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Dead weird, as I was waiting for the page to load I knew it was going to be that!

As for the show, I only remember the theme song not any of the stories.

From memory it was folk tales based mainly in Europe. I was surprised that it was an English show as I always thought it was possibly Czechoslovakian and dubbed into English.
 
Well I thought Britannia first episode was pretty good, with gore, mysticism, sex and a few great one-liners too.
The use of Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man as theme music was inspired too and set the slightly hippy-trippy vibe. Should be lots of fun for those of us suffering withdrawal symptoms from Game of Thrones.
 
Would Walerian Borowsky's La Bete be considered folk horror? It certainly has an element of folklore about it...
 
Would Walerian Borowsky's La Bete be considered folk horror? It certainly has an element of folklore about it...

It has an element of foot fetishism about it too... quite complex for a mucky movie.
 
This Vice article on Folk Horror gave a good definition of the genre, ''...a category that draws on the dark, often perverse, influences of society—characterized in part by European pagan traditions. Sacrificial offerings, psychogeography, erotic religion...''.


British Folk Horror Is Back, and It's Scarier Than Ever
Move over zombies—a new subgenre is here to spook us all.
Crystal Ponti Oct 30 2017, 5:25pm

The term was coined by British film and television director, Piers Haggard, in a 2003 interview with Fangoria magazine when he was asked about his own film The Blood on Satan's Claw. It later went mainstream when English actor and screenwriter, Mark Gatiss, used it to describe various films in his documentary A History of Horror. However, the subgenre reached its height in the late 1960s and early 1970s, during the Golden Age of British horror. Now, it's making a quiet comeback in Britain, with renewed interest in old classics and the production of new independent films and other multimedia projects.


https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pa3byz/british-folk-horror-is-back-and-its-scarier-than-ever


And in this article from Folklore Thursday, ''Folk horror, when understood through its roots in tragedy, is a horror of the psyche. It has no need for blood, and gore, and ghosts, and demons. Its horror is tangible, and thus far more terrifying than any supernatural malevolence or violence. The fear of being ‘other’ conjures up the psychological demons of depression and anxiety: feeling alone, helpless, and isolated within a loveless crowd.''

Past Anxieties: Defining the Folk Horror Narrative
The frequent rural settings being located so close to where we, the readers, might live, or indeed, the old folklore of a city being alive and well, makes for far greater horror. The threat remains near to our homes, where we believe we are safe, just as atrocious horrors throughout history, such as the Holocaust, remain so recent. Folk horror, then, would seem to encapsulate our shared anxiety of history repeating itself.

http://folklorethursday.com/urban-f...g-folk-horror-narrative/#sthash.mWpcnXKE.dpbs
 
Folk Horror Film as British Re-enchantment
Lecture – Dr Christian Giudice

Monday 28 May Treadwell's Bookshop, 33 Store Street WC1E 7BS, London


There is a vital popularity today of the genre known as ‘folk horror’, and within film its epitome can be seen in the trio of Michael Reeves’ The Witchfinder General (1968), Piers Haggards’ Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man. Tonight’s illustrated lecture looks at what was going on during the time these films were created, and what sort of ‘moment’ in culture created them. Dr Chris Giudice suggests that the idea of re-enchantment is a useful way to understand these films and their era, and along the way teases out themes and threads in the genre. We promise you will see these films anew but more than that, you will consider how art can make us see the world anew, full of uncanny and numinous possibility.

Dr Chris Giudice recently completed his doctorate and the University of Gothenberg in Western Esotericism and has published numerous articles on topics in the field.

https://www.treadwells-london.com/e...hantment/?mc_cid=c9f62b07c9&mc_eid=9e3a0d8422
 
A-Year-In-The-Country-Wandering-Through-Spectral-Fields-book-Stephen-Prince-front-cover-250px.jpg


http://ayearinthecountry.co.uk/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0957400...olid=1E1MQJ9U6TIW7&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

A Year In The Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields is an exploration of the undercurrents and flipside of bucolic dreams and where they meet and intertwine with the parallel worlds of hauntology; it connects layered and, at times, semi-hidden cultural pathways and signposts, journeying from acid folk to edgelands via electronic music innovators, folkloric film and photography, dreams of lost futures and misremembered televisual tales and transmissions.
The book includes considerations of the work of writers including Rob Young, John Wyndham, Richard Mabey and Mark Fisher, musicians and groups The Owl Service, Jane Weaver, Shirley Collins, Broadcast, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Virginia Astley and Kate Bush, the artists Edward Chell, Jeremy Deller and Barbara Jones and the record labels Trunk, Folk Police, Ghost Box and Finders Keepers.

Also explored are television and film including Quatermass, The Moon and the Sledgehammer, Phase IV, Beyond the Black Rainbow, The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water, Bagpuss, Travelling for a Living, The Duke of Burgundy, Sapphire & Steel, General Orders No. 9, Gone to Earth, The Changes, Children of the Stones, Sleep Furiously and The Wicker Man.

It draws together revised writings alongside new journeyings from the A Year In The Country project, which has undertaken a set of year-long journeys through spectral fields; cyclical explorations of an otherly pastoralism, the outer reaches of folk culture and the spectres of hauntology. It is a wandering amongst subculture that draws from the undergrowth of the land.

As a project, it has included a website featuring writing, artwork and music which stems from that otherly pastoral/spectral hauntological intertwining, alongside a growing catalogue of album releases.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In keeping with the number of weeks in a year, the book is split into 52 chapters, a selection of which are listed below:

Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music: Folk Vs Pop, Less Harvested Cultural Landscapes and Acts of Enclosure, Old and New

Gather in the Mushrooms: Early Signposts and Underground Acid Folk Explorations

Hauntology: Places Where Society Goes to Dream, the Defining and Deletion of Spectres and the Making of an Ungenre

Ghost Box Records: Parallel Worlds, Conjuring Spectral Memories, Magic Old and New and Slipstream Trips to the Panda Pops Disco

Folk Horror Roots: From But a Few Seedlings Did a Great Forest Grow

Tales From The Black Meadow, The Book of the Lost and The Equestrian Vortex: The Imagined Spaces of Imaginary Soundtracks

Robin Redbreast, The Ash Tree, Sky, The Changes, Penda’s Fen Red Shift and The Owl Service: Wanderings Through Spectral Television Landscapes

Kill List, Puffball, In the Dark Half and Butter on the Latch: Folk Horror Descendants by Way of the Kitchen Sink

Queens of Evil, Tam Lin and The Touchables: High Fashion Transitional Psych Folk Horror, Pastoral Fantasy and Dreamlike Isolation

Katalina Varga, Berberian Sound Studio and The Duke of Burgundy: Arthouse Evolution and Crossing the Thresholds of the Hinterland Worlds of Peter Strickland

The Midwich Cuckoos and The Day of the Triffids: John Wyndham, Dystopian Tales, Celluloid Cuckoos and the Village as Anything But Idyll

The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water: Public Information Films and Lost Municipal Paternalisms

The Seasons, Jonny Trunk, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Howlround: A Yearning for Library Music, Experiments in Educational Music and Tape Loop Tributes

The Stone Tape, Quatermass, The Road and The Twilight Language of Nigel Kneale: Unearthing Tales from Buried Ancient Pasts

Detectorists, Bagpuss, The Wombles and The Good Life: Views from a Gentler Landscape

Weirdlore, Folk Police Recordings, Sproatly Smith and Seasons They Change: Notes From the Folk Underground, Legendary Lost Focal Points and Privately Pressed Folk
 
https://folkhorrorrevival.com/

http://www.lulu.com/shop/folk-horro...econd-edition/paperback/product-23557533.html

Featuring essays and interviews by many great cinematic, musical, artistic and literary talents, Folk Horror Revival: Field Studies is the most comprehensive and engaging exploration to date of the sub genre of Folk Horror and associated fields in cinema, television, music, art, culture and folklore. Includes contributions by Kim Newman, Robin Hardy, Thomas Ligotti, Philip Pullman, Gary Lachman and many many more.

100% of all profits from sales of the book will be charitably donated to environmental, wildlife and community projects undertaken by The Wildlife Trusts.

Foreword & Disclaimer
Folk Horror: From the Forests, Fields and Furrows – An Introduction by Andy Paciorek
Subtle Magic and the Thrill of The Wicker Man by Sharron Kraus
An Interview with Kim Newman.
Public Information Films: Play Safe by Grey Malkin
An Interview With Philip Pullman
Hysteria and Curses in Nigel Kneale’s ‘Baby’ (Beasts 1976) by Adam Scovell
An Interview with Paul Rumsey
The Green Children of the Woolpits by Karl Shuker.
Sacred Demons: The Dramatic Art of David Rudkin by John Coulthart
The Last Broadcast by Rich Blackett
Folklore and the River: A Reflection on Davis Grubb’s The Night of the Hunter by Stephen Canner
Quatermass II (Nigel Kneale): The Fears of the Outsider Within the Landscape by Adam Scovell
An Interview with Gary Lachman
Weird Americana by Andy Paciorek
An Interview with Julia Jeffrey
The Wanderings of Melmoth by Jim Peters
The Traditional Jack in the Green by Chris Walton
Ghosts, Landscape and Science by Nick Brown
An Interview with Dr. Bob Curran
The Music of The Cremator and Morgiana by Grey Malkin
One Small Step for Man: Hunting the Nephilim by Cobweb Mehers
A Paen to Peter Vaughan by Andy Paciorek
Other Thoughts, Other Voices: Cults, Hive Minds and a New Philosophy of Horror in the Work of John Wyndham by Dan Hunt
The Haunted Landscape of Brian Eno: Ambient 4. On Land by Adam Scovell
Srpski Vampir by Lauri Löytökoski
The Primrose Sloop of War by Chris Bond
Phantasms of the Floating World: Tales of Ghostly Japan by Andy Paciorek
The Folk Horror of Doctor Who by Adam Scovell
Colin Wilson: Reflections on an Outsider by Gary Lachman
Morgaine Art by Karen Hilder
An Interview with Andrew McGuigan : Cumbrian Cthulhu
Paul Ferris: Witchfinder General Soundtrack Review by Grey Malkin
An Interview with Thomas Ligotti by Neddal Ayad
`Just That Little Bit Dark, Haunting and Dramatic’: An Introduction to The Hare and the Moon by Jim Peters & Grey Malkin
An Interview with Dr Simon Young – The Fairy Investigation Society
Nordic Twilight: Scandinavian Horror by Andy Paciorek
‘See Ye Not That Bonny Road?’ Places, Haunts and Haunted Places in British Traditional Song by Clare Button
Kill Lists: The occult, paganism and sacrifice in cinema as an analogy for political upheaval in the 1970s and the 2010s by Aaron Jolly
M.R. James: The Presence of More Formidable Visitants by Jim Moon
An Interview With Drew Mullholland
Albion’s Children: The Golden Age of British Supernatural Youth Drama by Andy Paciorek
The Sacred Theatre of Summerisle by John Harrigan
All you Ever Knew About Vampires Is Wrong: A Transcript of a Fortean Meeting Talk by Tina Rath
An Interview With Robin Hardy
The Haunted Fields of England: Diabolical Landscapes and the Genii Locorum by Phil Legard
Sauna: Abjection and Redemption in the Liminal Spaces by Madeleine Ledespencer
Hell’s Angel Blake – An Annotated Guide to a Coven at Bix by Andy Sharp
The Old Hag Phenomenon by Jasmine Gould
The Olde World Mythology Behind Saurimonde by Scarlett Amaris & Melissa St. Hilaire
Unearthing Forgotten Horrors by Darren Charles
An Arthurian Antichrist: Alternate Readings of Kill List by Andy Paciorek
Darkness, Beauty, Fear and Wonder: Exploring the Grotesque and Fantastical World of Czech Folk Horror by Kat Ellinger
Folk Horror and the Virtual Demiurge – Making False Trails – How Lies Can Be Used to Create New Folklore by Chris Lambert
Women of Power and Justice: Witches in Folk Horror Movies by Judika Illes
An Interview With Alan Lee
 
I've not seen a thread for it, but Requiem is a worthwhile short series. A gifted musician seeks out answers to her identity after her mother commits suicide right in front of her. Investigations reveal her own unknown connections to an occult-riddled small town in Wales. The first 5 of 6 episodes take us on the young woman's journey towards full revelation of who she really is. The final ep sees a complete descent into very dark supernatural territory.

The acting by the lead was strong, and the sense of curiosity drew me on despite quite a slow paced plot. Ideally, this would have been better as a 2-hour film, but I found the characters believable and the occult elements interesting. Anybody else seen it?

 
I've not seen a thread for it, but Requiem is a worthwhile short series. A gifted musician seeks out answers to her identity after her mother commits suicide right in front of her. Investigations reveal her own unknown connections to an occult-riddled small town in Wales. The first 5 of 6 episodes take us on the young woman's journey towards full revelation of who she really is. The final ep sees a complete descent into very dark supernatural territory.

The acting by the lead was strong, and the sense of curiosity drew me on despite quite a slow paced plot. Ideally, this would have been better as a 2-hour film, but I found the characters believable and the occult elements interesting. Anybody else seen it?




Rings a bell, we might have seen it. Techy finds things like that for us to watch. I'm often tired at night though so fall sleep halfway through whatever we're watching! I'll ask him if we've seen it and if not we'll give it a go.
 
I've not seen a thread for it, but Requiem is a worthwhile short series. A gifted musician seeks out answers to her identity after her mother commits suicide right in front of her. Investigations reveal her own unknown connections to an occult-riddled small town in Wales. The first 5 of 6 episodes take us on the young woman's journey towards full revelation of who she really is. The final ep sees a complete descent into very dark supernatural territory.

The acting by the lead was strong, and the sense of curiosity drew me on despite quite a slow paced plot. Ideally, this would have been better as a 2-hour film, but I found the characters believable and the occult elements interesting. Anybody else seen it?




Yeah, I thought it was quite good, a thriller as well as Folk Horror.
 
It certainly has had its share of detractors. Most criticise along the lines of "it took too long getting to the point", or "the character was just too self-involved and selfish and I couldn't connect with her on any level" which I can see. There were also a few who said that the final payoff was ultimately not worth the time invested. I also found the pacing very slow, but there was enough intrigue to keep me pushing on.
 
Just found this 2009 film which completely passed me by whilst reading about the new book, A Year In The Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields: Journeys in Otherly Pastoralism, the Further Reaches of Folk and the Parallel Worlds of Hauntology,

Through stunning cinematography, at times both epic and intimate, Persons trains a wary eye upon the icons of the South: flowing streams, crumbling headstones in a grassy cemetery, dilapidated barns and farm houses, aging church revival camps, rusty water towers, kudzu-coated gully washes. He opens the film with a close-up examination of collected ephemera from the Southern landscape – the kind of trinkets one might find in the treasure box of a young Southern boy. At least they are the kind one might have found back when Southern boys still played in the woods and collected such treasures: arrowheads and Civil War bullets, bottle caps and bird skulls.

https://real-southern.com/2011/07/18/film-review-general-orders-no-9/

 
What Tumbles Out: Thoughts On Folk Horror
By Howard David Ingham
August 2, 2018

Years ago, I’d just spend October binging horror movies, and occasionally writing about them, and having kids stopped that, but I was in a place where I could sit and watch a movie, and then bang out a couple thousand words on it. And I’d just become aware that a whole lot of people were doing work on folk horror, and that interested me because a lot of the things that people seemed to think were folk horror were movies I owned and loved already. I’m talking The Wicker Man. The BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas. The Stone Tape. The Witch. That episode of Doctor Who with the Morris Dancers.

Stories about people blundering into haunted, lonely places and waking abandoned spirits. Pagan village conspiracies. That weird juxtaposition of the prosaic and the uncanny that so particularly defined British TV and film in the 70s and 80s.

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/201...oughts-on-folk-horror-by-howard-david-ingham/
 
A wonderful scene from an excellent series, given the psychogeographic, hauntological folk revival analysis by A Year In The Country,

If you haven't seen the series yet I can't recommend it enough. It could be said that, arguably, it doesn't immediately come across as being folk horror, but after watching from start to finish, it does seem that themes within the series do lean towards the wider, slightly more ambiguous definition of folk horror, i.e. the rural setting, hauntology and spirits of the land, the magpie theme, the almost animistic nature of the lead characters etc.,

DETECTORISTS, LAYERED TIMESLIPS, ALBION IN THE OVERGROWTH, THE UNTHANKS AND SECRETS NEVER TOLD: WANDERINGS, EXPLORATIONS AND SIGNPOSTS 32/52

Previously at A Year In The Country I have written about “glimpses of Albion in the overgrowth” – referring to times when mainstream television has explored, expressed and/or reflected a sense of the undercurrents or flipsides of rural, pastoral and folk culture, its layered, sometimes semi-hidden tales and histories (something I have also referred to as a form of “otherly pastoralism” and which has also been known as “wyrd” culture).

Along which lines is the ending of the first episode of Series 3 of the BBC television program Detectorists.

http://ayearinthecountry.co.uk/dete...d-wanderings-explorations-and-signposts-3252/
 
Have just seen this upcoming book mentioned on FB, and thought it looked interesting, Lessons for an Apprentice Eel Catcher by Alex Toms. The description piqued my interest.

In her debut collection of poetry, Alex Toms introduces us to a troupe of curious characters to explore themes of love, womanhood and sex. At the centre of this collection is the eel catcher, a shadowy figure who lives on the fringes of everyday experience. The eel catcher weaves willow traps, and tales of folklore and magic, evoking an East Anglia inhabited by poachers, witches and ghosts.

https://dunlinpress.bigcartel.com/product/lessons-for-an-apprentice-eel-catcher
 
Just felt the urge to itemise my 10 favourite folk horror movies:

1. Witchfinder General
2. The Wicker Man (1973)
3. Blood on Satan's Claw
4. Kill List
5. A Field in England
6. Night of the Demon
7. Wake Wood
8. Rawhead Rex
9. Hex
10. The Wicker Tree
 
Just felt the urge to itemise my 10 favourite folk horror movies:

1. Witchfinder General
2. The Wicker Man (1973)
3. Blood on Satan's Claw
4. Kill List
5. A Field in England
6. Night of the Demon
7. Wake Wood
8. Rawhead Rex
9. Hex
10. The Wicker Tree

I thought The wicker Tree was dire but I'd agree with you on the rest and include The Witch.
 
What I liked about The Wicker Tree were the cheeky hat-tips to the original but, with hindsight, I would probably swap my 10th slot for Lair of the White Worm.

I did consider The Witch, but wanted to restrict my list to British movies, or at least movies set in the British Isles.
 
What I liked about The Wicker Tree were the cheeky hat-tips to the original but, with hindsight, I would probably swap my 10th slot for Lair of the White Worm.

I did consider The Witch, but wanted to restrict my list to British movies, or at least movies set in the British Isles.
Am I alone in thinking The VVitch so far up itself as to be trash? I’d rather watch The Wicker Tree to be honest.
 
I really enjoyed it, A Field In England from the list above I did find to be pretentious however.
I saw all of the rave reviews about it and was really lookign forward to it and then when I watched it... Never seen A Field in England either so can't comment on that. Did however watch The Lair of the White Worm on Monday (for the umpteenth time) still fun apart from some strange accents.
 
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