Have you seen any of the 'Hanging Basket' films? Do you know what I mean? Do you remember them? You might remember the phenomenon if not the actual films themselves. They were one of those things where more people said they'd seen them than actually had.

I suppose they could be described as a sub-genre of the horror film. They portray horror, horrible things happen in them, but they don't look like horror films. I don't know, they could be said to be a sub-genre in that they are films, I guess, in terms of what occurs in them: the action. Yes, they are probably closest to horror films. But I want to make an argument for them being distinct, a phenomenon unto themselves. Not even just unlike horror films, but unlike films in general. They are all very similar... The structure of them is so particular and strange. There is... little variation. They are more like a discrete series of films than a genre. Riffs on a theme. Well, not even a theme. Riffs on a scenario. Two scenarios. I don't know.

The films start innocuously. A 'Hanging Basket' film starts and it's just... normal. There's one where this family are on holiday. Western Europe somewhere. A package holiday. Just going on their holiday. Starts at the airport. They get to the hotel. Having their dinner. The parents are arguing, the kids are arguing. But it's not really dramatic. Not funny either. Not like a pastiche. Just quite boring. But of course there's a tension that you feel, because you have an expectancy that something horrible is going to happen, which it does. And it's filmed in a sort of blank, realist style, despite the mannered style of the acting, though I'd use that term loosely, 'acting'.

This goes on for a bit, the family on holiday. It's all shot very calm and matter-of-fact. All medium shots, shots not too long, shots not too short.

And what the viewer presumes is the dad, in this particular film I'm discussing, is the one who ends up going to this weird world, or park. This sort of subtropical island landscape. He gets abducted – the dad gets abducted and taken there. That's the structure of all the films, more or less, though some of the later ones deviate. Yes. The structure is that in the first part of the film you have this normal, generic scenario, like a family going on holiday, or someone going to work, or the Christmas lights getting turned on in some non-descript town, and then there's an abduction, one or more of the characters are abducted. This is also done in quite a matter-of-fact way, filmed very matter-of-fact. It all feels realistic, despite how staged the scenes leading up to it are. The first part isn't stagey... what do I mean? The scenes and actors and shots and cuts and everything is all done a bit too deliberately, too slowly. Like the film's not aiming for any fluid... fluid action. Not aiming for realism exactly. The first part of these films always seems really... mechanical. As though everyone involved is just going through the motions of performing certain behaviours, a set of actions that serve only a preliminary purpose. Now, I don't mean preliminary as in just the sense that these scenes constitute the first part of the hanging basket films, I mean preliminary as in the actions everyone is carrying out seem to serve some purpose other than producing this film. Making the film seems to serve some other purpose than making the film. That's the impression I got when I first started watching them.

*

Alan expected a tour guide. Is this man shuffling towards me my tour guide? Alan wondered. He expected a tour guide but he had no idea where he was, nor how he had gotten from the hotel to here. Where were his family? Since arriving in this unfamiliar place, this shuffling man was the first person Alan had seen. Though Alan had not really arrived here; he'd just appeared.

Alan was stood on an incline. He stood on a narrow path of fine, pinkish sand, with his legs half-crossed. This narrow sand path and many other narrow sand paths twisted and winded everywhere like spaghetti dumped from a bowl. The paths snaked through, over and around the landscape, but did not often accord with its contours. They were not conducive to comfortable walking, though walking was apparently what they were intended for. Where the landscape declined, the paths were likely to suddenly jag upwards; where the landscape inclined, the paths were likely to wrap diagonally around its jutting curve. This strange island terrain was everywhere declining or inclining. The island was covered in neatly shorn grass, multi-hued, a spectrum of green, blue and purple. The particular character of this terrain—of the grass, of the paths—was fecund but also somehow artificial, manicured. The atmosphere was humid and hot, hotter than anywhere Alan had ever been before. It was loud, too. Alan was assailed by noises of insects and animals he did not recognise.

*

Yes, there'll be an essay in there about them. I wanted to use the hanging basket films to think about how horror and documentary might relate to one another in terms of this idea of the 'real'. I think they do, yes. In the first part of these films, described above, it is as if the camera is recording people reading their lines. The film does not try and make the actors at all believable as characters. Do you know what I mean? Like a filmed play.

Is there any dialogue in the films? I don't think so actually. If there was, it wasn't audible. I think there might have been subtitles. But no dialogue. The subtitles may have been put on there after the fact, by distributors. Whether it was spoken or written, it was very perfunctory. “I am your tour guide”, “stand over there”, “where am I”, that sort of thing. There was no dialogue. But there were subtitles: what someone at some point thought, or should have said during a scene. The sound? Yeah, no, there definitely was sound. Just no dialogue. The characters didn't speak. It's been years since I've seen one.

*

The shuffling man approached Alan directly. He wore a loose, white cotton shirt and chinos. He had a small cap on, pulled down, almost covering his eyebrows. The man's face was plastered in a thin layer of what looked like makeup. This man is dressed like a tour guide, Alan thought hopefully, this man is sweating profusely, he must have been working hard today in his capacity as a tour guide. Alan was also sweating profusely, and had not done any work today at all.

“Hello,” the man said, “look.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder, gesturing at the expanse of blue-green-purple grass and sand-covered paths behind him.

“Is this the golf course?” asked Alan, stupidly.

*

Then, in the second half of the films, it is filmed in what I would call a documentary style. So this is where the snuff comparison would come in. But the hanging basket films operate differently. The first part of the films, with the overt staginess, that sort of scuppers any idea the viewer might have that this could be an actual, 'real' document, a found artefact. And then of course the violence is, well, it looks real, I suppose, but is also impossible. Some of what happens, in terms of the violence, is impossible, and some of the things that are doing the violence... are impossible.

*

The man who Alan took to be a tour guide led him down and up, left and right, along one after another of the many sand paths. He walked a few feet in front of Alan, setting a pace that his charge struggled to keep up with. The narrow paths would not permit them to walk astride, but even if they did Alan imagined that the guide would choose to walk in single file. The guide did not respond to any questions, only stopping to turn around and beckon when Alan fell behind.

After walking for about ten minutes they reached a steep hill, steeper than any they had met so far. The hill rose sharply, and for the first time since he had arrived Alan could not see the horizon. He did not know what was over the hill. He hoped there was a reception area. One with a phone in it, so that he could ring his family. Or at least somewhere with air-conditioning where he could sit down for a minute. At the crest of the hill, Alan looked down, and could see that the hill was hollow, a sunken pit surrounded by grassy banks steeper than the outside face they had just climbed. At the bottom of these banks was a pool filled with what looked like mud. The surface of the mud looked dull and matt. It did not shine in the sun as one might have expected it to. Alan noticed a figure on the opposite bank, standing at the crest. He turned to ask his tour guide a question, when the man gripped Alan's bicep.

*

As underground film legend has it, in the late 90s the police launched an investigation into the hanging basket films. 'Bin Man', credited as producer and director of several of these titles, was the centre of this investigation, though whoever they were, they were never located. There were rumours that the production company was compelled by the police to produce rushes, documentation revealing the special effects used in the series. To allay concerns regarding the realistic look of the films. Because, though some of the stuff that's depicted is clearly unreal, as I've mentioned, some of the violence looks very real. Of course no such video documentation was ever produced.

In all probability, there never was a police investigation. But, interestingly, the films produced after this alleged investigation are credited to a different production company. A new production company and a new, unheard-of director, producer, and so on. Of course, the creators might have played into the myth and just changed the names on purpose, to lend the rumours credence. Could some of the scenes in these films be credibly confused with real violence today? Yes, I think so. Were people harmed? I don't think so. As much as you can be sure of anything, I suppose.

Whether or not the investigation took place doesn't matter, I don't think. As a culture we have created, on behalf of the hanging basket films, or sort of in collaboration with the hanging basket films, we have constructed a poetic myth. Under the guise of debunking an urban myth. How do we know it's a myth? I have conceded that, yes. I don't think that's important. If we don't know, we don't know. I think what's important is that these films are critically re-assessed, and made widely available.

*

The mud in the mud pool was a pastel yellow. Mainly the mud did not move. It was still. Here and there the mud slopped, rolling off itself. Once it had slopped, the mud would be still again.

When the turtle (Alan knew it was not a turtle) rose to the surface, the mud slopped. The turtle was long and thin and grey, unlike a turtle. Somewhere between a crocodile and a turtle. The turtle made a constant buzzing noise, which could be heard faintly from the edge of the mud-pool, and grew in volume as the thing rose to the surface.

*

I don't see it as a risk. People can make their own mind up. Yes, but you could say that about any simulated violence. I think, critically speaking, it might be instructive to look at the Hanging Basket films in light of ideas about genre, reconstruction and simulation. They are quite unique in terms of horror. In terms of film full stop. And they also have import for the study and practice of documentary, in theory.

I think the main thing is that the hanging basket films do not upbraid the viewer for their desire to watch. To watch violence, death, torture. Is that fact in itself of any interest? I want to argue that it is. That's a big trope in the films. People are made to watch. No, you need to see them. On paper, yes it sounds like that. But it isn't in order to critique. It's almost celebratory. Or an acceptance: to watch.

No, I really don't. I think what's important is that these films are critically re-assessed, and made widely available. To watch.

*

Alan's tour guide now held both his arms fast behind his back. When Alan looked away from the mud pool, the tour guide would gently turn his head back in its direction. He could see that it was a girl on the opposite bank. She was now stood further down the bank, closer to the surface of the mud pool. Alan thought he recognised her. From the Lewis family, one of the Lewises? The girl had a tour guide accompanying her, too, restraining his charge in the same way that Alan's guide restrained him. The girl's guide suddenly pushed her into the mud pool. Alan hoped she might drown before the turtle attacked her. The mud filled her mouth and nostrils. The turtle's buzzing noise rose. Alan's tour guide held Alan, forcing him to watch as the turtle ate the girl. The girl’s tour guide, with nothing left to restrain, walked away from the pool after a few minutes. Alan wondered if the tour guide would return, either with something else to watch, or with something else to watch him.