folk horror

Folk horror is a subgenre of horror film and horror fiction that uses elements of folklore to invoke fear and foreboding.

Folk horror chain

Adam Scovell's "folk horror chain" is a narrative theory that presents "a linking set of narrative traits that have causational and interlinking consequences." The four elements of the folk horror chain are:

1. Landscape
2. Isolation
3. Skewed morals or beliefs
4. The summoning or the happening

Folk Horror Film Syllabus

• Häxan (1922, Sweden)
• The White Reindeer (1952, Finland)
• Night of the Demon (1957, UK)
• Kuroneko (1968, Japan)
• Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach (1970, Poland)
• Blood on Satan's Claw (1971, UK)
• The Wicker Man (1972, UK)
• Ganja & Hess (1973, US)
• Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975, Australia)
• Children of the Corn (1984, US)
• Clearcut (1991, Canada)
• Candyman (1992, US)
• The Blair Witch Project (1999, US)
• La Llorona (2019, Guatemala)
• The Medium (2021, Thailand)
• Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021, US)