Operation Bogeyman
New work
Duration: 67 minutes
This essay film navigates the intersections of folklore, folk horror and black propaganda during the Troubles.
Beginning in the filmmaker’s childhood home of Carrickfergus, Simon Aeppli embarks on a personal journey through haunting landscapes and archival discoveries to reveal a past steeped in strangeness and horror.
The film examines a bizarre propaganda operation in which the British army staged fake black magic rituals to smear the IRA as ‘Satanists’. This unique blend of video essay and desktop documentary explores the spectres of Northern Ireland’s history through landscape and archival footage, audio interviews, and personal reflections. The film grapples with themes of buried histories, social control, and the haunting legacy of psyops and black propaganda.
This film received support from
Techne AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership
British Association for Irish Studies
Screenings
Docs Ireland 2025, 24th June, QFT Belfast
Fortean Film Festival, 31st October - *Winner* Best Historical Film
Reviews
Hugo Award-winning fanzine - File 770
'Filmmaker Simon Aeppli narrates his documentary film, which is very different, beautifully presented, a paced investigation that takes time to build, without the urgency some documentaries seem to need, rather the film is filled with thoughtfulness and question, sounds and visual representations are offered, to allow the viewer the chance and time to soak in what is an atmospheric piece of work, that begs the viewer to think and draw their own conclusions'.
Eye for Film
'Aeppli’s work brings scams, superstition, abuses of power, real world horrors and the magic of storytelling together in one heady brew'.
Best Boy Mag
'Aeppli...is a true ghost hunter. He is delving into the other world of archive, the second spaces of history that exist under thick layers of dust and black lines of redaction'.
Film Ireland
'Operation Bogeyman is less of a ghost hunt than an exorcism of moss-ridden landscapes and half-forgotten tales.' Rena McGauley lifts the lid on the spectres of state secrecy with her review of 'Operation Bogeyman'.