Folk horror has experienced a boom in popularity in recent years, partly due to the success of the 2019 Ari Aster film, Midsommar, released by A24. And yet it’s quite an amorphous term, with many cinema fans wondering what it actually means. Its roots are certainly British: The term “folk horror” was apparently born from a 2003 interview with Piers Haggard, the filmmaker who gave us 1971’s Blood on Satan’s Claw. Blood on Satan’s Claw along with two other British films, 1968’s Witchfinder General and 1973’s The Wicker Man, are considered the trinity of folk horror. These films share similar thematic elements: a rural setting, Paganism, and/or witchcraft. Additional elements typically consistent in “folk horror” films are an isolated community clashing with an outsider (or outsiders) resulting in sacrificial violence.
Other films and television shows from the 60s and 70s are what we tend to think of when it comes to folk horror (e.g. Panda’s Fen, Robin Redbreast), but the subgenre is in no way limited by constraints of time period, nor is it exclusively British. As mentioned, Midsommar is a recent folk horror film (and an American production), and many of the previously described elements appear in Midsommar: the story centers on a group of outsider students visiting an isolated community (cult) in Sweden with deathly consequences.
Although a rural landscape is a traditional setting for folk horror, the urban environment offers itself as rich ground as well. It makes sense for North American films to separate from the British traditions by creating their own, taking inspiration from colonialism (The Witch), slavery (Candyman, which takes place in modern day Chicago), or Native American folklore (Pet Sematary). Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, about a coven of witches in a New York City apartment, could also be considered folk horror. And of course, there are British folk horror films that don’t take place in rural communities: Kill List and His House are two such examples.
For those looking for a way to more easily identify a folk horror film, consider the analysis offered by author Adam Scovell, who wrote Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange. Scovell identified four key elements: landscape (or topography), isolation, skewed belief systems or morality, and finally, a happening/summoning (e.g. violent sacrifice). Keep in mind that this is more of a roadmap than a rigid set of rules for what makes up a “folk horror” film.
I’ve previously discussed folk horror on this blog, and the reason why I decided to write about the topic again is because I will be exploring folk horror and found footage – both being two of my favorite kind of film to watch. The two subgenres do not often intersect, and I’d like to do a bit of a deep dive on the films that do.
But before I get to those films, I will do a small post on found footage itself. Stay tuned!
Links:
- Folk Horror: My Letterboxd List of 150+ films
- Occultism, Hauntology and the Urban “Wyrd”: My Letterboxd List of all the films mentioned in chapter 5 of Scovell’s book Hours Dreadful and Things Strange
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