Archaeology is a useful narrative device in the Horror genre for many reasons, and not just because of our propensity for uncorking ancient evil now and again. Academia is a natural fit for the sub-genre known broadly as Folk Horror because the intrusion of an outsider, which includes all manner of nosy folklorists, historians, cultural anthropologists, and archaeologists, is an excellent way to set such a story in motion.
I’ve got a number of posts lined up which discuss specific archaeologically-themed Folk Horror books and movies, so it seems logical to start with a brief description of the genre, a few recommended non-fiction books, and a documentary recommendation.
Adam Scovell’s book Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange (Auteur, 2017) and the essays on his website are foundational and his adaptation of the paper he presented at the 1st Folk Horror Conference at Queens Belfast University in 2014 on what he calls The Folk Horror Chain is vital reading. The Folk Horror Chain, in essence, is a constellation of elements: the landscape and the environment, isolation and the ways it “leads to communities that develop skewed morality and belief systems of practice,” and a manifestation or summoning.
It’s practically a flytrap for cultural anthropologists, at least the cinematic ones. Looking at you A Return to Salem’s Lot (1987), Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), and Candyman (1992).
Scovell considers Folk Horror to be a global genre, not one confined to British culture or film and television productions and that’s a perspective which I share. Fortunately for all, it’s one film programmer and documentarian Kier-La Janisse shares.
Kier-La Janisse’s documentary Woodlands Dark And Days Bewitched: A History Of Folk Horror (2021) is a terrific introduction to the subject, galloping through hundreds of examples, interspersed with over 50 interviews with academics, filmmakers, and other experts. With a run-time of 3 hours and 14 minutes, it’s probably not something you’ll want to try to absorb in one sitting, but it’s divided into 6 thematic sections so you don’t have to try. I’ve grabbed this summary off the film’s website:
“While exploring the key cinematic signposts of folk horror – touching on over 200 films, television plays and episodes as well as early inspirational literature – the film also examines the rise of paganism in the late 1960s, the prominence of the witch-figure in connection with second wave feminism, the ecological movement of the 1970s, the genre’s emphasis on landscape and psychogeography, and American manifestations of folk horror from Mariners’ tales and early colonial history to Southern Gothic and backwoods horror. Finally, the film navigates through the muddy politics of folk nostalgia. The term ‘folk horror’ is a loaded one, and WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED explores the many ways that we alternately celebrate, conceal and manipulate our own histories in an attempt to find spiritual resonance in our surroundings.“
If you’d like a spreadsheet of the films that you can sort by title, year, director, country of origin, or the occasional vague keyword, you’re in luck because I created one while I watched the film and you can grab a copy from dropbox. I’m not kidding about the keywords – they mostly exist to flag the films with ethnographers, anthropologists, or archaeologists.
Howard David Ingham’s 2018 book We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide to Folk Horror and Pagan Film is another fine resource, and the link takes you to his essay about the genesis of the project and other articles he’s written on the subject.
The Folk Horror Revival and Urban Wyrd Project site contains loads of information and, as the title suggests, is interested in how these narrative strategies are adopted in urban settings, as well.
Upcoming posts about specific archaeology/anthropology-entangled Folk Horror titles include the aforementioned A Return to Salem’s Lot and Candyman, as well as Curse of the Demon/Night of the Demon (1957), The Witches (1967), Burn, Witch, Burn/Night of the Eagle (1962), Lair of the White Worm (1988), and Quatermass and the Pit (1967).
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