u/Folk-n-Hell

We went to see Hokum when it first came out, and it was quite an experience. Genuinely scary with jump scares that land, a dark, oppressive atmosphere that does its job. One of us screamed. Loudly.

But when we rewatched it for the podcast, the film started to unravel.

The police can't search a building. The protagonist's backstory arrives so late it barely matters. The folk horror elements feel decorative rather than structural. And the unlikeable main character, Ohm Bauman, keeps making the worst possible decision, repeatedly.

For a film that hits so hard on its first watch, it's quite a comedown on repeat viewing.

Full episode: https://www.folknhell.com/hokum-review

A decade before the Disney version of Something Wicked This Way Comes, a group of children from suburban London made their own version. Unofficial, underfunded, and much, much more unsettling..

Directed by Colin Finbow and produced by the Forest Hill Film Unit and Drama Troupe, it’s a student film with all that implies. Depending on your tolerance it's either a nasty little gem or a cinematic endurance test. Probably both. Sometimes within the same scene.

Unlike Bradbury's grand mythic American carnival, this is a diamal local British fairground. And if you're British, you already know what that means. Cold, oppressive, reeking of onions and uncooked meet. The whole thing sits slightly at an angle from reality, exactly the kind of thing ITV would have buried in the schedules just before closedown waiting to traumatise your young mind.

Mr. Black's carnival is makeshift and wrong, just like the film. Homemade, with jumpy editing, technical glitches, stilted performances, discordant electronic noise, and joke-shop masks. It completely works.

It’s made by children, but like the best of the 1970s, explicitly not for children.

The fairground is a predatory community, feeding on the desires and weaknesses of ordinary people. It’s the people of Summerisle, the village in Blood on Satan's Claw, the family in The Witch.

If you’ve only seen the 1983 Disney film, you may find this a difficult watch. To say the least. It’s a stranger, much (much) more unsettling and far bleaker experience.

There's a longer look at it at https://www.folknhell.com/blog/something-else-wicked-this-way-comes

The film is on YouTube.

Kill List doesn't look like a folk horror film. That's the point.

Ben Wheatley builds his 2011 nightmare in layers. A couple arguing about money in a kitchen, moving through contract killing and creeping dread, before arriving somewhere that reframes everything you've just watched.

It's patient, brutal, and deeply strange, and it has one of the most shocking endings in British horror.

The new episode of the FolknHell podcast goes into the genre mechanics, the folk horror scaffolding underneath the thriller surface, and what Wheatley gets absolutely right

It's a good one.

https://www.folknhell.com/kill-list-review

Jacques Tourneur's 1957 masterpiece, Night of the Demon is horror legend Ramsey Campbell's favourite horror film, so we were delighted when he agreed to join us for the latest episode of FolknHell to discuss his career, his new audiodrama and his favourite film.

We discuss the different versions of the film, the staggering performance of Niall MacGinnis, Lovecraft, Liverpool and more in a very special episode.

Listen at: https://www.folknhell.com/night-ot-the-demon-review

Alex Garland’s 2022 shocker follows Harper (Jessie Buckley), who escapes to the English countryside after the traumatic death of her husband, only to discover that all men are the same. And they’re all played in various states of undress and grotesquerie by Rory Kinnear.

It’s a visually rich, deeply atmospheric film packed with Green Man imagery, fertility symbols, and that familiar sense of rural unease, but underneath it all, Men is really a study of grief, guilt and misogyny. The performances are excellent throughout, though Garland’s symbolism can feel pretty heavy handed. By the infamous final act you’ll either be completely locked in or totally checked out. There are three of us in FolknHell. I thought the ending ruined an otherwise decent film whereas the other two got a lot more out of it.

A striking psychological horror wrapped in folk horror clothing: unsettling, memorable, and occasionally a little too pleased with its own metaphors.

Listen to the FolknHell podcast and let us know what you think.