Autumn may be, as a poet once said, a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, but you can’t always trust the countryside at this time of year. Some of the most chilling films ever made have been “folk horrors,” which imagine what might await outside the street-lit boundaries of our towns and cities, among the remote villages and outright wilderness beyond. Whether it’s local cults, angry ghosts or monsters in the forests, there always seems to be something stalking people who attempt to carve out an idyllic new life in the country. With Halloween upon us, now is the perfect time to try some of them out, so we’ve assembled a selection of the best UK folk horror across film, TV and games.
The most recent folk horror to wow audiences is Starve Acre, directed by Apostasy filmmaker Daniel Kokotajlo and starring the powerhouse couple of Matt Smith (Doctor Who, Last Night in Soho) and Morfydd Clark (Saint Maud, The Personal History of David Copperfield). They play a married couple in 1970s Yorkshire who have moved back to his ancestral home to raise their young and rather troubled son. But the old farm has a secret past that threatens them all, and gradually it becomes clear that their refuge from the world may be anything but.
One of the original folk horrors, of course, is The Wicker Man, which saw Edward Woodward play a policeman sent to a remote island to investigate a missing girl. A remote island is also the setting for Enys Men, the latest film from Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin. Jenkin had his breakthrough with the 2019 film Bait, and this similarly elliptical film creates a mood of dread even if it’s possible that nothing bad is actually happening. A recent TV thriller, The Third Day starring Jude Law (Anna Karenina, Fantastic Beasts), also takes place on an island where people are determined to hold onto the past, with creepy results. Gareth Evans’ deeply twisted Apostle is set on a cult-infested island too, where a former missionary (Dan Stevens, Downton Abbey) appears to try to rescue his kidnapped sister.
The Wicker Man
Enys Men
Filmmaker Ben Wheatley (High Rise, Rebecca) made his name in films with elements of folk horror, though always with his own unique spin on the genre. Without getting too deep into spoilers, his hitman horror Kill List descends into folk horror by its ending, with Neil Maskell (Hijack) and Michael Smiley (Luther) uncovering some eerie goings-on. A Field in England takes place, yes, in a field during the English Civil War, but involves mushroom-induced hallucinations and mysterious priorities for characters played by the likes of Reece Shearsmith (Inside No. 9, The World’s End) and Smiley again. His pandemic-era horror In the Earth also has an eerie folk-horror sensibility, with a standing stone and sorcerous rituals appearing in the path of two scientists trying to improve crop efficiency. That stars Hayley Squires (In Fabric; I, Daniel Blake) and Joel Fry (The End We Start From) as the hapless pair, teaming up against a world they don’t understand.
Dark and ancient forces also threaten the diners at The Feast, a Welsh film where there’s a direct clash between the forces of progress and tradition at a family gathering. The Celtic landscape is also unsafe for young families hoping to find a quieter life in the country, as we learned in Corin Hardy’s chilling 2015 film The Hallow, where Joseph Mawle (Ripper Street) moves his young family to Ireland and faces local monsters that steal babies, and Unwelcome in 2023, starring Hannah John-Kamen (Black Mirror, Happy Valley) and Douglas Booth (The Limehouse Golem, Loving Vincent). A small town also brings horror to grieving parents in Wake Wood, starring Aidan Gillen (Peaky Blinders) and Eva Birtwhistle (The Delinquent Season).
In the Earth
The Feast
Sometimes, a folk horror can hide other monster genres under its cloak. Boys From County Hell sees a small Irish town terrorised by an ancient bloodsucker, for example, with John Lynch (Tin Star, The Banishing) and Fra Fee (Les Misérables) among its targets. Dog Soldiers, from director Neil Marshall (The Descent), pitches an army squadron against werewolves, and there’s something similarly feral in The Beast Within, starring Kit Harrington (Game of Thrones). You could even argue that there are elements of folk horror to Aardman Animation’s Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which has a scary scene in the woods at night involving, well, a giant rabbit.
The Beast Within
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
The folk horror genre has been influential in gaming too, with its fingerprints all over Crow Country, Descending the Woods, Still Wakes the Deep and Until Dawn. There are hints of it on animation The House, and in comedies like Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. It’s a major influence on the psychological horror of Censor, and a reminder never to go into the woods before you’ve worked through your personal traumas in The Ritual, Amulet and Men.
Folk horror can also work on TV. A recent Doctor Who episode, 73 Yards, has a pure folk horror concept, with the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa, Sex Education) disappeared by a fairy circle and his companion Ruby (Millie Gibson, Butterfly) cursed for decades. You’ll have to watch the show to see how she figures her way out of that one, but it’s a nod to the fine old tradition of deeply terrifying Doctor Who adventures.
Crow Country
The House
Honestly, it’s all enough to make you want to stay in the city where it’s warm and well-lit and there are – hopefully – no ancient ghouls or ghosts waiting to snatch you. Although of course that does mean there’s more food around for zombies and vampires…Happy Halloween!
