All tagged folk horror
We wanted to bring you a list of good Pagan horror we didn’t get to talk about last month. But there was a problem. In our search for Pagan horror, we came across a lot of Satanic cults and witches, as well as some stories and creatures from old folktales, but relatively little in the way of what we would call Pagan horror. So instead, we’re going to tell you about some other great folk horror we came across.
In the wake of overwhelming tragedy and faced with the uncertainty of life beyond their four-year relationship, the main characters of director Ari Astor’s instant classic Midsommar (2017) reluctantly depart for the sunny hills of Hälsingland—a foreign town that serves the couple as a kind of limbo, testing each to see who they will become in the aftermath of a clearly failing relationship. Dani emerges with newfound purpose and identity, but her boyfriend Christian, loses himself at every turn, burning every social bridge that formed his identity until flames consume the little bit that’s left.
Happy Everyone’s Irish Day! Here are a few Irish horror movies we’ve watched recently. All the movies on this list were made by Irish filmmakers, all are set in Ireland, and all play off of fears that, in our American estimations (with some Irish heritage, which pretty much makes us experts, right?…), seem particularly Irish.
Ben Wheatley’s Kill List (2011) is an odd film, at once ultra-violent and even-keeled, confused and focused, quiet and, thanks to expert sound design, deafening. While detail and precision give movies like The Wicker Man (1973) and Häxan (1923) their own special brand of disturbing, in Kill List, it’s the lack of detail, the haziness, the things you can’t figure out that make this film so bizarre and unsettling.
A lot’s been said about the contents of the various cuts of The Wicker Man and about the film’s religious commentary. We’re interested in protagonist Sgt. Neil Howie’s depiction as a false martyr—false because, Sgt. Howie is not, in fact, the martyr Lord Summerisle proclaims him to be.
