folkhorror

Folkhorror, sometimes written as folk horror, is a subgenre of horror that centers on folklore, ritual, and the tensions between rural communities and modern life. It typically situates its horror in countryside settings—farms, forests, villages—where myths, pagan rites, and inherited secrets shape characters’ fates. The threat is often collective or ritual rather than solely personal, and fear arises from the disruption of established social order or the intrusion of outsiders into insular communities.

Although the concept predates it, many scholars regard late 1960s and 1970s British cinema as its foundational period, with The Wicker Man (1973) widely cited as a defining example. Other early films such as The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971) and Witchfinder General (1968) are frequently mentioned in discussions of the form. Later critics and filmmakers revived and reinterpreted the approach in the 2010s with works like The Witch (2015), Midsommar (2019), Kill List (2011), and The Ritual (2017), broadening folkhorror beyond its British roots.

Themes and aesthetics in folkhorror commonly include devotion to place, ritual gatherings, and the use of rural myths to exert control or punish outsiders. Visuals emphasize natural landscapes, archaic costumes, and soundscapes—chants, bells, and other ritual cues—that suggest a hidden order at work. The genre often invites postcolonial or gendered readings of power, tradition, and social cohesion, while preserving a mood of lingering unease rather than explicit gore.

Reception and scope: scholars debate the boundaries and usefulness of the term, with some describing it as a mood or mode rather than a fixed genre, while others apply folkhorror across film, literature, and games that evoke folk memory and rural dread.