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Folk Horror

Cherrybomb

Cherrybomb

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Aug 26, 2009
Messages
1,326
Location
Sitting on the roof, at dusk.
Hi all

Here's something thats been bothering me recently:

What is the difference (if there is one) between Folk horror and the Fortean?

:confused:
 
cherrybomb said:
Hi all

Here's something thats been bothering me recently:

What is the difference (if there is one) between Folk horror and the Fortean?

:confused:
Click to expand...
Please explain what you mean by 'folk horror'?
 
cherrybomb said:
Hi all

Here's something thats been bothering me recently:

What is the difference (if there is one) between Folk horror and the Fortean?

:confused:
Click to expand...


I'm guessing that folk horror takes traditional folk tropes, druids, witchcraft, spirits and creatures, (elves, pixies, etc), and bases a horror film around it. WitchFinder General. A horror film based on Mathew Hopkins and his purge of wise women. Troll Hunter would be one. The Grudge for me would be another.

Fortean Films would take a broader view of the strange and paranormal, and how people interact with the high or minor strangeness.

I'm guessing Donnie Darko, (only seen it once), 23, K-Pax, etc could be classed as Fortean films. Although Donnie has a Pooka in it :)
 
The BFI has a useful webpage about the term Folk Horror.

Unlike other sub-genres, folk horror’s very form is difficult to convey. Despite what its simplistic description implies – from the emphasis on the horrific side of folklore to a very literal horror of people – the term’s fluctuating emphasis makes it difficult to pin down outside of a handful of popular examples.

The term first came to prominence in 2010 when Mark Gatiss used it as an umbrella theme to describe a number of films in his A History of Horror documentary for BBC4. Yet the term was used in the programme in reference to an earlier interview with the director Piers Haggard for Fangoria magazine in 2004, in which Haggard suggests of his own film Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) that he “was trying to make a folk horror film”.

Since then, the term has spiralled out, largely thanks to social media and digital platforms, to include a huge variety of culture, from silent Scandinavian cinema, public information films and the music of Ghost Box records to writing by the likes of M.R. James, Susan Cooper and Arthur Machen. It is the evil under the soil, the terror in the backwoods of a forgotten lane, and the ghosts that haunt stones and patches of dark, lonely water; a sub-genre that is growing with both newer examples summoned almost yearly – for example, Ben Wheatley’s Kill List (2011) and A Field in England (2013), Paul Wright’s For Those in Peril (2013) and Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015) – and older examples returning from beneath the furrows like the return of the repressed.

It mentions an issue of Sight & Sound from 2010, which I have stashed away somewhere, devoted to films of "Old Wyrd Britain." :)
 
cherrybomb said:
Ok, I'd say the film The Wicker Man is folk horror, but is it also Fortean?
Click to expand...

I would call it Fortean also, because of the tendency for religious and spiritual matters to creep into Forteana. Especially when it comes to mysterious religious rituals of the past.
 
cherrybomb said:
Hi all

Here's something thats been bothering me recently:

What is the difference (if there is one) between Folk horror and the Fortean?

:confused:
Click to expand...

Folk horror is a movie genre covering such brilliant films as Witchfinder General, The Wicker Man and Blood on Satan's Claw.

Of those three, I would say only the third one contains genuine Fortean elements.
 
I've watched, from a distance, this new Folk Horror thing as it's grown. Don't much care for it- despite being interested in a lot of the same things. Seems a bit hip...a bit cliquey. I'm naturally repelled from groups. ANd I'm with Groucho when it comes to clubs...

A good friend of mine was very kind and bought me this -

22979857579_b88a58c403_b.jpg


which I enjoyed very much.

However - the whole "scene" thing is not my cup of tea. And to answer the original question - what is folk horror? Well it seems to be whatever is considereed cool enough to be. Hence my antipathy towards it.
 
Hmm - as 'Children of the Stones' had such an impact on me as a child, and Witchfinder General / Blood on Satans Claw and later on (thanks to Moviedrome) Wicker Man are among my all time favourite horror films, it seems I've always been a fan of folk horror - albeit without needing to title it.

As for the difference between folk horror and the Fortean, I'd (personally) class films such as Night of the Demon or The Devil Rides Out as straddling both folk and Fortean territory.

Now I've discovered the folk horror youtube channel my afternoon is truly screwed..!
 
Ulalume said:
I would call it Fortean also, because of the tendency for religious and spiritual matters to creep into Forteana. Especially when it comes to mysterious religious rituals of the past.
Click to expand...

If you are talking about the original Wicker Man then I would suggest it is definitely Fortean in its imagery harking back to an ancient time of druids, celts and pagans. Where as the hollywood remake with Nick Cage was utter rubbish made even more so by the lack of Britt Ekland in it.

The original film had quite an effect on me when I saw it for the first time as a boy ... although maybe the fact that Britt Ekland's clothes keep falling of had something to do with it
 
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IMO Fortean implies unexplained and equivocal. Most horror films don't leave things unexplained. Magic is real, Vampires are real. Things that go bump in the night really are poltergeists.

People seem to like a tidy ending so it's rare to find a film that allows ambiguity. I'd propose The Mothman Prophecies as being a truly Fortean film. The nature of Mothman is left unexplained and the Richard Gere character is left frustrated in his search for 'proof' that it even exists.
 
Coastaljames said:
And to answer the original question - what is folk horror? Well it seems to be whatever is considereed cool enough to be. Hence my antipathy towards it.
Click to expand...

please don't think of me like this :cry:
 
You are still Justified and Ancient though ;)
 
I'm completely unjustified and not-so-ancient.
 
"- as 'Children of the Stones' had such an impact on me as a child, and Witchfinder General / Blood on Satans Claw and later on (thanks to Moviedrome) Wicker Man are among my all time favourite horror films, it seems I've always been a fan of folk horror - albeit without needing to title it."

Have you seen Ben Wheatley's 2011 movie Kill List?
It felt like a throw-back to the classic folk horror genre, with some blatant hat-tips to The Wicker Man. Definitely worth a look.
Also honourable mention to the movie Wake Wood - another that demonstrates the folk horror genre can exist in the 21st century.
 
Ah yes! Witchfinder General meets Shrooms.
I enjoyed AFIE too.
Coincidentally I watched another Wheatley film last night - High Rise.
Not folk horror (adaptation of classic Ballard dystopian novel) but hugely entertaining.
 
Here's another one that may qualify as folk horror ... Videodrome ... starring James Woods and Debbie Harry

It probably wasn't folk horror on its release in 1983 but the passage of time has allowed it to move into a folk horrorish sphere of influence.

This is what wikipedia says about it ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videodrome
 
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XBergMann said:
If you are talking about the original Wicker Man then I would suggest it is definitely Fortean in its imagery harking back to an ancient time of druids, celts and pagans. Where as the hollywood remake with Nick Cage was utter rubbish made even more so by the lack of Britt Ekland in it.

The original film had quite an effect on me when I saw it for the first time as a boy ... although maybe the fact that Britt Ekland's clothes keep falling of had something to do with it
Click to expand...

Oh, definitely the original. I wouldn't touch the re-make with a barge pole!
 
XBergMann said:
Here's another one that may qualify as folk horror ... Videodrome ... starring James Woods and Debbie Harry
Click to expand...

Dunno mate...the rural is imporant...English...60s/70s...all important...
 
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