Folk Horror

Just read the Kim Newman review of that folk horror doc and he mentions it's THREE AND A QUARTER HOURS LONG! He compares it to Los Angeles Plays Itself, the cult clipfest doc about LA in movies that lasts about the same time.
 
The Green Knight: A Folk Horror take on this Epic Medieval Poem. Even shades of Macbeth as Morgan le Fay (Sarita Choudhury) along with her two "sisters" perform a magic rite to summon up The Green Knight. The Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) himself is reminiscent of the Green man of the forests, indeed his skin is of bark as he rides a destrier into King Arthur's Court, Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) who is Morgan's son takes up TGK's challenge but is allowed to decapitate him. The head (not the only talking one in the film) then addresses Gawain telling him that in a year he must travel to the Green Chapel to receive a similar blow. This narrative strays from that of the Poem in places and could be seen as revisionist as well as the Folk Horror Tropes it takes some influences from Boorman's Excalibur and Kurzel's Macbeth.

Gawain's lover Essel is of common stock and he cruelly abandons her for a Lady once Essel has borne him a son, both are played by Alice Vikander. Gawain's quest to meet TGK takes him across changing landscapes but it is obvious that a sickness is upon the land, wrecked castles, fields covered in corpses and bones, people cutting down the last trees. He is ambushed by feral youths led by Barry Keoghan, meets a friendly fox, spirits and strange lodgings in a forest. Ritual again is important, Gawain wears a green girdle made by Morgan, full of runes and bones, this will protect him. Time moves in strange ways, flows back on itself, offers different possible outcomes. Uneven in parts nevertheless this is an engrossing retelling of the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Stunning cinematography, production design and costumes. Written, Directed & Edited by David Lowery. 8/10.

In cinemas and on Prime.
 
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ramonmercado said:
The Green Knight: A Folk Horror take on this Epic Medieval Poem. Even shades of Macbeth as Morgan le Fay (Sarita Choudhury) along with her two "sisters" perform a magic rite to summon up The Green Knight. The Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) himself is reminiscent of the Green man of the forests, indeed his skin is of bark as he rides a destrier into King Arthur's Court, Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) who is Morgan's son takes up TGK's challenge but is allowed to decapitate him. The head (not the only talking one in the film) then addresses Gawain telling him that in a year he must travel to the Green Chapel to receive a similar blow. This narrative strays from that of the Poem in places and could be seen as revisionist as well as the Folk Horror Tropes it takes some influences from Boorman's Excalibur and Kurzel's Macbeth.

Gawain's lover Essel is of common stock and he cruelly abandons her for a Lady once Essel has borne him a son, both are played by Alice Vikander. Gawain's quest to meet TGK takes him across changing landscapes but it is obvious that a sickness is upon the land, wrecked castles, fields covered in corpses and bones, people cutting down the last trees. He is ambushed by feral youths led by Barry Keoghan, meets a friendly fox, spirits and strange lodgings in a forest. Ritual again is important, Gawain wears a green girdle made by Morgan, full of runes and bones, this will protect him. Time moves in strange ways, flows back on itself, offers different possible outcomes. Uneven in parts nevertheless this is an engrossing retelling of the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Stunning cinematography, production design and costumes. Written, Directed & Edited by David Lowery. 8/10.

In cinemas and on Prime.
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Tried to persuade my good lady to watch this last night, but 2 hours 10 minutes of arthouse Arthuriana didn't get the thumbs up, so we settled for The Hike instead.

May post a review to the Horror thread tomorrow.

In the meantime, will try The Green Knight again tonight, as you rated it so highly.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Tried to persuade my good lady to watch this last night, but 2 hours 10 minutes of arthouse Arthuriana didn't get the thumbs up, so we settled for The Hike instead.
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We have an arrangement where we watch films etc together :loveu:

But one of us will be doing something else - in my case it's audiobook-through-headphones and embroidery. Mr Frideswide has noise cancelling headphones and a book. Both of us enjoy taking a bijou napette...
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Tried to persuade my good lady to watch this last night, but 2 hours 10 minutes of arthouse Arthuriana didn't get the thumbs up, so we settled for The Hike instead.
May post a review to the Horror thread tomorrow.
In the meantime, will try The Green Knight again tonight, as you rated it so highly.
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Just finished now (although my lady gave up after half an hour).

A bit torn on rating this.

As barmily bonkers as Sky Atlantic's Brittania, but with fewer laughs, The Green Knight treads a fine line between a beautiful and satisfying tapestry and a lurid fantasy comic strip.

If the viewer can ignore blatant anachronisms such as medieval castles with leaded windows being besieged by trébuchets at least half a millenium too early, not to mention the incongruity of a Romano-British king having an Indian nephew, there is much to enjoy here, especially the visionary cinematography, soft-focus eye-candy and haunting folksy/prog-rock score.

Some of it really drags though and my drooping eyelids were only prised wide open by the sudden WTF appearance of a Von Trier-esque talking fox and the occasional stray into Pythonesque territory.

It was fun, kind-of, while it lasted and bits of it will remain with me for a long time (but some big chunks have already been forgotten).

Can't help feeling that it thinks it's a tad cleverer than it really is.

Maybe 6/10 in my book.
 
The Green Knight struck me as a modern fanboy fanfic of the old poem, and knowing it was inspired equally by Willow (the 80s would-be Tolkien thing) does not persuade me otherwise. David Lowery sure has a nice way with the pictures, though.
 
The Green Knight - Visually stunning, the story is not it’s best aspect - the Knight is beheaded with the deal he returns the favour one year later. As to why… You have to put that to one side as Gawain’s journey to the Green Chapel unfolds with trials/tribulations & hallucinogenic dream-like incidents along the way.

It’s slow in places - not for action movie fans, & one gripe in the cinema we saw it - soundtrack is unnecessarily LOUD - a common syndrome with films these days. That aside, I loved it, stunning cinematography. Also an 8/10 for me.
 
Fever Dream: a tale of a sickness upon the land, poisoned water, affecting horses and humans. Also a story about friendship and maternal love, and hate. A folk healer can "cure" the afflicted but at a cost. It involves the transmigration of spirits, half of the affected person's spirit departs and lodges within a healthy body but it is replaced by another anima. This causes the "cured" (especially children) to act like changelings. One mother describes her son as having been transformed into a monster. The horror here is predominately psychological but is no less effective than the gore/shock variety. The film does require close attention and perhaps even a second viewing but all the answers yiu seek to solve the mystery are within it. Not everything is as it seems at first glance and some characters show unexpected depths. An Eco-Folk Horror tale which you won't forget in a hurry. Directed by Claudia Llosa, adapted by Llosa and Samanta Schweblin from Schweblin's novel. On Netflix. 8/10.
 
ramonmercado said:
The Green Knight: A Folk Horror take on this Epic Medieval Poem. Even shades of Macbeth as Morgan le Fay (Sarita Choudhury) along with her two "sisters" perform a magic rite to summon up The Green Knight. The Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) himself is reminiscent of the Green man of the forests, indeed his skin is of bark as he rides a destrier into King Arthur's Court, Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) who is Morgan's son takes up TGK's challenge but is allowed to decapitate him. The head (not the only talking one in the film) then addresses Gawain telling him that in a year he must travel to the Green Chapel to receive a similar blow. This narrative strays from that of the Poem in places and could be seen as revisionist as well as the Folk Horror Tropes it takes some influences from Boorman's Excalibur and Kurzel's Macbeth.

Gawain's lover Essel is of common stock and he cruelly abandons her for a Lady once Essel has borne him a son, both are played by Alice Vikander. Gawain's quest to meet TGK takes him across changing landscapes but it is obvious that a sickness is upon the land, wrecked castles, fields covered in corpses and bones, people cutting down the last trees. He is ambushed by feral youths led by Barry Keoghan, meets a friendly fox, spirits and strange lodgings in a forest. Ritual again is important, Gawain wears a green girdle made by Morgan, full of runes and bones, this will protect him. Time moves in strange ways, flows back on itself, offers different possible outcomes. Uneven in parts nevertheless this is an engrossing retelling of the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Stunning cinematography, production design and costumes. Written, Directed & Edited by David Lowery. 8/10.

In cinemas and on Prime.
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I really enjoyed it. Burned at a nice consistent pace. Recommend.
 
skinny said:
Here's what looks to be another A24 must-see.
Lamb

I fear I now know too much. The article gives the game away. Here it is anyway.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10...ndic-horror-movie-with-noomi-rapace/100535480
It sounds delicious. I shall wait for a screening at my cinema for the apparently exquisite photography.

Trailer at the end of the article.
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Very odd. I swear that I've seen this, and yet it's not been released until this month. Maybe the trailer seems to give so much away that I think I've watched the whole movie. I do know that it is a very strange movie, but apparently I couldn't have possibly seen it yet.
 
brownmane said:
Very odd. I swear that I've seen this, and yet it's not been released until this month. Maybe the trailer seems to give so much away that I think I've watched the whole movie. I do know that it is a very strange movie, but apparently I couldn't have possibly seen it yet.
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It has been available to stream at least at the Ifi and Lighthouse Cinema Online since early this year.
 
ramonmercado said:
It has been available to stream at least at the Ifi and Lighthouse Cinema Online since early this year.
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That might explain it. Though I didn't mention it on here as it is almost impossible to explain without telling the whole story. I also couldn't really make up my mind about it and didn't really like it, so I remember very little of it.

Any movie I don't like, I often can't remember it, until I go to watch it again. I've seen several bad films several times this way.:rolleyes:

I also don't remember bad jokes which subjects me to the same hell. When people start to tell me a crappy joke, I usually say "I know I've heard this one, but don't remember it". And I get to hear the bad one again :headbang:
Course the good ones I only hear once.
 
Antlers: A dark Folk Horror tale involving Amerindian mythology set in a small Oregon town. A sickness is upon the land but the local ecology isn't to be given a chance to recover because the long closed coal mine is set to reopen. Meth is processed in the mine and the cooks want to get their last batches completed, But they are attacked by a strange creature. Weeks later, Lucas (Jeremy T. Thomas) the young son of one of the cooks is feeding animal carcasses to something which howls and bangs against a locked door. His teacher Julia (Keri Russell) is disturbed by Lucas's drawings and the way he retells myths; she has her own demons to deal with, having returned to the town after a 20 year absence. The town itself is poverty stricken, children malnourished, some used y their parents to distribute meth. The horror in the film is visceral, we see people eaten alive by a feral man, a literal Weredeer from Indian legend emerges, goring it's victims with antlers as it devours them. Medicine bags which were used to ward off the creature no longer keep it contained. A satisfying supernatural tale of terror which is not for the squeamish or faint of heart. A great performance by Thomas. Directed by Scott Cooper, screenplay by Cooper, C. Henry Chaisson and Nick Antosca, from a story by Antosca. 8/10.

In cinemas.

Full story text.

The Quiet Boy​

But there was no Goldilocks in his story. There were only the Wolfs, who lived together in a cave above a town. Big Wolf, Middle Wolf, and Little Wolf. Big Wolf was a brute. Little Wolf was timid. Middle Wolf was the peacemaker.
By Nick Antosca

https://www.guernicamag.com/the-quiet-boy/
 
Elves: A Danish horror series, a family from Copenhagen go to a remote island for Christmas. This is no ordinary isle, the locals are keeping a secret, the local forest creatures , the Elves, are kept behind an electrified fence. Cattle are given as sacrifices to appease the wood dwellers. The tourists upset the balance when the tourist family daughter, Josefine, tries to adopt an injured infant Elf. The young Elf is cute but as Josefine learns it has it's feral side. The adult Elves are anything but endearing, like burrow dwelling killer apes they attack, bite out throats, feast on their human prey even while they still live. Quite dark (especially the forest) and the horror level is certainly adult even if the intended audience is teenage. Reminiscent of The Wicker Man in parts but here the locals are unwelcoming and warn the family off from the start. Directed by Ron Ezra with Stefan Jaworski as head writer. Six 25 minute episodes on Netflix. 7/10
 
Showing again on the Horror Channel Saturday 18th December at 11.05 PM.

Sacrifice: Midsommar meets The Wicker Man with a twist of Lovecraft. Isaac along with his pregnant partner Emma go to remote Norwegian Island where Isaac lived as a child, to claim his family home. Taken at first as American tourists the locals are hostile, even violent towards Isaac but when they discover he's a native islander they get him drunk. The local police chief shocks Isaac with news about his departure from the island 25 years before, his past has changed and it will have future implications. Emma has strange dreams but to what extent are they reflecting what is really going on? The islanders are Pagans who worship a deity which slumbers in the deep waters and sometimes dreams. Sound familiar? Much of the strangeness involves water, in baths, in sinks, in the sea. Tentacles appear in the visions and dreams. White-robed Pagans participate in full immersion baptism sacraments and inveigle Isaac into taking the plunge. A couple of plot twists keep the narrative motoring along. More could have been done with a bigger budget and a more adventurous screenplay but this is certainly a watchable horror film and at 87 minutes doesn't outstay it's welcome. Co-Directed /Co-Written by Andy Collier and Tor Mian (based on the short story Men of the Cloth by Paul Kane). 6/10.
 
Lamb: While this film is based on Icelandic folklore it is also influenced by Director Valdimar Jóhannsson's childhood experiences on his grandparents farm The quotidian experiences of farm life are shown as couple Maria (Noomi Rapace) and Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) share the chores, sometimes he drives the tractor, on other occasions she does. Life is quite, they seem relatively happy but a lot seems unsaid. The strangeness is present from Lamb's opening scenes though, a creature trudges through a blizzard breathing heavily, scattering a herd of wild ponies. A ram watches through a window as the entity approaches a shed. It enters and the ewes are disturbed. The next day Maria and Ingvar see a ewe give birth to a hybrid sheep/human, while they are surprised, they are not shocked. The film presupposes a reality where such things occur. When Ingvar's brother Pétur (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson) arrives at the farm he is flabbergasted and disturbed to discover that they are raising the hybrid (Ada) as a child but is sanguine about it's very existence. At times the narrative of the film unfolds like a soap and might flippantly be described as Emmerdale/Glenroe with Weresheep. But it is far stranger than such a facile interpretation. Ada is intelligent and though she cannot speak understands what the humans say. There are some disturbing scenes, a few of stark horror but most of this occurs in the final twenty minutes of the film. An intriguing tale set in the beautiful Icelandic mountain scenery where the farm abuts a mountain whose crags and peaks look suitably sinister in the mist. Directed & Co-Written by Valdimar Jóhannsson. 8/10.

In cinemas.
 
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I can see why some would quibble with Lamb being called a horror movie, but I don't know what else you'd call it. Mark Kermode pointed out the days never get dark, I hadn't noticed, but that far north I think he's right. The ending was truly freaky, but I guess there needed to be some retribution for what they did to Ada's actual mother.
 
GNC said:
I can see why some would quibble with Lamb being called a horror movie, but I don't know what else you'd call it. Mark Kermode pointed out the days never get dark, I hadn't noticed, but that far north I think he's right. The ending was truly freaky, but I guess there needed to be some retribution for what they did to Ada's actual mother.
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Ewe said it, they did a baad thing.
 
Just finished watching “Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror” on Shudder. It explores folk horror in film and features many film clips from international movies along with interviews with filmmakers, authors and folk lore scholars. Quite interesting. It is divided into chapters and, while I didn’t really start to pay attention to the discussions until much further into the movie, the latter half did keep my attention enough that, I am considering rewatching the first half.

The first chapter of the documentary was predictably focussed on British folk horror movies and themes, with the second chapter focussed on American folk horror. Once it directed the discussion to international folk horror, I definitely started to pay attention.

I don’t have an opinion on what defines folk horror, but found the different ideas on what others see as folk horror very interesting. I did realize that, despite folk horror seeming to be defined (to me) as old ways conflicting with new, these “old ways” are ever changing and so folk horror continues evolving. That is an obvious idea as I write it, but I never really thought much about folk horror per se.

The biggest thing I discovered is that there are innumerable films that I have never seen, and now want to find. And while I am not advertising for Shudder, it has now added some of the international films mentioned in the documentary. Looking forward to watching more of these movies.
 
I agree, one of the best things about Woodlands Dark is I can imagine thousands of viewers pausing it frequently to take a note of the films they discuss! I thought it would be a slog, but it was so absorbing the time flew by, it's not exactly an essay documentary like Mark Cousins makes because you're getting different points of view, but it has the same effect of drawing you in. Worth a look, even if you don't agree with some of the inclusions.
 
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