he shapeshifts, saving him from the Fairy Queen.
The Queen of the Fairies role is now taken by an incredibly wealthy and manipulativeMcShane) is her latest lover. They all head off from Swinging London in Rolls Royces to a huge country house on the borders of Scotland.
