Shudder, the horror movie streaming service, kicks off the new year with a new folk horror collection steeped in old traditions. The program includes 46 films, which are highlighted in Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitted, a fantastic and immersive new documentary about the folk horror subgenre.
forest dark is a three-hour exploration of the history of folk horror in film. Directed by Kier-La Janisse, the six-part film includes clips from what feels like nearly 100 films, all interspersed with commentary from writers, enthusiasts, filmmakers, academics and experts. The documentary begins by explaining the origins of folk horror films, particularly in England, with things like back-to-the-land movements reminiscent of England’s pagan history, as well as the country’s unique legacy of witchcraft and Wiccans as an opposing force to the often cruel and all-consuming state church.
After these early English-centric sections, the film shifts perspective to the rest of the world. It explores American folk horror traditions that delve into the country’s dark history of Native Americans (often beneath the dark cloud of colonial atrocities) and slavery, as well as the unique terror of open spaces and rural areas. Finally, forest dark offers views of folk horror from around the world, including places like Russia, Czechoslovakia, Japan and many other countries.
While watching the entire lengthy film is a fun way to spend an afternoon, it probably isn’t the best way to take it in forest dark. Instead, the best way to approach documentary is to break it down and watch one part at a time, and then watch the major movies of that segment when you’re done with that.
Of course, finding time for all 45 films is quite a difficult task. So here are six folk horror movies currently available to watch on Shudder that should give you a good idea of the folk horror genre and help you enjoy the documentary a little more.
The Wicker Man (England, 1973)
One of the most important English folk horror films, The Wicker Man follows a godly detective on his journey to a remote British island, where a charismatic man – played by a young Christopher Lee – runs a cult-like village aiming to return to English culture’s pagan roots. If you’ve never seen this classic, this is a great context to finally settle down to see it.
Witchfinder General (England, 1968)
Witches are an important part of folk horror and from the start they’ve always been more complicated than good or evil and real or fake. General of the Witchfinders Set at the height of medieval England’s witch angst, Vincent Price follows Vincent Price as an evil witch hunter who roams town after town fomenting fears of magic only to take over the towns for his own horrifying gain.
Viy (Soviet Union, 1967)
viy follows a young 19th-century Russian seminary student who is assigned to spend three nights in a crypt to bless a woman’s soul as she ascends to heaven. However, on the first night, the woman comes alive and tries to destroy his faith, first seducing him and then summoning an army of demons. viy was the USSR’s first horror film and incorporates similar elements from England’s Church versus Tradition films, but with a distinctly different tone. It’s spooky, but also often downright silly, with a tone that’s helped the movie age create a brilliant and entertaining mix of horror, camp, and general mayhem.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (US, 1974)
A fascinating argument for it forest dark power is that Texas Chainsaw Massacre deserves a place in the conversation about folk horror movies. Set in the dusty and desolate plains of small town Texas, this horror classic follows a group of teenage friends who fall prey to the chainsaw-wielding man/monster Leatherface. Most of America’s folk traditions don’t date back as far as their European counterparts, but the country is full of open, remote, and clearly unmodern cities where contemporary folk horror stories thrive.
Noroi: The Curse (Japan, 2005)
dirt is a found footage horror film about a Japanese filmmaker investigating supernatural happenings across the country. As he continues his investigation, he discovers that an entire ancient village has been flooded to build a new dam, disrupting an ancient folk ritual intended to keep a demon at bay. This idea of commerce, technology, and big business shattering folk traditions – and not the imagination of the 20th dirt.
La Llorona (Guatamala, 2020)
Not to be confused with the mediocre at best Conjuring Universe film, The Curse of La Llorona, this Guatemalan film is one of the most haunting and beautiful horror films to be released in recent years. The film follows a lightly fictionalized version of Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, under whose leadership the Guatemalan army committed a mass murder of the county’s indigenous population known as the Silent Genocide. In the film, the dictator is tried late in his life, but after being wrongly declared innocent, the spirits of the Kaqchikel people he killed begin to haunt his home.
Table of Contents
