The Ballad of Tam Lin (1970) is based on an ancient Celtic ballad—but it doesn’t have to be. The plot—or variations thereof— is seen across a score of horror films: a young man (Ian McShane) is bewitched by a beautiful, rich sorceress (Ava Gardner) and when his attention wanders to a young woman (Stephanie Beacham), he is subjected to ritual sacrifice by the aforementioned sorceress. The film is also known as The Devil’s Widow and The Devil’s Woman with no apparent loss of understanding or impact.
In an odd coincidence, this film began production just one month before the Manson murders (August 1969). There are many parallels between the fiction and the reality: Michaela Cazarat, the sorceress, lives in an isolated mansion, surrounded by a group of sycophantic hippies who do her bidding, no matter how lethal. Lots of sex. Lots of mind-expanding drugs go around; the stoned sycophants play witchy, tribal games; the sorceress is detached from the group, driven by dark, evil urges that—we learn— have resulted in multiple murders. Manson indeed.
The Ballad of Tam Lin was directed by actor Roddy McDowall. It’s a well-crafted, carefully paced work. How unfortunate that McDowall didn’t secure further projects from behind the camera. In that light, one is reminded of The Night of the Hunter (1955), actor Charles Laughton’s formidable, solo visit to the director’s chair. Both films were box office failures—as many good films are—and that was it for their directorial ambitions.
There is little violence and blood. The horror, if that’s what it can be called, comes from Michaela’s emotional instability. Like Charles Manson, she is equally at ease discussing bonding friendships and violent murder, sometimes in the same sentence: she sees no divide—and it gives her that bizarre attraction often afforded to the deeply disturbed.
The Ballad of Tam Lin is a cult film about a type of cult, about the attraction of evil and the fragility of good.
“From the world of darkness,” said Charles Manson, “I did loose demons and devils in the power of scorpions, to torment.”
No, he didn’t. He was just very ill. With retrospect, we can say The Ballad of Tam Lin uses the supernatural, “the world of darkness”, to explain reality—and that’s what makes it scary.
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