Folk horror yessss!! (Uh I just previewed this comment and it's a novel, I'm sorry.)
For a quick(ish) definition, I like this one from Folk Horror Revival: "What separates ‘Folk Horror’ from the simply ‘folk’ is a certain sense of dislocation from the comfortable world, but it is a dislocation that does not necessarily have to be frightening; it is the difference between a dusty window in an old cottage and that same window framing an indistinct face, peering out". The unease of history, and how we tell stories about it, the eeriness of being watched by the past and asked to account for what you've done (and maybe being burnt up in a wicker man if a community does not find your accounting satisfactory).
All of that being said, I am honestly not in love with the "Folk (Rural) Horror" tag - I'd prefer the (rural) qualifier be dropped, as there's a lot of really interesting stuff to be done with Urban Wyrd/less-pastoral folk horror stories.
For bullet points, you could probably do something based on Scovell's chain - landscape, isolation, skewed moral beliefs, and happening/summoning. It's not wholly comprehensive, it leaves out certain talk of fate & politics that I think of as p essential to a folk horror project, but it's a place to start! Off the top of my head (these are EXTREMELY long bullet points now I've typed them out, welp):
*Landscape: Horror that's concerned with psychogeography, the ways in which atmospheres, histories, actions, and characters combine to create and change environments
*Isolation: Isolation is caused by the landscape, an outsider is horrified by a community's isolation, the community bonds are too strong for the outsider to break, the person who seems most connected to the outside/to want out/to bond with the outsider is actually the one Most invested in communal isolation
*Skewed moral beliefs: The traditions of the isolated community are not what 'we' would consider 'normal' or 'moral' - this can be explicit Satanism, generalised paganism, secular human sacrifice on the theme of the ättestupa). The outsider is unable to adapt to these, or even begin to approach/want to understad them, and that's what often gets them killed.
*Happening/summoning: The manifestation of the moral beliefs that comes at the very end of the story, often something that everyone but the outsider knew was going to happen. The media can use the audience's awareness+helplessness to change what's going on to make them complicit - there's a not insignificant amount of 'nature is going to kill you and it's right to, the isolated community is just acting as its agent in a lot of folk horror (cf Midsommar and the way the tapestries + runes spell out the Entire plot). Sometimes it's human sacrifice, sometimes there's a real paranomal manifestation, but this is usually when it's made clear that the community is going to 'win' in some way, even if it's a way that's terrible for everyone the audience likes.
*Politics: (This is not part of the chain but imo inextricable from the purpose of a lot of contemporary folk horror! See above. I think this is necessary but ymmv & I am open to discussion.): Horror that derives from exposing the lie of the innocent pastoral, taking responsibility for the damage caused by industrialisation, the recording and detection that's fundamentally the same in MR James' binoculars filled with dead men and the British army's surveillance apparatus in the fields.
Finally, please don't merge folk horror & religious horror - while religion plays a large role in folk horror, the emphasis is more on the power/community of belief than on the specific beliefs/texts/trappings of a specific religion.
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folk horror
Date: 2020-04-26 04:04 am (UTC)For a quick(ish) definition, I like this one from Folk Horror Revival: "What separates ‘Folk Horror’ from the simply ‘folk’ is a certain sense of dislocation from the comfortable world, but it is a dislocation that does not necessarily have to be frightening; it is the difference between a dusty window in an old cottage and that same window framing an indistinct face, peering out". The unease of history, and how we tell stories about it, the eeriness of being watched by the past and asked to account for what you've done (and maybe being burnt up in a wicker man if a community does not find your accounting satisfactory).
For reading (examples/common elements) I am going to rec Andy Paciorek's 'From the Forests, Fields, Furrows and further: An Introduction' and Adam Scovell's 'The Folk Horror Chain', as well as Robert MacFarlane's 'The eeriness of the English countryside', for folk horror as contemporary political movement.
All of that being said, I am honestly not in love with the "Folk (Rural) Horror" tag - I'd prefer the (rural) qualifier be dropped, as there's a lot of really interesting stuff to be done with Urban Wyrd/less-pastoral folk horror stories.
For bullet points, you could probably do something based on Scovell's chain - landscape, isolation, skewed moral beliefs, and happening/summoning. It's not wholly comprehensive, it leaves out certain talk of fate & politics that I think of as p essential to a folk horror project, but it's a place to start! Off the top of my head (these are EXTREMELY long bullet points now I've typed them out, welp):
*Landscape: Horror that's concerned with psychogeography, the ways in which atmospheres, histories, actions, and characters combine to create and change environments
*Isolation: Isolation is caused by the landscape, an outsider is horrified by a community's isolation, the community bonds are too strong for the outsider to break, the person who seems most connected to the outside/to want out/to bond with the outsider is actually the one Most invested in communal isolation
*Skewed moral beliefs: The traditions of the isolated community are not what 'we' would consider 'normal' or 'moral' - this can be explicit Satanism, generalised paganism, secular human sacrifice on the theme of the ättestupa). The outsider is unable to adapt to these, or even begin to approach/want to understad them, and that's what often gets them killed.
*Happening/summoning: The manifestation of the moral beliefs that comes at the very end of the story, often something that everyone but the outsider knew was going to happen. The media can use the audience's awareness+helplessness to change what's going on to make them complicit - there's a not insignificant amount of 'nature is going to kill you and it's right to, the isolated community is just acting as its agent in a lot of folk horror (cf Midsommar and the way the tapestries + runes spell out the Entire plot). Sometimes it's human sacrifice, sometimes there's a real paranomal manifestation, but this is usually when it's made clear that the community is going to 'win' in some way, even if it's a way that's terrible for everyone the audience likes.
*Politics: (This is not part of the chain but imo inextricable from the purpose of a lot of contemporary folk horror! See above. I think this is necessary but ymmv & I am open to discussion.): Horror that derives from exposing the lie of the innocent pastoral, taking responsibility for the damage caused by industrialisation, the recording and detection that's fundamentally the same in MR James' binoculars filled with dead men and the British army's surveillance apparatus in the fields.
Finally, please don't merge folk horror & religious horror - while religion plays a large role in folk horror, the emphasis is more on the power/community of belief than on the specific beliefs/texts/trappings of a specific religion.