October is the month for terror, and at the Weekly Triple Feature we have you covered. Each week we’re offering up horror selections from throughout film history that range from spine-tingling to bloody, to downright hilarious. Whatever your particular flavor of horror is, you’ll find it here this month.
THIS WEEK: FOLK HORROR
THE FILMS: The Wicker Man (1973, Robin Hardy), The Witch (2015, Robert Eggers), Häxan (1922, Benjamin Christensen)
Folk horror is a sub-genre that’s tough to pin down. While most of horror is fairly specific—slashers, haunted houses, vampires—this one is more abstract. That’s partly because it’s based in culture: It’s everywhere and nowhere all at once. There isn’t necessarily a serial killer on the loose, but there could be a witch or even an entire town that has no problem offering you up to some invisible god.
A few things are hallmarks of folk horror. Chief among them is isolation. The stories often take place in rural settings where someone with opposing ideas stumbles upon a group that is far away from society and modernity. We fear what we don’t understand. And the far-off locales make it easy to see why nature plays an important role as well. The people in these communities both worship and fear it. Add in a bit of the supernatural and you have the recipe for something terrifying and exciting.
This week’s triple feature includes three titles that are shining examples of folk horror in all its forms. From one of the original features in the sub-genre to a modern interpretation, to a textbook of a film that would lay the groundwork for everything that would come decades later, this is a fun set of stories that will make you want more. And worry not, there is a bountiful harvest of it out there for you to find and enjoy.
The Wicker Man, Robin Hardy, 1973
When it comes to folk horror, The Wicker Man is one of the OG examples. It’s the third corner, after 1968’s Witchfinder General and 1972’s The Blood on Satan’s Claw, of the “Unholy Trinity,” a trio of films that helped define this sub-genre and lay its ground rules. Of the three, The Wicker Man is the most memorable. Though its bizarre and shocking moments are things you might want to forget.
Set on the remote Scottish island of Summerisle, it’s the story of Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward), a God-fearing police officer who arrives to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. What he finds are locals whose pagan ways are at odds with his own Christian beliefs, and the deeper he gets into his case, the crazier things become.
Central to the tension in The Wicker Man is a dedication to systems of belief. The islanders are married to their idea that a sun god blesses their harvest and they’ll go to any length to appease it. The devout Sergeant Howie is constantly at odds with this because he doesn’t understand it. This is a story of two sides not giving an inch. But in the end, one side must win.
Like a lot of films from this era, The Wicker Man relies heavily on music. It’s incorporated so completely that at times it feels like you’re watching a musical. The characters’ songs move the story along to a degree, but they’re always shocking—and entertaining. One scene is basically a music video starring Sergeant Howie and Willow, the innkeeper’s daughter, who seduces him by singing to him buck-naked from her bedroom, accompanied by instrument-playing patrons of the inn’s barroom. The wiles of Willow’s voice through the walls seem to pull Howie magnetically, but he uses his pure Christian values to resist—it’s one of the most scene-chewing performances ever captured on film. It’s unintentionally hilarious and, for better or worse, what a lot of this film’s legacy is built on. But that scene aside, the Scottish music is an essential element of how this film builds up suspense and the creepiness of the island’s group think.
Watching The Wicker Man in 2022, nearly 50 years after it was made, it seems almost contemporary, politically speaking. The opposing sides in this story have no interest in what the other has to say and will defend their beliefs to the death. We see so much of that in world events today, and it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere soon. In that context alone, this film is timeless—making it more like a documentary with a folk horror twist.
The Witch, Robert Eggers, 2015
Director Robert Eggers had a folk horror checklist to tick off as he created The Witch. Or so it would seem. Common elements of the sub-genre, such as folklore, religion, isolation, nature, and the supernatural, are all represented. And they’re utilized in what we can now recognize as the director’s trademark filmmaking style—one that always involves meticulous research and stunning visuals.
The Witch follows a family in the 1600s that were banished from their colony over a religious dispute and set up camp in the New England countryside. The spot where they settle is at the edge of an ominous forest, and horrible things begin happening to them. Their newborn child goes missing, and things only get worse. This film is a study of psychological unraveling, whether brought on by a character’s own mind or by a mystical outside force. That’s where the real horror lies. Yes, there is an unmistakable evil lurking throughout the film, but it’s the Shining-esque isolation and madness that unnerves viewers. Place Mark Korven’s dissonant, eerie score on top of this and shoot it in dim natural light that makes you not quite sure what you’re seeing and what you’re imagining, and you have a recipe for jaw-clenching tension that you’ll love every minute of.
While The Witch has a different tone than The Wicker Man, the two work well together, serving as examples of what folk horror used to be and what it’s become. There’s been a renaissance for the sub-genre over the past decade, with the former using the latter as a road map to elevate and modernize something ultimately rooted in ideas that are centuries old.
Häxan, Benjamin Christensen, 1922
If the “Unholy Trinity” was the start of folk horror in film, then Häxan is its great-granddaddy. Released before horror was a genre, it pre-dates Witchfinder General by 46 years. But its influence on that film and on subsequent pictures in this sub-genre is prominent. Based on the witchcraft trials of the 15th and 16th centuries, this film combines documentary with dramatizations to tell the story of “witches” and their persecution. But it also does so much more.
The first part of the film is formatted like a college lecture, with informational slides and pages from texts onscreen that illustrate pre-Renaissance beliefs and how they led to “witches” as we know them. From there, its elaborate and beautifully staged vignettes show how a misogynistic patriarchy treated innocent women it didn’t understand. And the final sequence asks if the psychotherapy methods of the early 20th century, where women were locked away in institutions, were any different than burning them at the stake.
Häxan is a cinematic darling these days, at least in certain circles. Because of its anti-clergy ideas and graphic content it was banned for many years outside of Sweden, only to resurface in 1941 and again in 1968 under the title Witchcraft Through the Ages. That’s when it became a midnight movie and developed a cult following that lasts still today. And why not? It’s crazy, fun, and beautiful to look at.
FURTHER READING (AND WATCHING):
- “Modern Times Call for Folk Horror,” New York Times
- “Häxan: ‘Let Her Suffering Begin,'” Criterion
- Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror, Shudder
WHERE TO WATCH:
- The Wicker Man
- The Witch
- Häxan (Note: This is also available on The Criterion Channel with a subscription)
For even more folk horror, check out our triple feature, Everybody Knows: Towns with a Dark Secret.