Theme: Folk Horror

Folk Horror is a sub-genre of horror set around paganism and folk rituals. In folk horror, we encounter people who live by the old ways, which can be Celtic and druidic ritual, or goddess worship and Wicca. Frequently, believers follow religions that tend the land – and with it naturally a belief in human sacrifice to appease the old gods of the harvest. There is the recurring theme of these emerging through into the modern world or being practiced in secrecy, and their conflict with Christianity and modern rationalism.

Folk Horror often takes places in remote country settings, island or woods brimming with supernatural entities and worshippers lurking. Supernatural entities, deities, demons and devil worship practice can be encountered. The genre is generally identified as beginning amid the Anglo-Horror Cycle of the 1960s but was popularised by the cult film The Wicker Man (1973).

There have been a number of variants on themes since then with the genre having gone a revival of interest in the 2010s. Of considerable interest is the documentary Woodland Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021), which casts a very wide net over the genre and unearths obscure and fascinating examples.