Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror

This is a documentary about the history of folk horror; while a good number of writers are cited (M. R. James, H. P. Lovecraft, Stephen King), the focus is primarily on film and, in some cases, television programs. Starting with an exploration of such films in the UK and moving on to the very different origins of American folk horror, the film spends its last hour or so talking about folk horror films around the world, particularly in Australia, Brazil, Japan and parts of the former Soviet Union. It's a *very* long film, more than three hours, but the interested viewer will not feel that time drag at all, so engrossing is the topic and so fascinating are the talking heads - and, of course, so terrific are the film clips. I've been interested in folklore and mythology for, oh, 40 years or so now, but this is the first time I've seen such scholarship applied so rigorously to films, many of which were considered schlocky in their time, some considered classics now. Absolutely riveting - but watch at your own peril, because you will find yourself wanting to track down a massive number of films after seeing tantalizing moments from the hundreds referenced here!

An exhaustive and almost exhausting at times documentary on one specific flavour of horror. It was certainly interesting, though, and I feel like it provided a good amount of insight into folk horror. It's one of those genres or sub-genres where you kind of know it when you see it, but it's harder to put into words. Thankfully, this documentary does put it into words.

Maybe too many words? I don't know if this had to be as long as it was, and it being over three hours is going to be something of an obstacle for a lot of people (maybe even myself included). But I still liked this, and there's a lot to like. It's just very, very in-depth and lengthy.

I loved the documentary and learned quite a bit about the Folk Horror genre and its offshoot. I thought that the chapter on colonialism was the best and would deserved its own feature.

However, it's a lengthy documentary (over 3 hours) that sometimes lost me with a feeling of tediously hammering some points while some other were a lot more nebulously discussed. At times, I even had a hard time figuring out where I was being taken, where the discussed matters were going. I would have also loved to have a little bit more introduction of the guests speakers, some of them I was not certain what their expertise or knowledge was.

That said, the result is visually impressive and clearly shows expertise and skills. As some others mentioned, it would have probably been a little more digestible in form of a series with 6-7 épisodes.

Beautiful to look at - the films under discussion are a beguiling bunch and there is some killer montage. I am the proverbial viewer who is happy to sit through 3 hrs plus on his subject. Unfortunately, those hours don't fly by. It is overlong and badly paced. The commentators seem heavy handed, pompous and humourless. Really this film would have been better served as several seperate features - one on British Folk horror, one or more others on the legacies of the colonial past, voodoo, etc. Lacks a tangible central thesis - Candyman, with it's urban setting surely the antithesis of folk horror, is included, with the justification that it is rooted in 'urban legend'. Why not include Alligator then? Why not The Fog? Almost any Dracula movie could be valid, with it's old country curses and whatnot. More relevant, Straw Dogs and The Shout are passed over - neither obscure and extensively covered elsewhere, so not a great loss, but suggestive of the filmmakers wandering interest. At times pedantic (scouring back issues of film journals for fleeting refernces to folk horror, Jonathan Rigby claiming he coined the term) and undisciplined. The interpretations are valid, but expressed in atmosphere of suffocating academic waffling. This is hardly conducive to the mystic weirdness the films themselves exude. The old Linda Blair routine, 'fear-of-female-sexuality' is trotted out. Fear, yes, but thrilling fear! What else is a Horror film supposed to do? Blood On Satan's Claw pretends to decry mob hysteria - but the girls are unambiguously under the influence of a devil, and commit evil and cruel acts - not the best example if one is looking for well thought out social critique. Michael Hordern in 'Whistle and I'll Come, My Lad' is 'almost a symbol of the patriarchy', rather than a pompous and bumbling eccentric. His having encountered a ghost is here presumably secondary to his imagined abuses of power under his professorship. In a way, the assorted commentators resemble the academic protagonists of several films under discussion here - unable to let go and believe, fearful of their own voyeuristic fascinations and clothing them in the respectable manners of the day, unwilling to perceive the true nature of the object of their study until it is to late. It is crucial viewing for those with an interest in the subject because of the many excellent or interesting films covered, but the relentless, one-sided and heavy handed commentary really is wearying - regardless of whether one agrees or not. That said, prepare to add countless titles to your watch list - visually stunning examples from around the world. At heart the appeal of folk horror is the same as the fairy tales and legends culture springs from - the rigidity of modern society makes escape into a bucolic idyll ever more attractive - though for all the talk of matriarchial societies, it's likely that modern living has improved the lot of women considerably. A lot of those tales carried the cautionary message: 'don't stray from the well-worn path', at heart most of these films reiterate this message - unless they are revenge plots. And why do ghosts wait several generations before taking out their ire on the descendants of those who wronged them? Where's the justice in that?

The analysis tends to be a little too political and academic for my taste, and some of the subject matter transitions are a little rushed and confusing, but the overall film becomes more than the sum of its parts and takes on a life and a magic of its own. It's an often mesmerizing documentary and I was sad when it ended despite its 3+ hour runtime. It would be difficult to find a more thorough overview of the subject.