In this list, I attempt to rank all the folk horror films that I've watched, not just by their quality, but also by how folk horror is it? To do this, I created a custom system that scores the film's adherence to the The Folk Horror Chain, and adds the film's 5-star rating, along with a general "folk horror bonus" to promote essential folk horror films that deserve a boost.
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Scores and notes can be viewed by selecting the Read Notes icon (the button with the spectacles). The maximum possible score is as follows.
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SCORING SYSTEM
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5 = 5-Star Rating
1 = Folk Horror Bonus
1 = Rural/Wooded Location
1 = Isolated Groups
1 = Skewed Moral/Belief
1 = Happening or Summoning
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10 = TOTAL SCORE
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Why do i care about how folk horror a film is, you might ask? Shouldn't I just rank films by their quality?
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Well, as it turns out, folk horror films have been around for a hundred years, but the first mention of the genre only happened a decade ago. Definitions of the genre vary widely, and hundreds, if not thousands of films are in the discussion. Adam Scovell's Folk Horror Chain is the most referenced definition, but most films discussed, even in his book, don't contain all the links in the chain (if applying the rules strictly).
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I didn't want this list to be dominated by 5-star films that don't qualify as pure folk horror. Likewise, I didn't want some of the essential folk horror films, which may not compete with true classics by, say, Tarkovsky or Bergman, to get lost in the shuffle due to less-than-perfect quality ratings. This is my attempt to create a ranked genre list, normalized by how well each film fits into the genre.
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The films talked about amongst folk horror enthusiasts cover a vast range of themes, from supernatural beasts to home-invading locals, from pagans to farmers, scientists to cannibals, from chapel iconographers to the devil himself. In an attempt to associate some of the common themes, tropes, modes and styles, I created a Folk Horror Theme Map graphic, along with a number of filters for browsing films by theme. (Scroll to the bottom of this article for the filters.)
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But first things first. What actually is folk horror?
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In 2010, Mark Gatiss identified three 30-year-old films that rejected the constraints of gothic horror and "shared a common obsession with the British landscape, it's folklore, and superstitions." These three films, Witchfinder General (1968), Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), and The Wicker Man (1973), ushered in a new wave of British horror, became known as The Unholy Trinity, and set a standard for this newly-coined genre.
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ittedly, this genre is a tough one to define. The originator of the term, Piers Haggard, says it refers to aesthetic and tone, not plot, while Folk Horror Revival founder Andy Paciorek says you "may as well build a box the exact shape of mist; for like mist, folk horror is atmospheric."
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BFI writer Adam Scovell published the authoritative work on the genre, where he defines the Folk Horror Chain, a four-part cause-and-effect framework that ties together the Unholy Trinity, designed to canonise additional films into this genre. The Chain has four steps.
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1. A rural landscape location
2. Groups of people living in this location are subject to isolation from normal society
3. The people form a "skewed" belief system or morality
4. This culminates in some form of perceived or real summoning of the supernatural, or an oft-violent "happening"
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This chain works well for the Unholy Trinity, which is what it was designed to do.
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In addition to the Trinity, Scovell describes a trend in 70's British television that shares the Trinity's aesthetic, its mystical affinity with the landscape, and isolation of their main characters within the geography. Some of these films, such as Robin Redbreast and Murrain, adhere well to the Chain. However, most are not stories about groups with skewed beliefs, but are about ancient evils unearthed by a curious person from modern, normal society. Among these television plays are A Warning to the Curious, Whistle and I'll Come to You, The Owl Service, Stigma, Beasts episode "Baby," and Children of the Stones.
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I may be in the minority, but I find it a bit of a stretch to claim these narratives meet the Chain's third step, where an isolated group of people have formed a skewed belief system. Scovell's reasoning is that at some time in the ancient past, an isolated group with skewed beliefs summoned some evil and buried it (literally or figuratively), which is now unearthed by the character in the film at hand. Although this reasoning seems tenuous to me -- I prefer that the rules describe the film's characters and plot, not its assumed backstory -- there's no question that these films share an aesthetic and tone with the Trinity, a mystical tie to the geography where the evil is buried, where the modern discoverer is now trapped. They deserve a seat next to the Trinity as a fourth pillar of folk horror's defining works, however this does broaden the definition. If folk horror originally was about insular, superstitious communities, and the fear they impose, this expansion opens the door to just about any type of ghost or curse, at long as it has a strong tie to the rural landscape.
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In 2019, the website Birth.Movies.Death published an exceptional 7 minute video, summarizing the genre with a riff on the Chain. Rather than a cause-and-effect sequence, it identifies four "common elements" of folk horror. The first two elements are directly borrowed from Scovell's Chain, emphasizing that location and isolation are essential to the genre. The third element loosens the somewhat specific "skewed belief by an isolated group" aspect of the Chain, essentially allowing anything religious or darkly supernatural, which works better for 70s British TV folk horror, while still adequately describing themes in the Trinity. The fourth element is similar to the Chain's, but with a more specific connotation of "sacrifice." BMD's four elements are as follows.
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1. A rural or wooded location
These locations often feel untouched by time, cut off from the modern world, and driven by their own sets of rules and customs.
These locations play into a feeling of...
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2. Isolation
The main characters in folk horror films are often cut off from their normal way of life, caught in a society of different, sometimes deadly customs, or unable to leave.
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3. Elements of paganism, the occult, or the supernatural
...or general religious fervor. These elements pervade folk horror, even when the explanation for the film's events are grounded in reality.
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4. Sacrifice
All of these elements can combine into some form of archaic sacrifice, such as blood letting, burning, or succumbing to occult beliefs.
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In the end, BMD's elements are not much different than the Chain's, but does a better job allowing for stories about a single character affected by a curse or a ghost, rather than a group with skewed beliefs.
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On the other hand, it doesn't work as well for stories about outsiders stuck in an unfriendly, small town or wilderness environment, where the locals may have no religious motivation, but rather just a general disdain for outsiders. Films such as Wake in Fright, Straw Dogs and For Those in Peril are closer to the "skewed morality" Scovell allows for in the Chain's third step, where the "happening" in the fourth step may simply be a violent climax. Films like this form the gateway to Backwoods Horror, such as Deliverance and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, films, which one could argue, fall just within the boundary of folk horror, but the broader subgenre is more likely to contain many films outside the bounds.
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The biggest challenge with defining folk horror by it's narrative elements is when carving out films about folkloric creatures that don't follow the Chain at all, but instead are actual folkloric stories themselves. These films may be dark versions of fairy tales, or may include mythical creatures such as shapeshifters, bloodsuckers, or ghosts. To avoid the slippery slope of including every Universal and Hammer monster, or every film with a wicked witch, we must at least apply the first two elements of the Chain -- landscape and isolation -- and perhaps more importantly, the aesthetic and tone should feel like folk horror. BMD's video has a special section at the end, just for films of this nature, which allows for essential films such as Onibaba, Kwaidan, Viy, and A Company of Wolves. Some of these films were more challenging to score using the Folk Horror Chain, and on occasion I gave them a boost with the "folk horror bonus" point.
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Attempting to define the genre in an academic sense is fun and all, and using it to review and rank the films was helpful in providing a means of normalization, but perhaps Piers Haggard was right -- it's really not about plot. Folk horror is about atmosphere, something you just know it when you see it. The trailer for the astonishing new documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched (which is also the film's prologue) is a must watch for anyone curious about this genre -- a perfect representation of the folk horror aesthetic.
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Although the atmosphere and aesthetic are key, there are a number of common themes, tropes and subgenres that have a tendency to put a film in the conversation. I developed a 70's British TV to identify the genre's core. It's best to start in the center, with the most common theme, "Folklore and Superstition in Isolated Community." Moving outward from there in various directions, we travel to regions that range from supernatural to non-supernatural, and at the borders, perhaps certain themes are more on the cusp of the genre. The Map is not intended to define hard linkages between themes, but rather loose clusters of similar themes. The graphic is a better visual representation than the hierarchical tree shown below.
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FOLK HORROR THEME MAP
(click to view graphic)
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Folklore and Superstition in Isolated Community
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|__Skewed Christian Beliefs
| |__Witch Hysteria
| | |__Witchfinder / Witch Burning
| |__Cults
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|__Isolated Group Practicing Paganism or Old Religion
| |__Pulpy Occultism
| |__Tribal Mythology and Ritualism
| |__Unearthed Ancient Evil
| |__Folkloric Creature, Shapeshifter or Ghost
| |__Dark Fairy Tale
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|__Isolated Community with Strange Practices
| |__Backwoods Horror
| |__Effects of Progress on the Countryside
|__Hostile Rural Environment
|__Ghosts of Colonialism, Slavery and Atrocities
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|__Folk Horror Period Drama
|__Folk Horror Stylized Documentary
|__Creepy Public Information Film
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So that's my take on this immersive and fascinating genre. I know there are a lot of folk horror lists out there, but hopefully this one provides a unique spin and contributes a small bit to the conversation about folk horror. Don't forget to select "Read Notes" to see the scores, and comments are welcome!
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ADDITIONAL READING
Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange, by Adam Scovell
Revenant Journal, Issue 5: Folk Horror
Folk Horror Revival: Field Studies - Second Edition
From the Forests, Fields, Furrows and further: An Introduction by Andy Paciorek
Cursed Earth:Landscape and Isolation in Folk Horror. An essay by Andy Paciorek
