All You Need is Death (2023)
Cursed Folk Song
A unique and original Irish variant on the Folk Horror genre about a couple who become wound up into the obsessive quest for a cursed folk song and the effect it has
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.
Amulet (2020)
House of Mysterious Happenings
An interesting slow burn film about an ex-soldier who accepts a job as a handyman with a woman and her ailing mother that soon heads off in some very strange directions
Apostle (2018)
Sinister Cult
Gareth Evans, the director of The Raid films, makes a film about the search for a missing sister among a cult. The film borrows from The Wicker Man, before a climactic dive into full-on gore and sadism
Arbor Demon (2016)
Something Lurking in the Woods
Horror film about a couple camping in the woods who are menaced by something lurking outside their tent. A solid film that develops some passable suspense and eventually enters Folk Horror territory
Black Death (2010)
Mediaeval Journey to a Village of Witches
Powerful film from Christopher Smith set during the Middle Ages about a group on a journey to a village where a priestess can purportedly raise the dead. The film’s skewering of faith in an unforgettable ending is stunning
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Found Footage/Backwoods Haunting
This shot-on-video film that became a word of mouth sensation with many people believing they were watching real video footage of a trio lost in haunted woods by a witch. Of course, what nobody knew at the time was this was creating the Found Footage film
Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971)
17th Century Devil Worship
English horror film influenced by both the witch persecution themes of The Witchfinder General and the early 70s witchcraft film. Well made but that doesn’t quite disguise an unstructured screenplay
The Borderlands (2013)
Found Footage/Haunted Church
The Found Footage horror film quickly became worn out. However, this effort about the investigation into a haunted church in the English countryside manages to generate some quite reasonable atmosphere
Cherry Tree (2015)
Devil Worship and Pregnancy
From David Keating who made Wake Wood, this falls into the Folk Horror genre and becomes a well-made variant on Rosemary’s Baby as a schoolgirl accepts a Devil’s Deal to save her father
Children of the Corn (1984)
Pagan Child Cult/Stephen King Adaptation
A fifteen page Stephen King story about a patricidal child cult has spawned this film, nine sequels and a remake. Not a very good film, this is stuck with padding a very slight original out to a full-length film
Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998)
Pagan Child Cult
Quite who the audience for these Children of the Corn films is that they keep making more of them is a mystery. This was the fifth of eleven films and at least better than the last two entries
Children of the Corn (2009)
Pagan Child Cult/Stephen King Adaptation
This remake of the Stephen King short story (this time with a script from King himself) is a much better film than the earlier 1984 version or any of its numerous sequels
Children of the Corn (2020)
Pagan Child Cult
The Stephen King short story only runs to 16 pages. This is the eleventh film spinoff to date (which runs at about one film per 1.4 pages of story). Unlike the other sequels, this claims to be an origin story
A Classic Horror Story (2021)
Horror Homage/Folk Horror
Italian horror film that comes with many homages to classic horror films, wound together in a Folk Horror plot that satisfyingly delivers the goods
Dark Harvest (2023)
Small Town's Deadly Halloween Run
David Slade seemed a promising directorial name several years ago with works like the charged Hard Candy, before making Twilight films and being lost in tv. Here he returns with a film set around a small town’s deadly Halloween rituals
A Deadly Legend (2020)
Folk Horror Happenings at a Summer Camp
A really bad low-budget film jumping aboard the Folk Horror bandwagon where construction work at a summer camp stirs druidic rituals from the past
Enys Men (2022)
Mysterious Happenings on an Island
Fascinating film about a woman isolated on an island off the Cornish coast who is haunted by cryptic mystery figures, who are possibly all in her imagination, possibly not. A film that creates a fascinating enigma
The Feast (2021)
Folk Horror/Sinister Dinner Party
Excellent slow burn film that becomes a work of Folk Horror. This is focused around preparations for a dinner party joined by a mystery waitress where you just know things are going to go badly wrong
The Field Guide to Evil (2018)
Horror Anthology
From the producers of the ABCs of Death films, a further horror anthology where nine directors from around the world deliver eight episodes based on the folklore of their region
Gaia (2021)
Living Forest Entity
One of the most unique horror films in some time, an entirely original South African film work where forestry works encounter a living forest entity come to life around them
Get Duked! (2019)
Wilderness Survival Course Comedy/Human Hunting
A rather funny comedy about four misfit youths on a wilderness survival course in the Scottish Highlands who run afoul of human hunters and pagan sacrifice
The Guardian (1990)
Sinister Druidic Babysitter
William Friedkin film with Jenny Seagrove as a sinister nanny who is really a baby-snatching druidic tree spirit. Friedkin and all concerned play a B movie idea in remarkably straight face
Hellbender (2021)
Modern Witches
Another of the family efforts from The Adams Family – John Adams, Toby Poser and daughters. This is a unique and original film about modern witches living in backwoods New York
Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024)
Demon Superhero/Comic-Book Adaptation
After a disastrous reboot of the Hellboy franchise, Millennium Media get it right, employing the comic’s creator on script, taking the series into wild directions with Hellboy up against Appalachian folk horrors
The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973)
Haunted Airplane
TV movie that combines the mid-air disaster film of Airport with the 1970s occult fad with a line-up of name actors dealing with druidic stones that exude evil in the midst of a plane flight
In the Earth (2021)
Folk Horror
Ben Wheatley has become a cult director in recent years with films like Kill List and High Rise. Here he conducts his own unique take on Folk Horror. A film shot during the Covid lockdown
Invasion of the Blood Farmers (1972)
Blood Sacrificing Druid Cult
An perfect example of 1970s exploitation cinema – a regional film made with no budget, a no-name cast and with all emphasis on the luridly sensationalistic. A crappy, badly made film on all counts
Jug Face (2013)
Backwoods Folk Horror
A very odd Folk Horror film set among two backwoods hillbilly families whose lives are dominated by a pit in the woods they worship
Kill Her Goats (2023)
Folk Slasher
You could maybe coin the term Folk Slasher for this low-budget film where girls are pursued by chainsaw wielding figures in goat-headed masks. Painfully bad on all counts.
Kill List (2011)
Domestic Lives of Hitmen/Devil Worship Cult
The film that made Ben Wheatley’s reputation, this starts as a kitchen sink drama about the domestic lives of two hitmen before taking a bizarre left field turn into horror territory
Linkeroever (2008)
Mysterious Disappearance/Folk Horror
A Belgian film about a girl who moves in with her boyfriend only to uncover sinister secrets in the basement as she investigates the disappearance of the previous tenant
The Living and the Dead (2016)
Ghost Story
One of the best and most original ghost stories in some time, a mini-series for the BBC set in the 1890s, this does remarkable things in entirely turning the genre on its head
The Long Night (2022)
Sinister Cultists/Folk Horror
A Folk Horror film where Scout Taylor-Compton visits the South in search of the parents she never knew only for cultists in black robes and animal masks to surround the house
Lord of Misrule (2023)
Folk Horror
William Brent Bell, director of The Devil Inside and The Boy, makes a Folk Horror film. This borrows much from The Wicker Man and only seems Folk Horror by cliche
The Manor (2021)
Sinister Retirement Home
Barbara Hershey plays an aging woman who moves into a retirement home. The film then develops an edgy paranoia about possibly supernatural happening around her
Matriarch (2022)
Folk Horror
A wonderfully creepy Folk Horror film in which Jemima Rooper returns to her home town after many years and finds very strange things happening
Matthew Hopkins – Witchfinder General (1968)
Historical Witch Persecutions
Stark and effective film based on a true-life historical figure, this sets out to depict the barbarism of the 17th century witch hunts. Vincent Price plays seriously and the film is all the more effective as a result
Men (2022)
Folk Entity
Alex Garland has become a must watch name since Ex Machina and Devs. Here he ventures into an intriguing mix of folk horror and gender politics
Midsommar (2019)
Pagan Religion
Ari Aster made a big word of mouth splash with his debut film Hereditary, which had him acclaimed a major new name. This was his follow-up, a fascinating dive into Folk Horror territory in the depiction of a pagan cult
Moloch (2022)
Folk Horror
Folk Horror about the discovery of a witch’s body in a bog, this is a slow burn film that falls together with great subtlety
Mother of Flies (2025)
Dark Sorcery/Healing
The Adams Family have become one of the most impressive genre talents in recent years. It has been fascinating watching them explore a dark version of American folk horror – this takes them into the darkest places they have visited yet
Nocebo (2022)
Mysterious Nanny/Folk Horror
Film that develops a Folk Horror vibe as Eva Green hires a nanny with mysterious healing powers. The horror version of Mary Poppins
Outcast (2010)
Dark Sorceries
Absolutely fascinating Irish-Scottish film about people hunting each other with arcane sorceries on a rundown Edinburgh council estate … Compulsively fascinating in its often enigmatic approach, while depicting magic on screen in a way unlike anything we have seen before
The Owl Service (1969-70)
Folk Myth Replays in the Present
A British children’s tv mini-series about a mysterious dinner service that presages the playing out of a Welsh myth, this is seen as one of the original influences on the Folk Horror genre
Penda’s Fen (1974)
Coming of Age/Folk Religion
Absolutely extraordinary British tv play that was one of the formative works in the development of Folk Horror on screen
The Pit and the Pendulum (1991)
Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation/Inquisition Horrors
Stuart Gordon’s adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story gets full marks for being set during the Spanish Inquisition. On the other hand, Gordon’s unserious splatter heavy approach and a campy performance from Lance Henriksen deflates the material
Puffball (2007)
Witchcraft and Pregnancy
Nicolas Roeg returns to screens after a long absence in what would be his last film, a Fay Weldon adaptation about pagan rites, pregnancy and witchcraft that manages to sound far wilder in synopsis than how Roeg directs it all on screen
Pumpkinhead (1988)
Demon Unleashed
Makeup effects artist Stan Winston takes the director’s chair and creates one of the truly original monsters of the 1980s. Several sequels followed
Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings (1994)
Monster Movie
The Stan Winston directed Pumpkinhead was one of the genuinely original monster movies of the 1980s. This was the first of several video-released sequels
Rabbit Trap (2025)
Folk Horror
Another entry in the burgeoning Folk Horror genre, a moody work about a couple of musicians living in the Welsh countryside in the 1970s who befriend a very mysterious boy who shows them the secrets of the landscape
Rawhead Rex (1986)
Clive Barker Adaptation/Prehistoric Monster Revived
Early Clive Barker adaptation made just prior to his gaining fame with Hellraiser about a the revival of a monstrous pagan pagan that suffers from shabby treatment and a rubbery monster
The Ritual (2017)
Mysterious Happenings in the Woods
The first feature film from David Bruckner who has been doing strong work in various anthologies. This is like The Blair Witch Project with regular camerawork and an actual witch where Bruckner creates a strong and effective sense of foreboding and accumulating mood
Sacrifice (2016)
Ritual Murders/Secret Society
This comes with much promise – rune-covered bodies found on a remote island, ritual murders and a secret society that believe they are the descendants of Celtic supermen – that you wonder what caused the filmmakers to let it slip through their hands
Sacrilege (2020)
Folk Horror
Folk Horror is a term that has emerged as a distinct genre of its own in recent years; this is a B-budgeted attempt to join the bandwagon
Sator (2019)
Folk Horror/Mysterious Happenings in the Woods
A strikingly original work of folk horror that creates an incredibly haunted and uncanny atmosphere of mysterious things lurking in the backwoods
She Will (2021)
Folk Horror/Woman Gains Supernatural Vengeance
A Folk Horror film where aging Alice Krige becomes rejuvenated and discovers the ability to enact vengeance against her abusers from the woods
Sinister (2012)
Hauntings and Ritual Killings
Scott Derrickson film that is badly underwritten in terms of proper explanatory rationale. That said, you cannot deny that Derrickson manages to produce the scary goods on a number of occasions
Slash (2002)
Slasher Film
Unexceptional South African slasher film with members of a band being stalked on a farm by a masked killer in order to provide a harvest of blood
Starve Acre (2023)
Folk Horror
Another entry in the popular Folk Horror revival of the 2020s, this is a superb slow burn film that operates essentially as a British Pet Sematary
The Third Day (2020)
Folk Horror
A UK TV mini-series that borrow much from The Wicker Man in a complex and fascinating story about the discovery of folk religion on a small island and becoming caught up in pending rituals
The Virgin Spring (1959)
Revenge Film
One of the classic works from Ingmar Bergman, uncreditedly remade by Wes Craven as The Last House on the Left, with Max Von Sydow as a virtuous farmer who is driven to vengeance after three youths rape and kill his daughter
Wake Wood (2011)
Resurrection of the Dead
Another entry from the revived Hammer Films, an intelligent and effective variant on Pet Semetary that manages to delve into some dark and chilling places
Where the Devil Roams (2023)
Circus Horrors/Cross-Country Murder Spree
The Adams Family have made a series of striking horror films in recent years. This is an impressive work set around a circus, a cross-country murder spree and dark magic
The Wicker Man (1973)
Pagan Religion
Classic horror film that imagines a secret world of pagan rites existing into the modern day. As much a classic for its colourful creation of a folk culture as it is for an unforgettable ending
The Wicker Man (2006)
Pagan Religion
The 1973 version of The Wicker Man is a cult classic; this is one of the worst remakes of all time that gets nothing about the original right, blunts its themes about religion and tosses in crude shocks and killings
The Wicker Tree (2011)
Pagan Religion
Sold as a sequel to The Wicker Man, although works as more of an update and expansion of its themes. Received a muted reception but is a not entirely uninteresting film, if nowhere near the league of the original
The Witch: A New-England Folktale (2015)
Puritan Era Fear of Witches
A fascinatingly different and original work. A scrupulous effort is made – from the dialogue and clothing – to place us inside a 17th Century setting dominated by insanely legalistic religious superstitions and fears, at contrast to which there lie a series of phantasmagoric visions of witches
Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021)
Documentary About Folk Horror
One of the most in-depth film documentaries ever made where Kier-La Janisse exhaustively excavates every example of Folk Horror
You Are Not My Mother (2021)
Missing Mother Returns Changed/Folk Horror
An unsettlingly effective Irish Folk Horror film about a teen whose mother disappears and then returns ‘changed’
You Won’t Be Alone (2022)
Folk Horror/Body Hopping Witch
An absolutely extraordinary work of Folk Horror about a young witch who learns the ability to inhabit the bodies of others