FolknHell

Men

A country retreat should be peaceful. Unless every man you meet has the same face, the same blame, and eventually, rather more birth canal than anyone ever asked for! Alex Garland’s Men follows Harper, played by Jessie Buckley, as she retreats to a rural house after the violent death of her husband. What looks like a healing break quickly becomes an unnerving confrontation with grief, guilt and a village full of men, all played by Rory Kinnear, who seem to embody different shades of male threat, blame and entitlement. Andy, Dave and David are split on how well it works. David finds a lot to admire in the film’s attempt to explore trauma from a woman’s perspective, reading the house as Harper’s head and the male characters as psychological archetypes rather than literal villagers. Dave is intrigued but kept at arm’s length by the film’s allegorical style, feeling that the lack of reality also reduces the sense of jeopardy. Andy is the least convinced, praising the performances and visuals but finding the film heavy handed, especially once the final act starts birthing Rory Kinnears like a cursed Russian doll. On the folk horror question, the verdict is clear but nuanced. Men uses folk horror imagery beautifully, with the Green Man, fertility carvings, old houses, rural isolation and ancient symbolic weight all doing plenty of atmospheric work. But the hosts land on it being dressed in folk horror rather than truly being folk horror. The threat is not the land or the community. It is Harper’s trauma, guilt and the men in her head. Final score: 15 out of 30. Folknhell is the folk horror podcast where Andy Davidson, Dave Houghton and David Hall dig into strange cinema, argue about whether it really counts as folk horror, and score every film out of 30. Add your own score and comments about the films at https://www.folknhell.com/scores [https://www.folknhell.com/scores ] Find us on the socials: * YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6R1z2tHvPlreKCkoCuFECQ]: @folknhell * Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/folknhell/]: FolknHell * X [https://x.com/FolknHell]: @FolknHell * Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/folknhell.bsky.social]: FolknHell See acast.com/privacy for info. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

The Wicker Man

Bright sunshine, folk songs and communal sex should not feel this menacing. The Wicker Man still manages the neat trick of looking almost cheerful while marching straight towards one of horror’s most unforgettable endings. A policeman, a pagan island, and one of the most famous endings in horror cinema. Andy, Dave and David head to Summerisle for The Wicker Man and get into its strange musical spell, its battle of belief systems, and the question of whether this is still the defining folk horror film or simply the most iconic. Andy finally gets to bring his favourite film to the table, which means The Wicker Man gets both passionate defence and a bit of healthy resistance. The conversation digs into the film’s odd balancing act as mystery, musical and folk horror landmark, with all three hosts agreeing that its horror is less about constant dread and more about the awful certainty of where it is heading. They get stuck into Sergeant Howie as a devout Christian outsider blundering into a community whose beliefs he cannot understand and cannot tolerate. That clash between rigid authority and pagan ritual becomes the heart of the discussion, alongside the film’s use of masks, fertility rites, sacrifice and isolation. There is also a lively debate over the old folk horror test: threat of the land, isolated community, ancient origins. David pushes back on just how ancient Summerisle’s traditions really are, while Andy and Dave argue that the film still absolutely earns its place as one of the genre’s founding texts. The mood swings between admiration, nerdy detail and a fair bit of filth, with talk of diegetic music, topiary penises, Brit Ekland’s famous not quite Brit Ekland scene, and the various cuts of the film. The final verdict is clear enough though. Whatever quibbles they have about age, pacing or how “horror” it really is, this is still folk horror royalty. Final score: 24.5 out of 30. Folknhell is the folk horror podcast where Andy Davidson, Dave Houghton and David Hall dig into strange cinema, argue about whether it really counts as folk horror, and score every film out of 30. Add your own score and comments about the films at https://www.folknhell.com/scores [https://www.folknhell.com/scores ] Find us on the socials: * YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6R1z2tHvPlreKCkoCuFECQ]: @folknhell * Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/folknhell/]: FolknHell * X [https://x.com/FolknHell]: @FolknHell * Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/folknhell.bsky.social]: FolknHell See acast.com/privacy for info. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

A Dark Song

A house sealed in salt is already a bad sign. Spending a year inside it with grief, lies and ceremonial magic makes it worse. FolknHell tackles A Dark Song: grief, ritual magic, guardian angels, and whether this eerie occult chamber piece counts as folk horror. The film is Liam Gavin’s 2016 occult chamber piece about a grieving mother, Sophia, who hires the abrasive Henry Solomon to guide her through an elaborate ritual based on The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. What starts as a bid to speak to her dead child slowly reveals itself as something angrier, riskier and much more spiritually costly. > “It gives you a peek at the architecture of the universe.” The conversation leans hard into what makes the film work so well. Andy, Dave and David love the stripped back set-up, the claustrophobic house, the drip feed of uncanny detail, and the way the film makes magic feel dangerous without ever tipping into anything daft. They spend plenty of time on the relationship between Sophia and Solomon, which shifts from mistrust and hostility into a bleak sort of dependence, with Catherine Walker and Steve Oram getting a lot of praise for carrying almost the whole film between them. > “It’s not what she wants, but it is what she needs.” There is some debate over whether it fully fits the FolknHell folk horror test. It does not neatly match every rule, but the ancient ritual, total isolation, occult Christianity and growing sense of being trapped inside a logic you do not understand push it firmly into folk horror adjacent territory, before Andy finally plants his flag and calls it folk horror anyway. > “A house sealed in salt and a ritual built on lies is never going to end well.” The big takeaway is that this is one of the highest rated films the hosts have covered so far. They single out the cigarette smoking appearance of Death, the astonishing guardian angel reveal, and the unexpectedly redemptive ending as moments that genuinely stick in the mind. Final score: 23 out of 30. Enjoyed this film too? Add your own score and comments for the film at https://www.folknhell.com/scores [https://www.folknhell.com/scores] Also Referenced in this episode * The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage * Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn * Aleister Crowley * Samuel MacGregor Mathers * Kabbalah * Hermes * Candyman * The Wicker Man * Midsommar * John Constantine * Clive Barker Folknhell is the folk horror podcast where Andy Davidson, Dave Houghton and David Hall dig into strange cinema, argue about whether it really counts as folk horror, and score every film out of 30. Add your own score and comments about the films at https://www.folknhell.com/scores [https://www.folknhell.com/scores ] Find us on the socials: * YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6R1z2tHvPlreKCkoCuFECQ]: @folknhell * Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/folknhell/]: FolknHell * X [https://x.com/FolknHell]: @FolknHell * Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/folknhell.bsky.social]: FolknHell See acast.com/privacy for info. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

In The Earth

In this episode of FolknHell, we head into the fungal murk of In the Earth (2021), Ben Wheatley’s strange, abrasive, hallucinatory pandemic folk horror, where science, ritual, sound and landscape all start speaking the same unnerving language. What begins as a journey into the woods to assist with isolated research soon curdles into something far weirder: standing stones, old lore, mycelial networks, mutilation, feverish experiments, and the creeping suspicion that the land is not just alive, but listening. We dig into whether In the Earth is truly folk horror or something even stranger: a modern eco-mystical nightmare built from ancient anxieties and lockdown-era alienation. There is plenty here for FolknHell to get its teeth into: hostile landscape, buried folklore, a force rooted in the earth itself, and a growing sense that human beings are hopelessly unequipped to understand what they are poking. Along the way, we talk about the film’s unsettling COVID texture, its blend of psychedelic horror and elemental menace, and the clash between artistic ritual and scientific method as two equally untrustworthy ways of trying to commune with whatever is out there in the woods. We also get into the film’s standing stone imagery, fungal intelligence, the role of Alma as the overlooked guide and survivor, and whether Wheatley is giving us a folk horror film in full, or smuggling one in through the side door under cover of experimental horror. It is not a cosy watch, and it is not especially interested in holding your hand. But it is tense, grimly funny in places, full of memorable imagery, and unmistakably rooted in that FolknHell sweet spot where landscape, old fears and human arrogance meet. So is In the Earth folk horror? We think yes, emphatically, though perhaps in a less traditional form than wicker effigies and village rites. This is folk horror with spores in its lungs and noise in its skull. Expect spoilers, strong opinions, and a fair amount of sympathy for Joel Fry, who suffers more here than seems strictly necessary. Enter the woods with us. [https://folknhell.com/episodes] Folknhell is the folk horror podcast where Andy Davidson, Dave Houghton and David Hall dig into strange cinema, argue about whether it really counts as folk horror, and score every film out of 30. Add your own score and comments about the films at https://www.folknhell.com/scores [https://www.folknhell.com/scores ] Find us on the socials: * YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6R1z2tHvPlreKCkoCuFECQ]: @folknhell * Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/folknhell/]: FolknHell * X [https://x.com/FolknHell]: @FolknHell * Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/folknhell.bsky.social]: FolknHell See acast.com/privacy for info. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Frewaka

Irish fairies, Catholic guilt and one extremely ominous red door. Frewaka is exactly the sort of film FolknHell should fall for, which made it all the more annoying when it kept wandering off into the mist with its own plot. Episode summary Frewaka arrives wearing all the right clothes for folk horror. Remote Irish village. Fairy lore. Iron nailed up around the house. Bells in trees. Missing children. Family trauma. Village oddballs. A goat, naturally. It is thick with the sort of atmosphere that makes you sit up and think, right, here we go. And for a while, it really does feel like we are in safe, dread-soaked hands. Shoo, still reeling from her mother’s death, takes a care job with Peg, an elderly woman living in a lonely old house full of rules, warnings and the sense that something is very wrong just outside the frame. From there the film starts digging into changelings, inherited fear, buried history and old supernatural debts, all wrapped up in Irish folklore and religious unease. There is a lot here to admire. The imagery is strong, the mood is properly eerie, and when Frewaka lands on a creepy idea, it really lands. The trouble is that it also seems oddly determined not to explain itself until far too late. FolknHell spent a good chunk of the discussion trying to work out whether the film was being richly mysterious or just plain muddled. Peg appears to know absolutely everything and says almost nothing. Shoo strolls through moments that would send most people into the sea. And some of the film’s best ideas, especially the red door and the final procession, feel more haunting than satisfying. On the all important question, though, there was no real argument. This is folk horror. No hedging, no qualifiers, no “adjacent” nonsense. The ingredients are all there and they are properly baked in. The frustration is that a film this atmospheric, this folkloric and this loaded with unsettling promise should probably have hit harder. Dave was the most forgiving with a 6, while Andy and David both landed on 4, giving Frewaka a FolknHell total of 14 out of 30. A proper folk horror, then. Just one that leaves you doing a bit more admin than you might like. Key takeaways * Completely, undeniably folk horror. No debate there * Gorgeous eerie bits and folklore detail do a lot of the heavy lifting * The central mystery feels more tangled than clever by the end * That red door is doing award-worthy work * The final procession is exactly the sort of thing this film needed more of * Final FolknHell score: 14 out of 30 Links and references * IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27828550/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_Fr%C3%A9waka [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27828550/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_Fr%C3%A9waka] * Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/frewaka [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/frewaka] * TMDb: https://www.themoviedb.org/search?language=en-GB&query=Frewaka [https://www.themoviedb.org/search?language=en-GB&query=Frewaka] * Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frewaka [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frewaka] Referenced in this episode that you might want to look up * Sidhe * Changeling folklore * The Wicker Man * Lord of Misrule * Sator * Rabbit Trap * Philomena Enjoyed this episode? Add your own score and comments for the film at https://www.folknhell.com/scores [https://www.folknhell.com/scores] Folknhell is the folk horror podcast where Andy Davidson, Dave Houghton and David Hall dig into strange cinema, argue about whether it really counts as folk horror, and score every film out of 30. Add your own score and comments about the films at https://www.folknhell.com/scores [https://www.folknhell.com/scores ] Find us on the socials: * YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6R1z2tHvPlreKCkoCuFECQ]: @folknhell * Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/folknhell/]: FolknHell * X [https://x.com/FolknHell]: @FolknHell * Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/folknhell.bsky.social]: FolknHell See acast.com/privacy for info. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.