Folk Horror on Film

I don’t like folk horror. I don’t like it! When I turn on a horror movie, I would prefer it not be about how rural townsfolk participate in an annual pagan festival that takes a murderous turn, or how a group of villagers are stuck in the thrall of a regional occult presence. I will get upset if I see local residents stringing up garlands and donning handmade headdresses or masks. I will lose my mind if I see any ritual objects made of bones or antlers. And if I turn on a movie and see an effigy of any size DIYed from twigs, I am OUT. I AM OUT.

But the readers of this website really do like folk horror. And I like movies. So I thought maybe what I should do is grit my teeth and put together a list of some essential folk horror movies, for the “enjoyment” of the CrimeReads community, this Halloween season. If you like folk horror, you’ve probably seen many of these. Some are pretty obvious candidates. Some are less obvious. This is not a comprehensive list, but a highly curated one, with the criteria being “which movies in this category can I remember exist without having to remember too many scary details about them?” I am pulling from many different countries and eras of filmmaking, with intent to create a nice little melange of terrifying village-set movies.

Enjoy, if you’re into that sort of thing. Godspeed.

 

The Wicker Man (1972)

Let’s start with the big guy, why don’t we? The Wicker Man may not have been the first folk horror film, but it is the platonic ideal of the folk horror film! It’s got it all: a remote Scottish island, a very pagan citizenry, a confused outsider, lots of weird woodland-animal iconography, a giant effigy, Christopher Lee… what more could you ask for? “Come. It is time to keep your appointment with the Wicker Man.“

 

Apostle (2018)

Dan Stevens and Michael Sheen star in this blood-curdling, Gothic turn-of-the-century-set folk horror story about a man who travels to a remote Welsh island to rescue his sister from a cult. Watch if you don’t have siblings. Or if you don’t really like them, I guess.

 

The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971)

This one takes place in early 1700s England, but it’s so much about early 1970s England. It’s about how a group of teenagers in a tiny village seem to have become a coven of Satan-worshipers. It’s kind of like The Crucible, but in England. Kind of.  

 

Kill List (2011)

Ah, Kill List, what a genuinely terrifying time. This is an actiony thriller movie about a hit man doing a strange job that, when you start it, you will question why I put it on this list… and when you finish it, you’ll know EXACTLY why I did. Also, I’m sorry.

 

Viy (1967)

This Soviet-era film is based on a short story by Nikolai Gogol, which is almost never a good sign. The trouble starts when a group of drunk Seminarians go out and about, carousing like all get-out, and one of  them winds up killing an old witch, but it turns out she’s actually a beautiful young girl. (A common drunken mistake.) Anyway, he now has to watch her body for three days to make sure evil doesn’t find it. Only……… yeah.

 

Hokum (2026)

The premise of this movie is my worst nightmare: a writer travels to a hotel in an Irish village (so far, this is completely something I would do) but is unaware that it is haunted by a witch. Nope! Nope, nope, nope! Turn it off!

 

Straw Dogs (1971)

I’m sorry if you find this film’s placement on this list controversial, but Straw Dogs is 1000% folk horror. It definitely updates the “folk” aspect to be about a dyed-in-the-wool custom of male aggression that dominates the culture in a small English village rather than something as explicit as a human sacrifice during a heathenish holiday, but this might be even scarier… because it’s pretty real. Comparatively.

 

Midsommar (2019)

Probably the most significant modern contribution to this canon is Ari Aster’s film about a bunch of American tourists who get caught up in a surprisingly bloody ancient Swedish festival. A midsummer’s nightmare. 

 

Race with the Devil (1975)

My mom reminded me to include this Peter Fonda movie which she maintains is one of the scariest things she’s ever seen. It’s a folk-horror action thriller/chase movie about two couples on holiday who accidentally witness a human sacrifice and are then hunted down by the Satanic cult that did the sacrificing. This is a terrible vacation.

 

Lamb (2021)

This absolutely wild movie is about a married couple living in a remote farming village in Iceland, grieving the loss of their daughter. But then, one day, they discover, one day, a strange human/sheep hybrid born on their property and decide to adopt her. But there are consequences. For what it’s worth, I don’t recommend watching this one if you’ve just welcomed a new baby into your family.

 

Kwaidan (1964)

This gorgeous and hair-raising anthology film predates the term “folk horror” but it’s practically the most folk horror-y movie on this list. Set in feudal Japan, it consists of four stories in which evil figures from Japanese folklore enact terrors on mortal beings. >Gulp<

 

The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)

This slightly lesser-known installment in the Wes Craven canon is an experiment with a different culture of horror: Haitian folklore. Bill Pullman plays a Harvard anthropologist who is sent to Haiti to research a drug allegedly used in voodoo ceremonies to create zombies from the bodies of the dead. Only… something more sinister is going on. Is it casual racism? No, it’s not limited to casual racism.

 

You Won’t Be Alone (2022)

This Macedonian horror film is about a sixteen year old girl named Nevena who is kidnapped by a witch named Maria. Maria had claimed Nevena at birth (and made her mute). Nevena’s mother had raised her in a cave to hide her from Maria, but when Maria finally finds her and takes her, she turns Nevena into a witch, too, and tries to teach her how to live as one, but things do not go as planned when Nevena accidentally kills a young mother and takes over her body. One nightmare after another!

 

Witchfinder General (1968)

Vincent Price plays real-life 17th century witch hunter/con man/murderer Matthew Hopkins in this very fictionalized account of Hopkins’s time torturing and killing people across East Anglia during the English Civil War. It’s not actually supernatural, unlike the bulk of films on this list… but it does uphold many of the principles of this genre, namely, taking place in an isolated rural location populated with backwards people capable of great evil, and being about a preoccupation with black magic.

 

Night of the Demon (1957)

Jacques Tourneur’s classic film is based on the M.R. James short story “Casting the Runes,” which is about an American psychologist who journeys to England to investigate several deaths that seem to be connected to a possibly-Satanic cult. Yeah, I’m sure nothing bad will happen, there!

 

La Llorona (2019)

Part folk horror, part political condemnation, this masterful Guatemalan film from Jayro Bustamante is about a former military dictator (inspired by Efraín Ríos Montt) who is finally made to stand trial for the horrors he perpetrated on the nation’s Maya communities. During this time, his family gets a new housekeeper. And then, strange things start happening around his home… eerie, spooky things that no one can explain. Although this movie is very scary, I like the idea that the folk horror stuff is being used for justice.

 

The Witch (2015)

I love Robert Eggers as a filmmaker, but I will never see this movie. It’s pretty clearly folk horror, though. That much I know. I do not want to live deliciously. I do not want to AT ALL. BYE!