Charting the Traditions and History of British Folklore on screen
First, let us ask a question. What is folk-horror? What qualities would even establish a film as part of the folk-horror genre? Like most genre narratives, the answer can often be rather convoluted - or perhaps even impossible to definitively state. Does it refer to the oxymoronically relatable and perverse tone of a film - as Howard David Ingham (2018, p. 6) suggests, derived from a combination produced when the ‘uncanny was inextricably tied with the prosaic’, crafting fearful stories out of a twisted form of mundane existence? Is it about the clash between history and modernity, rural and urban, and mythology and science that occurs when the repressed and buried rises from its deep grave to haunt those that wrongfully disturbed it?
Perhaps it is simply the indescribable aesthetic of the crafted cinematic experience - as Andy Paciorek (2017, p. 8) believes, a mood that is ‘atmospheric and sinuous’, able to ‘creep from and into different territories yet leave no universal defining mark of its exact form’? As Adam Scovell (2017, p. 6) establishes, the loosely-defined continuity of the body of work is not as relevant to the importance of determining a film’s genre, as much as it is ‘a way of opening up discussions on subtly interconnected work and how we now interact with’ these stories - allowing the audience to ask perhaps-unconscious questions about our past, and the relationship our modern world now has to it.
It is important to understand that, despite its prevalence in modern pop-culture, the term ‘Folk Horror’ is still a relatively new one. Though there were mutterings of the descriptive term in the early 1930s, these, of course, were primarily related to the gothic literature movement, and it wasn’t until 2004 that a feature was explicitly referred to as a ‘folk-horror film’ in a Fangoria interview with director Piers Haggard, though at the time, it was only described as a ‘study in rural horror’ (‘From Sex to Sadism’, 1970, Harrow Observer) - this film was Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971). The consensus remains, however, that the true catalyst for its popularity can be found in the 2010 BBC documentary series, A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss. Here, they establish the term, the shared foundational themes of obsession with ‘landscape, its folklore and superstitions’ (00:50.30) to be found within, and outline three crucial texts, now referred to colloquially as ‘The Unholy Trinity’.
This unique post-mortem aspect means that the genre itself is inherently defined in retrospect. Whilst films produced past 2010 may actively attach the label of folk horror, crafting a visual story that engages with the established tropes, unsettling imagery and broadly defined themes of the genre, any produced before this time are purely speculative to their generic intentions, and thus, debate is common on the validity of their engagement as ‘Folk Horror’ cinema. The genre is thus, arguably, highly saturated to varying degrees of commitment. Where a folk-horror-infused story could deal with an action-packed policeman officer’s uncovering of a conspiring, award-obsessed Neighbourhood Watch Alliance’s murderous actions operating under the intent of the ‘Greater Good’ (Hot Fuzz, 2007), it could equally be found in a made-for-TV science-fiction narrative exploring the medium of souls trapped in the very foundations of the houses we live in (The Stone Tape, 1972), a children’s TV show about a ‘saggy, old cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams’ re-animating destroyed toys from the dead (Bagpuss, 1974), a nightmare of highly distressing proportions following a slaughterhouse family’s propensity for skinning unwary travellers for an odd assortment of homemade knick-knacks (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 1974) or an explicit tale of a pagan cult determined to increase the yield of their next harvest by sacrificing the life of a reputable, virginal, Christian fool (The Wicker Man, 1973). It is wide-reaching, concentrated and never thematically-rigid. Part of the enjoyment of exploring the genre is in drawing links ‘between oddities and idiosyncrasies’ (Scovell, 2017, p. 6) across decades, genres and films, and cherry-picking those that remain the most interesting for further analysis. As such, due to the breadth of source material available, we must first narrow our scope to a subsection of the greater picture - in this, we will explore the traditions in British literary history first, and subsequently delve deeper into the cinematic and televised productions, before exploring some global examples to gain a greater understanding of the genre on the whole.
Let’s return to the ‘Unholy Trinity’. As identified, this refers to a grouping of three films chosen by Mark Gatiss: Witchfinder General (1968), Blood on Satan's Claw, and The Wicker Man. As Scovell (2017, p. 8) suggests, the three films’ ‘thematic proximity to each other is problematic to explain, not to say difficult to comprehend at first when considering them outside of their obvious surface aesthetics and period of production’, though the best method of forming connections is focused on dissecting the ‘shared summoning of these themes and ideas’, rather than ‘looking at the commercial reasons’ and the ‘decisions of money men tapping into a lucrative popularisation of the occult, the paranoid or the wyrd’ that saturated the 1970s. This common, linking theme is a shared (though differently explored) discussion of belief.
Witchfinder General focuses on the clash of different belief systems, through the all-consuming corruption of power. Utilising a relentless, and subsequently upsetting bleakness, Reeves crafts a ‘really solid study about what evil does to you’ (Ingham, 2018, p. 21), placing our protagonists in futile circumstances without hope of positive conclusion.
Blood on Satan’s Claw contains a similar narrative, presenting a contained society’s upturned existence resulting from the misplaced belief in a dangerous, and malevolent-encouraging embodiment of evil. Here, the supernatural element in question is real, awoken by the turn of modern industry and represented by the plough tearing into the once-sacred land, and as a result of this unearthing, ‘the superstition, religious hypocrisy, class and status anxieties of the village are also unearthed’ (McDonald and Johnson, 2021, p. 58).
Finally, The Wicker Man brings the exploration of belief to a modern setting, though in its own sense, due to the isolation and contained narrative, remains remarkably timeless. Contrasting modernity and modern religion with a pocket of pagan belief, Hardy portrays the ‘wilds of Scotland’ as a ‘potentially treacherous location where a more primitive attitude to life and death persists and duplicity and double-cross are deadly commonplaces against which the unwitting outsider must guard’ (Martin-Jones, 2010, p. 114). Contributing musical elements that add to the camp aesthetic as much as they unnerve - these are also significant for the isolation. As the village gleefully falls into diegetic verse, Sergeant Howie is once more segregated from the Summerisle public, unable, or more accurately, unwilling to join in the merriments. Though the oddities throughout may provoke an amused reaction in the audience, by the conclusive song, sung with wicked malice as Howie burns to death, the inherent comedy is twisted into something much darker - a completely apathetic community, singing to block out the screams of the dying sacrifice.
Of course, it isn’t all historically accurate, is it? Even when considering the source material, Mikel Koven (2007, p. 271) posits The Wicker Man is constructed under a guise of a ‘folklore fallacy’, suggesting that the filmmakers decision to closely follow the folkloric tradition outlined in The Golden Bough (1890) results in an untrue and often unrealistic representation of the history and culture being explored. This issue is shared by the source material referred to, which itself readily accepts Julius Caesar’s xenophobic and negatively-intended descriptions as fact, without questioning his ‘own agenda in seeing the Celts demonised as human-sacrificing savages’ (Koven, 2007, p. 279). Similarly, the use of limited sources in the construction of the narrative results in a narrow view of both the folkloric history, and the verisimilitude of the representations - this is contrasted with a film such as Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015), which consults a variety of reputable sources to create an accurate portrait of early 1630s New England, highlighting the contemporary fears towards their own beliefs of witchcraft.
Crucial to all three films in the Trinity is the perversion of the suggested power of individuals with ‘an intellectual awareness’ within ‘isolating landscapes’ and how this can be used for evil ‘to control and manipulate people into doing the most terrible of things’. Whether this is through a ‘malevolent lawyer seeking a few violent kicks and power, a dominant landowner creating an atmosphere of pagan free-love for a cheap workforce, or a demonic entity attempting to rebuild your body, one piece of skin at a time’ (Scovell, 2017, p. 28), the central theme is the same. Equally, this isolation, whether individual or societal, is key to the construction of fear throughout - ‘all three films produce these varied forms of isolation to breed the desired belief systems and moral attitudes needed for the horror to occur’ (Scovell, 2017, p. 22) and be most impactful.
Scovell (2017, p.14) provides the contemporary basis for connection of these films, in a theory he names the ‘Folk-Horror Chain’, identifying four key components, through which an understanding of most folk-horror can be explored - these components are: the landscape, ‘where elements within its topography have adverse effects on the social and moral identity of its inhabitants’; the isolation brought on by these locations, ‘whether it be just a handful of individuals or a small-scale community’ (p. 17); skewed belief systems and morality as a result of the ‘halting of social progress’ (p. 18) - either in the context of the time the film is made, or diegetically, within the narrative itself; and ‘the final link in this chain is the resulting action from this skewed social consciousness with all of its horrific fallout: that of the happening/summoning’, which inevitably leads to the fateful, futile conclusion. As Ingham (2018, p. 51) identifies, ‘one of the constant themes of folk-horror is fate. Characters who get trapped in its clutches have fates they cannot escape’. The ‘Unholy Trinity’ also provides a perfect example of the two different types of folk-horror - they will either fall into a category of that which takes place in the past, or that which deals with something coming out of the past. In both senses, however, the past is always presented as an unpleasant place, where the threat comes from that which is forgotten.
Why did this thematic boom find its origins in the 1970s though? Resulting from a collection of unrelated elements, the perfect zeitgeist was created for the emergence of popular folk-horror. Britain in this decade exists in strong contrast to the decade preceding it - where the 1960s was a period of native pride and relative financial freedom, the 1970s saw a decline into austerity, political uncertainty and widespread crises in both masculinity and British nationality. This highly confused time coupled with a growing sense of industry, leading to a prevalent attitude of anxiety around the role of the town, and its overwhelming domination over the once-common (and comforting) countryside. This is clearly reflected when we consider the popularity of stories contrasting the old ways with the inevitably of soon-to-come modernity - such tales of suburbia and ugly tower blocks disturbing once-sacred land are among those to be discussed, and are a significant trope in their own regard. The commonality for a return to rurality can also be seen ‘as a reaction to the hippie counterculture, [and] communal enclaves’ that appeared in the 1960s, wherein this negatively-charged depiction of ‘utopian optimism’ (McDonald and Johnson, 2021, p. 59) operates as a cautious warning, as much as it does a fearful excision of common middle-class-based anxieties.
Similarly, the cinematic climate between decades was highly antithetical. As a consequence of the popularity, both overseas and within the homeland, of the ‘Hammer’ brand of horror, most frightening feature films released in the 1960s served to exploit this trend, producing a product infused with colourful, camp sensibilities, and plagued with narratives that eventually fell into formulaic repetition. This trademark of British horror filmmaking is arguably so prolific, and so iconic, it becomes, as well as an internationally-recognisable cultural export, a genre in its own right. However, as audience response grew more mild and fatigued, a collection of new, youthful British directors sought to craft a different brand of horror - something that avoided the extravagant gothic cliches and tongue-in-cheek melodrama, opting for a darker, more sincere and ultimately, more nihilistic film. This was the beginning of the 1970s, and the beginning of the ‘Golden Age’ (Ingham, 2018, p. 42) of folk-horror.
Though it is interesting to consider the ‘Unholy Trinity’ as an entirely new brand of horror, this is a falsity. Starting with the earliest film, released in 1968, Witchfinder General best exemplifies the transition between tones and presentation, signposting what was to come in the decade to follow, whilst borrowing heavily from that which came before it. Arguably, this film (and, more generally, the ‘Unholy Trinity’ on the whole) exhibits a similarity with the Hammer cycle, through a holdover in both aesthetic and production. To explain this example - the lead antagonist is portrayed by Vincent Price, an American actor greatly associated with the camp appeal of the 1960s science-fiction and horror features - on this occasion, those produced in America. This association was only further exacerbated in The Wicker Man, by intentionally casting Christopher Lee, who was explicitly famous for his recurring appearance in a variety of horror villain roles throughout numerous Hammer productions during the previous decade.
Stylistically, as Ingham (2018, p. 21) states, the entries in the trilogy are ‘all camp, but they’re also all so much more’, blending the expressive theatrics, penchant for gore and admittedly-milder camp sensibilities with an unseen malevolence, cruelty and nihilism. Conclusions to these films were often brutally depressing, wallowing in the destructive trauma of past and current events even as the protagonist defeats the villain, or, in the most direct case, as they are helplessly slaughtered. The lack of happy endings betrays the national sense of disillusionment in institutions the country once relied upon. Much as 1970s American cinema, as Wood (1986, p. 44) identifies, reflected the ‘state of advanced disintegration’ for their once-confident society of the 1950s and 60s, British cinema equally grappled with a nation moving forward without any ‘serious possibility of the emergence of a coherent and comprehensive alternative’ to the crumbling state institutions, resulting in a body of work that explored the national sense of futility through an ‘ultimate nihilism’ which plagued the majority of popular horror pictures. Whilst in the US this manifested in incoherent narratives obsessed with ‘Backwoods America’, themselves a form of folk or rural horror that presents a story where ‘the rustic community’s closeness to the land, self-reliance, and determination to preserve “traditional” belief systems invariably elicits terror rather than admiration’ (Murphy, 2022, p. 139), in the UK, it was plagued throughout the folk-horror features, through similar methods of presentation.
Though most scholars establish the ‘Unholy Trinity’ as the beginnings of the consistent themes and aesthetic present throughout the genre, Ingham (2018, p. 14) suggests the inclusion of Night of the Demon (1957), as a precursor to that which would later follow. The film exhibits a similarly eerie atmosphere, and explores the clash of modern belief systems and the refusal of a stern, stoic man to accept the supernatural, until the final, shocking (and sadly, inevitable) conclusion, all at the hands of a larger, string-pulling and (expectedly) folk force. Whilst we are individually free to determine the validity of Night of the Demon in the larger folk-horror canon, it does provide an interesting connection to the importance of a large part of British Folk Horror’s construction - that of historical literary tradition.
Much like the dichotomy present in the type of folk-horror film, the narrative influence has a similar split. Evocative stories from the past are utilised, just as modern writers tackling the contrast present in the current world are adapted - writers of both the gothic tradition and contemporary science-fiction movement have been key to the construction of what we now understand as folk-horror, ‘both in direct adaptations and in homages and items influenced’ (Ingham, 2018, p. 18) by their work. The most crucial, and important of these authors to the mood of the following British stories is that of MR James - specifically, his writing, The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James, published in 1931, and famously adapted for the BBC’s Ghost Stories for Christmas series, broadcast during the winter of the 1970s. Whilst there is an obvious intersection between that of ghost stories and folk-horror (and subsequent arguments to be made about their standing as different genres on the whole), the narrative mood of MR James is more essential to the aesthetics and tone of British Folk Horror than the actual content to be found within. His work specifically highlights the matching of the uncanny with the prosaic, tackling a variety of recognisable themes: the challenges of attempting to conquer something unknown, the fear of something entirely outside of an individual’s belief system, the intertextual weaving of historical evil and violence into modern day items, and upsetting perversions of rational Christian beliefs. More importantly to this idea of aesthetic, is the subtlety, and obsession with the British landscape that permeates these short explorations - the true horror is crafted in that which is not shown, only suggested, and every ghost he dredges up to shock his once-stoic and composed protagonists is usually described with an earthy, physical texture, grounding their connection to the natural lands around them.
Whilst MR James writes from the past, adapted into contemporary features through either a period piece, or an updated narrative dealing with similar themes, the work of writer Nigel Kneale explores the connections between science-fiction and folk tradition in the (then) modern day. His work has a similarly significant presence in forming the aesthetic and mood of folk-horror - narratives like The Stone Tape and the Quatermass (1979) television serial, deal with the application (and subsequent failure) of science, when attempting to combat malevolent forces dug out of the deep Earth, with narratives that make ‘the everyday brutal, and painful, and beset by forces we can’t control or reason with’ (Ingham, 2018, p. 14), highlighting that depressing inevitably so common to the genre. The blending of science-fiction and folk writing serves to exacerbate the connection between the modern and the historic to its furthest degree, and can even be seen in various storylines for Doctor Who, the strongest example being in Jon Pertwee’s ‘The Dæmons’ (1971), which presents ‘possessed Morris dancers, a stone gargoyle that comes to life and a variety of black magic and occult references’ together in a ‘neat package that arguably never happened in quite the same, succinct fashion again’ (Scovell, 2017, p. 65). Though it attempts to be ‘a rejection and substitution of folk horror’ by reducing it to mere science, utilising that same idea of rational thought overpowering the unknown, through its misguided justification of the Dæmon’s fakeness, when it is explicitly shown to be real, it actually ‘ends up doubling down on [the folk elements]’ (Ingham, 2018, p. 197), crafting a far more horrifying story than they intended.
As a literary aside, if we were to suggest an American counterpart, it would likely be H.P Lovecraft, whose Cthulhu Mythos perfectly ties the inexplicable with the mundane, transplanting the mood of the rolling landscapes of a steadily-industrialising Britain to the economic wasteland of the American Depression (Ingham, 2018, p. 130) with similar thematic and narrative outcome.
With the two forms of narrative being remarkably similar, it is unsurprising that a creator may choose to tie together their nation’s fairytales and historic cultural stories with the visual aesthetic and appeal of folk-horror cinema - the line of distinction between the two is generally rather blurred, and, as such, the discerning factor that would differentiate the two narrative-modes is the horror element, the darkness and evil at the heart of the pessimistic tales. Resulting from this emphasis on darkness, the folk-horror adaptations of these well-known stories will likely pervert the expectations to best reflect the history and culture of the nation’s storytelling methods.
Two interesting examples, from a time past the peak of folk popularity - both The Company of Wolves (1984) and The Lair of the White Worm (1988) tap into British fairy tales, in order to subvert the expectations of the audience aware of the original stories, whilst exploiting the prevailing trends of the 1980s. Where The Company of Wolves crafts a intertextual postmodern pastiche of popular references to subvert the original stories of Red Riding Hood into modern tools for liberation, The Lair of the White Worm accesses the popularity of heritage films, usually exploring narratives around British imperialist history and nostalgia, similarly common for mining the visuals of the British landscape for impact, and rejects the accepted concept by portraying the upper classes as completely monstrous and inhuman.
Though there are plenty of interesting examples of folk cinema worth exploring, it is worth delving lightly into the televised side of production - just like the film industry of the 1970s, this period was a ‘golden age for the subgenre’, again, for a variety of reasons. As this genre was established in retrospect, TV producers were not actively looking to exploit this zeitgeist, and instead found the mood and tone of the generic aesthetic to be a popular and lucrative form of production. This is to suggest that the construction of Television and made-for-TV features which ‘depends on creeping dread, quiet implication, and on the aged contours of the British landscape’ were highly cheap and relatively difficulty-free. The freedom in literal creation, irrelevant of any production values, then, afforded the creators the ability to simply ‘concentrate on making it good’ (Ingham, 2018, p. 48), resulting in a run of folk-inspired stories which proved very interesting for analysis, often penned by those previously identified - both MR James and Nigel Kneale have contributed to British Television productions. Let’s explore a few, in relation to the wider scope of the genre.
Throughout the 1970s, the BBC broadcast an anthology series called Play for Today, adapting television screenplays, various staged writings and short novels into more than three-hundred episodes - a small collection of these engaged strongly with the themes of folk-horror, and have subsequently been determined as significant to the genre’s saturation - a Televised ‘Unholy Trinity’ of its own: Robin Redbreast (1970), Penda’s Fen (1974) and Red Shift (1978). Much like the filmic Trinity, the thematic connection between the three can be confusing, although each engages with varying elements of Scovell’s Chain - the temporal qualities of a place that is central to folk-horror and the effect this has upon the inhabitants within or questions around national and personal identity can also be read - a subsequent paranoia around the lack therein, or of crises caused as a result of this lost identity are equally present throughout. Individually, they betray some interesting uniquenesses, though, as will become clear, the already-identified tropes begin to repeatedly appear.
On the surface, Robin Redbreast tells the tale of a woman, Norah Palmer, trapped by pagan conspiracy, whose pregnancy is manipulated for the eventual sacrificial murder of her future child. Whilst the folk elements are clear, the dichotomy of Norah’s safe city life and countryside terror implies a fear of the ‘Other’, immersed in assumptions based on class - the travel of a middle or upper-class individual to a lower-class area, which is then rife with boorish, violent and religiously odd behaviour. It similarly tackles conversations around the literal limits of Norah’s assumed independence and sexual freedom - where, in the city, she is free, though unhappy, as she travels to this isolated location, her ‘liberated status’ is made ‘an illusion’. In folk-horror, the ‘journey into a foreign land often leads protagonists to encounter the physically abject, psychotically monstrous and the realisation that beyond various borders lie dangers which deconstruct and indeed decimate the habitus that the voyagers have come to view as secure and natural’ (Ingham, 2018, p. 59) - here, the evil machinations of the pagan villagers manipulate her to their designs, and subsequently, ‘all her choices [are] stripped away’ (Ingham, 2018, p. 51) for their sinister advantage.
Penda’s Fen is a rather interesting, if slow, piece, delving into a variety of themes with a subtlety and ambiguity that can be quite confusing when attempting to attach the disconnected visuals presented to the suggested narrative. It is, however, explicitly folkloric, exploring the geography of the British landscape, and how we relate to it through the ‘lure of the ancient, [pitting] Christian orthodoxy against old, stranger beliefs’. These visuals toy with ‘the iconography of demons and angels and witchcraft’ (Ingham, 2018, p. 53) to outline Stephen’s own internal struggles with authority, tradition, hypocrisy, art and sexuality, reflecting the unsure and now-aimless nation through a single individual - a microcosm of a greater issue plaguing the country during the 1970s.
Finally, Red Shift similarly interrogates the British Landscape with a heavy psychogeographical element. Placing the narrative in three very different periods of time, but reducing it to a single location actively calls on the layers of history to be found within the British countryside - a unique oddity to the construction of the British natural world is that it is constructed. Every piece of the island has been stood upon by someone throughout history, and the ‘weight of millenia of settlements’ infuses every corner with endless narrative potential. Whether it is 120 CE or 1978 AD, the story of the land below your feet has been ‘overwritten dozens of times’ (Inhgam, 2018, p. 65), and the spectre of multiple past lives haunts the present, irrelevant of good or bad intention.
Just as made-for-TV films utilised the cheapness inherent in the folk aesthetic, fully serialised TV productions also sought to take advantage of the popularity boom and economic exploitation, resulting in a variety of children’s TV shows that explored similar themes, presented with a now-recognisable aesthetic, and tapping into the mystery felt as a child, representing both the danger and magic that was present throughout all mystery. Oftentimes, these shows were penned and crafted by the same people responsible for the folk cinema - for example, Alan Garner worked on both Red Shift and The Owl Service (1967), itself a ‘quintessential piece of Folk Horror in its deft mixture of folkloric manifestations, isolated and increasingly desperate characters, and its extensive location filming in Wales’ (Scovell, 2017, p. 55) whilst Piers Haggard directed Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass series. Both the Quatermass serials and Children of the Stones (1977) rely on the oddness of their landscapes, utilising real British folklore in contrast with the fictional scientific, allowing the narrative to explore a variety of themes through ‘landscapes, folklore, ties with the cosmic, or even sociological relevance to Britain in the 1970s’ (Scovell, 2017, p. 68). Observing the multiple series from a distance, the visual and narrative similarities are as clear as their uniquenesses, where the ‘English village is the key to them all’ (Scovell, 2017, p. 74) and, much like the cinematic excursions, determining its relevance to the larger conversation is ‘more a feeling’ that you will understand when you see it (Ingham, 2018, p. 97) - something to intuit rather than closely scrutinise.
The particular etymology of the folk-horror term has historically led to a widespread misconception, namely, that folk-horror is an intrinsically British genre. This is not true. The transnational nature of folk-horror means the aesthetic has easily lent itself ‘in movements such as Czechoslovakian Magic Realism, Australian Outback films, American Backwaters films, early European silent cinema and Japanese ghost stories’ (Scovell, 2017, p. 9) - each nation contains examples of cinema that interact with the expectations of the genre, whilst placed into their specific national context, making them both wholly unique, and part of a greater whole. Although we are actively restricting our scope, to offer an interesting counter, as a fun final launchpad for further independent exploration, we can quickly outline a few global examples that contain the themes and visual aesthetics that should, by now, be quite familiar.
The first Soviet-Era horror film to see release in the USSR, Viy (1967) is a wonderful little folk-tale, with a narrative rooted in Russian ghost-literature - it is based on a short story of the same name (1835) by Nikolai Gogol (who we can read as very much Russia’s MR James). The film was greatly popular, and more significantly, was widely accepted by the nation due to its thematic content - despite being wrote in 1835, the audience of 1967 saw their ideals reflected, as the film ‘celebrates the salt-of-the-earth peasant, and presents the Russian Orthodox Church as hypocritical and corrupt’ (Ingham, 2018, p. 126). Eastern-European fairy tales are often adapted for their evocative stories and nationally-relevant creativity - both Leptirica (1973), a Serbian horror film, and November (2017), a gorgeous Estonian tale, use the aesthetics of folklore and interest in the landscape to tell their own dark fairytales.
Due to the national religion of Shintoism, most Japanese folklore is inherently attached to the natural world, with many gods and spirits appearing in direct connection with all elements of life - the rocks, the trees, the rivers, the land. Unsurprisingly, this results in a strong reflection of Japanese society and landscapes in the folk-horror produced. Kaneto Shindo crafted two films that engaged with this national history, the supernatural to be found within the landscapes and wildlife, and the popular form of cinema for contemporary 1960s Japan in Onibaba (1964) and Kuroneko (1968). This connection to all things natural, and the subsequent horror brought on by its mistreatment, is then exacerbated to great degree in the Yokai Monsters films. 100 Monsters (1968), Spook Warfare (1968), and Along with Ghosts (1969) embody a trilogy exploring the various tales of Yokai - themselves a collection of traditional Japanese spirits, embodying every element of life - lamps, umbrellas or Pokemon-esque creatures. Finally, much like Kneale’s The Stone Tape, Ringu (1998), colloquially known as The Ring Series, merges Japanese historical tradition and folklore with contemporary technology, resulting in an interesting, but thoroughly odd combination that introduced the world to the concept of J-Horror.
Perhaps a nation will use folklore and the nightmare creatures it collects as a way to excise guilt and anxieties over their colonialist histories, questioning their national identities and the damage inflicted on the landscape and its people by profiteering, plundering and uncaring individuals. We can see this in a variety of North American folkloric films, whether that is in the mystical period piece of Eyes of Fire (1983), or the contemporary connections to desecration of the Native American land and the treatment of their people in Clearcut (1991). In a film like Tilbury (1987), a delightfully weird and potentially anti-semitic made-for-TV film, the folklore mixes a creature of Icelandic mythological history with the greedy invading and occupying British forces. Australia explores this in a variety of films released during their bicentenary year, 1988, suggesting a need to dwell on their past during the time of what is, really, a negative celebratory holiday. Both The Dreaming (1988) and Kadaicha (1988) find their monsters in embodiments of Aboriginal vengeance, targeting the descendants of these white profiteering families. Even films like Lake Mungo (2008) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) find their unconscious folkloric connections in the once-landscapes of indigenous cultures.
An Australian film like Wolf Creek (2005) may bridge a gap between the dangers of the landscape and the closely-connected concept of ‘Backwoods’, or ‘Rural Horror’ - American cinema has many examples of this, Children of the Corn (1984), The Blair Witch Project (1999), but the most effective at horrifying still remains The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Rural Horror deals with the idea of the ‘destabilisation of naturalisation’ involved in travelling to a new location filled with endless unknown, as methods of ‘exploring fears about travel and encounters with unfamiliar, archaic and sinister forces’ (McDonald and Johnson, 2021, p. 59). Much like Robin Redbreast, these Rural Horrors can have undertones of class-based worries present, as well as the additional fears of pagan cults with evil fateful plans - itself a common trope, seen in films like Alison’s Birthday (1981), Hot Fuzz, Rosemary’s Baby (1968), and of course, Hereditary (2018).
As is clear, the global scale is massive, and sadly, completely out of scope for this piece of writing.
Where are we at now? Where does folk-horror fit into the modern landscape of Britain? Despite a dip in popularity throughout the late 20th century, the genre has seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years. Is this resulting from the identification of the genre itself, post-2010 Gatiss documentary, or is there a more psychogeographical catalyst? Since we are aware the genre found its popularity in the 1970s due to a sense of crisis around national identity and period of austerity, it is no surprise that folkloric horror now strikes a chord with contemporary times. With the returned societal unease and communal disarray, the modern European referendum and the attached national fears of isolation and loss of identity, as well as a growth of interest in the occult following the pandemic, it was inevitable that the folk-horror genre would similarly rise from its shallow grave to haunt a new generation of filmmakers and audiences alike.
Written Bibliography
Ingham, H. D. (2018) We Don't Go Back: A Watcher's Guide to Folk Horror. New York: Room 207 Press.
Scovell, A. (2017) Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange. Liverpool: Auteur Publishing.
Paciorek, A. (2018) Folk Horror Revival: Field Studies - Second Edition. London: Lulu.com.
‘From Sex to Sadism’. (1970) Harrow Observer, 28 April. Available at https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002512/19700428/058/0006 (accessed 9 April 2023).
‘Interview with Piers Haggard’ (2004) Fangoria, March, no. 230. pp. 70 - 75.
McDonald, K. and Johnson, W. (2021) Contemporary Gothic and Horror Film: Transnational Perspectives. London: Anthem Press.
Wood, R. (1986) Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan. Columbia: Columbia University Press.
Martin-Jones, D. (2010) Scotland: Global Cinema : Genres, Modes and Identities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Murphy, B. M. (2022) ‘Folk Horror’ in Shapiro, S. and Storey, M. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to American Horror. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 139 - 153.
James, M.R. (1931) The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James. London: Edward Arnold.
Gogol, N. (1835) Mirgorod: Viy. USSR: Nikolai Gogol.
Koven, M. J., (2007) ‘The Folklore Fallacy: A Folkloristic/Filmic Perspective on 'The Wicker Man'’, Fabula, vol. 48, no. 3/4, pp. 270 - 280.
Frazer, J.G. (1890) The Golden Bough. UK: Macmillan and Co.
Filmic Bibliography
Blood on Satan’s Claw, 1971. [Film]. Directed by Piers Haggard. UK: The Cannon Group, Inc.
‘Home Counties Horror’, 2010. [TV]. A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss. BBC, 18 October.
Hot Fuzz, 2007. [Film]. Directed by Edgar Wright. UK: Universal Pictures.
The Stone Tape, 1972. [TV Film] Directed by Peter Sasdy. UK: BBC 2.
The Wicker Man, 1973. [Film]. Directed by Robin Hardy. UK: British Lion Films.
Witchfinder General, 1968. [Film]. Directed by Michael Reeves. UK: Tigon Pictures.
Night of the Demon, 1957. [Film]. Directed by Jacques Tourneur. UK: Columbia Pictures.
Quatermass, 1979. [TV Serial]. Directed by Piers Haggard. UK: ITV, 24 October - 14 November 1979.
Doctor Who: The Dæmons, 1971. [TV Serial]. Directed by Christopher Barry. UK: BBC 1, 22 May - 19 June 1971.
Ghost Stories for Christmas, 1971. [TV]. Directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark. UK: BBC 1, 24 December 1971 - 25 December 1978.
Play for Today, 1970. [TV]. Directed by Various contributors. UK: BBC 1, 15 October 1970 - 28 August 1984.
Robin Redbreast, 1970. [TV]. Directed by James MacTaggart. UK: BBC 1, 10 December 1970.
Penda’s Fen, 1974. [TV]. Directed by Alan Clarke. UK: BBC 1, 21 March 1974.
Red Shift, 1978. [TV]. Directed by John Mackenzie. UK: BBC 1, 17 January 1978.
Bagpuss, 1974. [TV]. Directed by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate. UK: BBC 2, 12 February - 7 May 1974
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 1974. [Film]. Directed by Tobe Hooper. US: New Line Cinema.
The Owl Service, 1967. [TV]. Directed by Peter Plummer. UK: ITV, 21 December 1969 -
8 February 1970.
Children of the Stones, 1977. [TV]. Directed by Peter Graham Scott. UK: ITV, 10 January - 21 February 1977.
The Lair of the White Worm, 1988. [Film]. Directed by Ken Russell. UK: Vestron Pictures.
The Company of Wolves, 1984. [Film]. Directed by Neil Jordan. UK: ITC Entertainment.
Viy, 1967. [Film]. Directed by Konstantin Yershov and Georgi Kropachyov. USSR: Mosfilm.
Leptirica, 1973. [Film]. Directed by Đorđe Kadijević. Yugoslavia: TV Belgrade.
November, 2017. [Film]. Directed by Rainer Sarnet. Estonia: Cinemien.
Onibaba, 1964. [Film]. Directed by Kaneto Shindo. Japan: Toho.
Kuroneko, 1968. [Film]. Directed by Kaneto Shindo. Japan: Toho.
Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters, 1968. [Film]. Directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda. Japan: Daiei Film.
Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare, 1968. [Film]. Directed by Yoshiyuki Kuroda. Japan: Daiei Film.
Yokai Monsters: Along with Ghosts, 1969. [Film]. Directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda and Yoshiyuki Kuroda. Japan: Daiei Film.
Ringu, 1998. [Film]. Directed by Hideo Nakata. Japan: Toho.
The Dreaming, 1988. [Film]. Directed by Mario Andreacchio. Australia: Filmpac Holdings.
Kadaicha, 1988. [Film]. Directed by James Bogle. Australia: CBS-Fox.
Lake Mungo, 2008. [Film]. Directed by Joel Anderson. Australia: Arclight Films.
Picnic at Hanging Rock, 1975. [Film]. Directed by Peter Weir. Australia: B.E.F. Film Distributors.
Wolf Creek, 2005. [Film]. Directed by Greg McLean. Australia: Roadshow Entertainment.
Eyes of Fire, 1983. [Film]. Directed by Avery Crounse. US: Seymour Borde & Associates.
Clearcut, 1991. [Film]. Directed by Ryszard Bugajski. Canada: C/FP Distribution.
Tilbury, 1987. [Film]. Directed by Viðar Víkingsson. Iceland: RÚV.
Children of the Corn, 1987. [Film]. Directed by Fritz Kiersch. US: New World Pictures.
The Blair Witch Project, 1999. [Film]. Directed by Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick. US: Artisan Entertainment.
Alison’s Birthday, 1981. [Film]. Directed by Ian Coughlan. Australia: Australian Film Institute.
Hereditary, 2018. [Film]. Directed by Ari Aster. US: A24.
Rosemary’s Baby, 1968. [Film]. Directed by Roman Polanski. US: Paramount Pictures.
The Witch, 2015. [Film]. Directed by Robert Eggers. US: A24.
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