Human, All Too Human: the Films of Mike Flanagan Part 2

Hill House and Beyond By Guest Contributor Matt Harries For the first part of Matt’s special feature on Mike Flanagan, click here. For Keri’s feature on The Haunting of Hill House, click here. ‘What struck me the most is that I think grief is such a universal experience that when we were in the writers’ […]

Stairway to Hell: The Exorcist

By special guest contributor Marc Lissenburg “What’s the scariest film you’ve ever seen?” It’s a query I am faced with on an alarmingly regular basis when folk learn of my fervent horror movie fanaticism. Despite the somewhat tedious probing, my enthused and instantaneous retort each time is – “THE EXORCIST!” Now I accept one man’s […]

200 Years of Frankenstein

Frankenstein’s Creature is one of the true modern horror archetypes. Like the vampire or the ghoul, it’s an enduring and versatile monster, ready to reflect whatever set of anxieties we currently have; its ghastly stitched flesh and tendons are durable enough to withstand whatever we seek from it. And yet, unlike the vampire – which […]

The Land Knows: the Sinister Seams of the British Folk Horror Landscape (Part 2)

“COMPLETE US THE CIRCLE!” STORIES OF STANDING STONES The numerous standing stones of Britain are familiar, beloved points on our landscape: Stonehenge is now an integral part of the British tourism trade, for instance, bringing in visitors from around the world. There are examples of monoliths and circles throughout the country – over 300 in […]

The Land Knows: the Sinister Seams of the British Folk Horror Landscape (Part 1)

Idylls are not idylls in the British folk horror world, and the land itself hides a multitude of sins – even if ‘sins’ are a relatively modern phenomenon, by its standards. This small, but significant sub-genre derives a great deal of its power by examining the deep unease generated by Britain’s ancient history: the palpable, […]

Welcome to Our Folk Horror Special…

Strange, isolated houses, villages and islands; closed communities, whose initial friendliness seems to mask something deeply sinister; people who have rejected modernity, or have simply been passed over by it; ritual practices; the uncanny; dark magic; pagan symbols; the threat of the old ways spilling over into the new, with devastating consequences… Welcome to a […]