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Posted on June 5, 2021

Folk Horror at Home and Abroad in Ari Aster’s Midsommar

Guest Post

Upon its release, Ari Aster’s Midsommar (2019) was hailed as a new Folk Horror masterpiece. Like so many other films in the genre – for instance, The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973) and the made-for-TV movie The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (Leo Penn, 1978) – Aster’s film ends in death and with the triumph of the values of a secluded community over the members of a more modern society.

Many viewers read this violent ending as cathartic. Dani (Florence Pugh) has finally shed all the people and circumstances in her life that made her miserable. Her acceptance by the Hårga and the enigmatic smile that plays on her face as she watches her boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor), burn to death are seen as the hallmarks of a happy ending.

Posted on May 25, 2021

The Persistence of Reproductive Futurism in A Quiet Place

Guest Post

‘If they hear you, they hunt you.’ A Quiet Place (2018) tells the story of a white American family fighting to survive in a post-apocalyptic North American landscape, where they are forced to live in silence to avoid monstrous creatures that hunt by sound and have wiped out the majority of the population. The fictional couple Evelyn and Lee Abbott (played by real-life Hollywood couple Emily Blunt and John Krasinki) are determined to find a way to protect their children (deaf daughter Regan, and sons Marcus and Beau) while desperately searching for a way to fight back.

Posted on May 7, 2021

In the Earth: Ben Wheatley’s New Folk Horror

Dawn Keetley

Ben Wheatley’s new film, In the Earth, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in late January 2021, is a fascinating film—especially for fans of folk horror. Wheatley is well-known to those fans, of course, for his previous work in the sub-genre: Kill List (2010), Sightseers (2012), and A Field in England (2013).

In my view, In the Earth is one of the most important folk horror films of the last decade—up there with Wheatley’s own Kill List, although the two films could not be more different.

Posted on April 12, 2021

The 40th Anniversary of The Evil Dead: Camp Horror and its Legacies

Guest Post

Forty years ago, Detroit’s Redford Theatre hosted the premiere of The Book of the Dead, a new film by Sami Raimi. A fan of the extravagant premiers popularised by William Castle, Raimi put on a show—custom-made ticket stubs promised the “Ultimate Experience in Gruelling Terror” and two ambulances were ceremoniously parked outside. If that were not enough, two wind tracks were set up to transport attendees to the film’s iconic setting: a dilapidated cabin in the woods. Two years later and the film, renamed The Evil Dead, would make over $29million worldwide; due in no small part to its dedication, on and off screen, to the kind of theatrical spectacle initially created in the Redford Theatre. Read more

Posted on April 7, 2021

HUSH-A Film Poe Would Have Loved

Dawn Keetley

Synopsis: Centered on a woman who lives alone in the woods and is inexplicably terrorized, Hush distills everything to a single effect—terror.

Released on April 8, 2016, Hush is directed by Mike Flanagan and written by Flanagan and Kate Siegel. Siegel also stars in the film, playing the heroine, Maddie, alongside villain John Gallagher, Jr. (from 10 Cloverfield Lane), identified in the credits only as “The Man.”

I went into this film with virtually no expectations, watching it on the day it landed on Netflix. I was transfixed. It was terrifying from beginning to end, and the performances by Siegel and Gallagher were inspired.

The film’s plot is very simple—and that, I think, is its primary strength (and where Poe comes in, but more on that later).

Maddie (Siegel) lives alone in an isolated house in the woods. An illness at age thirteen left her deaf and mute, isolating her in a still more profound way. As she says via Facetime to her sister, who’s worried about her being alone: “Isolation happened to me. I didn’t pick it.” After a brief visit from her neighbor, Sarah (Samantha Sloyan), the film focuses almost exclusively on “The Man’s” terrorizing of Maddie. He does so, at first, from outside the house, telling her he will only come in after she’s reached the point that she wishes she were dead. The film tracks their extended battle—as he seeks to victimize Maddie and she fights back. Read more