Thanks very much Bram... Though of course I'll check out your piece, I wonder if you'd mind giving us a very brief two-line summary of it so we can incorporate it into the chat here?
Sure! My lens on these two films - Joker and Midsommar - is to do with male identity. I think Midsommar succeeds where Joker fails, it shows the necessary burning of the male archetype. Joker depicts that archetype with painstaking realism, but can't fully commit to its ritual sacrifice.
That's very interesting Bram, in our dialogue Ivan mentioned the Alex Garland film "Men" which very explicitly ties in the male archetype to a folk icon called The Green Man. We sort of disagreed on that film's effectiveness. Have you seen that one?
I have! Absolutely love Garland. I thought he missed with that one though, just a little too on the nose. His series Devs was tremendous, and had a lot to say on male archetypes. Did you guys look at In The Earth? That one really worked for me, in a way Men didn't (quite).
We absolutely did see "In the Earth" and kind of suppressed that since it has a lot of parallels with "The Owl Service" including certain shots copied by Wheatley from the earlier series. One day a proper comparison of "A Field in England" and "In the Earth" is on the cards.
Meanwhile how would you compare the treatment of masculinity in "Midsommar" and "Men"? In both cases the masculine character is sacrificed in a sort of ritual way...
I think the key difference for me is that the opposition to masculine values in Midsommar has a positive aspect. In the matrilineal dreamtime of Harga, burning the male in effigy is a way to reconnect to the natural and the feminine. It's sacrifice in the name of fecundity. In Men, the character is more of a cipher for toxic masculinity generally. It's an effective horror, but the 'folk' elements were a little less earned. I thought he could have done more with the premise, as interesting as it was. Aster's films are very painterly, I always get something different from a rewatch.
thats interesting - I really did not see Midsommar in that way at all - to each their own - I found hte sexual ritual scenes laugh out loud ridiculous, and the culmination to be a cop out - it started out so promisingly - the subtle hallucination effects, the brightness, the suddenness of the self sacrifice, and then it seemed to me like - shit...how are we going end this, I know, some shagging and then burn some outsiders for sacrifice - maybe I am just not clever enough to see the symbolism and allegory of the patriarchy - Interesting from Mr Hurley, who's book the Loney I cannot stop reccommending highly enough - I wish it was that book that had been made into a film and not his far less brillaint Starve Acre - this book introduced me to the insane thing of the Pace Eggers - if you are ever in the Uk around easter and near where there is still a troop of Pace Eggers performing - you must see it.
I really like the question as to whether these genres / sub-genres have a general theme. I want to say yes, they do. But I'll need to give some thought as to exactly what those themes are. The Slasher, Folk-Horror, Body Horror--they all attract different audiences, which to me indicates that each is addressing a certain fear.
This was a very engaging discussion and most enjoyable plus it has given me some leads for things i wasnt aware of.
on the question of folk horror, my understanding of this genre is that it pertains to forces of nature and inherent in a place and typically ancient with an element of "folklore" as in the people of a place are the "folk" of that place and it is a tradition, belief, practice or story inherent to them and or their place and one that folk of that place know and pass down from ages past and with possibly no certain origin. Folk Horror does not always rely on a beast and nor a ghost. so things like Midsommar... the folk horror is about the ancient religious cultist practices manifesting in the modern day on unsuspecting foreigners. The amazingly sinister book The Loney hints at witchcraft practice ... its really a very disturbing and subtle story. my short story God of the Wild is a very conscious effort at folk horror - and elemental ancient forces of nature. The wickerman is the classic obvious folk horror essentially the same film as the disappointing Midsommar in almost every respect.
dracula and were-wolves are also folk horror although they seem to have each become a sub genre of their own with distinct mythos and rules.
I would contrast folk horror with all the following types then:
the gory stuff you speak of which i would call slasher movies or "body" horror where the horror is all about the death that is coming for you in vivid detail and not the "eerie and weird" such as human caterpillar, halloween, motel, wolf creek.
i would also contrast both with ghost stories and again ghost stories have a distinct cross over in to folk in many cases, such as the ghostly hitch hiker, the headless horseman, the grey lady etc.
then psychological horror where madness is the villain such as psycho and shining.
and religious horror where the horror is a manifestation of demonic forces... these somehow feel distinct to ghostly or supernatural horror - such as Exorcist, Omen, Rosemarys Baby and poltergeists generally.
and Monster horror so this is not like dracula or were wolves this is monsters of the real and present world not ancient folkloric fears... this would be zombies, jaws, pirhana etc.
and finally sci fi horror... monsters in space really. not supernatural but not real. usually very gory but not always... like Aliens and Monster.
been ages since i read The Loney—think i'm confusing it in memory with his second one, which i recall being witchier. but that's the kind of literary-realist approach to folk horror, i think: when it moves from the particular to the universal, it figures the universal as an earthy, place-bound reality that moderns can't really escape from, doomed to keep making the same ancient mistakes
the 2nd one is Devil Day. We spent a few days in the vale of bowland visiting the places indicated in the book (as far as we could work out or guess) beautiful area but not sadly as sinister as in the book. hes got a 4th novel out soon.
A lot to chew on Nick, just as I got struck down by a seasonal lurgi...
Others who are in better shape may be able to take up the gauntlet and draw out your fascinating notions.
I'll just say that your system seems to consider mainly genre trappings and genre externals... Like Poe famously did. Is there a deep thematic or content basis for folk horror, something it's fundamentally 'about'? Forgive me if you did specify that and I never picked it up, but as I said I'm feeling under the Halloween weather right now...
hi again... to highlight my thoughts i just noted Andrew Michael Hurleys latest book BARROWBECK is a collection of short stories all set in the same place through the ages and tales of how the place has something innate and wrong which impacts those who live there. Devil day and the Loney both rely on something inherent to the place. starve acre also concerns a malevolent force that resides in a place although i found the manifestation and possession aspects of that story to be a bit formulaic and done many times before.
Ivan also talks about Place being key to folk horror and in trying to capture what folk horror is about... I can't do any better than to say it is about nature, elemental forces of the earth. they manifest in a place. Folk in that place live with it and accept it but outsiders fall to it. It is the powerlessness in the face of nature.
In that context you have to wonder whether the recent popularity of folk horror is partly about anxiety of losing the particularity of places with tradition and culture, as nearly everywhere is becoming the same homogeneous space.
Folk Horror is definitely a thing, but it is nothing new. It is old, pagan, and superstitious. That it is labeled a new genre IS newer. It can be quiet, but not necessarily. I am a big fan of the books by Adam L G Nevill that are classed as FH, especially The Reddening.
Fascinating read, thanks gents. Here's a piece I wrote about Midsommar, which you may enjoy! Not paywalled.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/are-we-in-wicker-99587220
Thanks very much Bram... Though of course I'll check out your piece, I wonder if you'd mind giving us a very brief two-line summary of it so we can incorporate it into the chat here?
Sure! My lens on these two films - Joker and Midsommar - is to do with male identity. I think Midsommar succeeds where Joker fails, it shows the necessary burning of the male archetype. Joker depicts that archetype with painstaking realism, but can't fully commit to its ritual sacrifice.
That's very interesting Bram, in our dialogue Ivan mentioned the Alex Garland film "Men" which very explicitly ties in the male archetype to a folk icon called The Green Man. We sort of disagreed on that film's effectiveness. Have you seen that one?
Wheatley in general tbh, from A Field In England back to Kill List, us definitely in dialogue with folk horror
*is
I have! Absolutely love Garland. I thought he missed with that one though, just a little too on the nose. His series Devs was tremendous, and had a lot to say on male archetypes. Did you guys look at In The Earth? That one really worked for me, in a way Men didn't (quite).
We absolutely did see "In the Earth" and kind of suppressed that since it has a lot of parallels with "The Owl Service" including certain shots copied by Wheatley from the earlier series. One day a proper comparison of "A Field in England" and "In the Earth" is on the cards.
Meanwhile how would you compare the treatment of masculinity in "Midsommar" and "Men"? In both cases the masculine character is sacrificed in a sort of ritual way...
I think the key difference for me is that the opposition to masculine values in Midsommar has a positive aspect. In the matrilineal dreamtime of Harga, burning the male in effigy is a way to reconnect to the natural and the feminine. It's sacrifice in the name of fecundity. In Men, the character is more of a cipher for toxic masculinity generally. It's an effective horror, but the 'folk' elements were a little less earned. I thought he could have done more with the premise, as interesting as it was. Aster's films are very painterly, I always get something different from a rewatch.
thats interesting - I really did not see Midsommar in that way at all - to each their own - I found hte sexual ritual scenes laugh out loud ridiculous, and the culmination to be a cop out - it started out so promisingly - the subtle hallucination effects, the brightness, the suddenness of the self sacrifice, and then it seemed to me like - shit...how are we going end this, I know, some shagging and then burn some outsiders for sacrifice - maybe I am just not clever enough to see the symbolism and allegory of the patriarchy - Interesting from Mr Hurley, who's book the Loney I cannot stop reccommending highly enough - I wish it was that book that had been made into a film and not his far less brillaint Starve Acre - this book introduced me to the insane thing of the Pace Eggers - if you are ever in the Uk around easter and near where there is still a troop of Pace Eggers performing - you must see it.
I really like the question as to whether these genres / sub-genres have a general theme. I want to say yes, they do. But I'll need to give some thought as to exactly what those themes are. The Slasher, Folk-Horror, Body Horror--they all attract different audiences, which to me indicates that each is addressing a certain fear.
Looking forward to further thoughts on that... Ivan particularly is interested in the "essence" or core dynamics of different genres.
Like, I know it, but articulating it is tricky. I really enjoyed your discussion.
This was a very engaging discussion and most enjoyable plus it has given me some leads for things i wasnt aware of.
on the question of folk horror, my understanding of this genre is that it pertains to forces of nature and inherent in a place and typically ancient with an element of "folklore" as in the people of a place are the "folk" of that place and it is a tradition, belief, practice or story inherent to them and or their place and one that folk of that place know and pass down from ages past and with possibly no certain origin. Folk Horror does not always rely on a beast and nor a ghost. so things like Midsommar... the folk horror is about the ancient religious cultist practices manifesting in the modern day on unsuspecting foreigners. The amazingly sinister book The Loney hints at witchcraft practice ... its really a very disturbing and subtle story. my short story God of the Wild is a very conscious effort at folk horror - and elemental ancient forces of nature. The wickerman is the classic obvious folk horror essentially the same film as the disappointing Midsommar in almost every respect.
dracula and were-wolves are also folk horror although they seem to have each become a sub genre of their own with distinct mythos and rules.
I would contrast folk horror with all the following types then:
the gory stuff you speak of which i would call slasher movies or "body" horror where the horror is all about the death that is coming for you in vivid detail and not the "eerie and weird" such as human caterpillar, halloween, motel, wolf creek.
i would also contrast both with ghost stories and again ghost stories have a distinct cross over in to folk in many cases, such as the ghostly hitch hiker, the headless horseman, the grey lady etc.
then psychological horror where madness is the villain such as psycho and shining.
and religious horror where the horror is a manifestation of demonic forces... these somehow feel distinct to ghostly or supernatural horror - such as Exorcist, Omen, Rosemarys Baby and poltergeists generally.
and Monster horror so this is not like dracula or were wolves this is monsters of the real and present world not ancient folkloric fears... this would be zombies, jaws, pirhana etc.
and finally sci fi horror... monsters in space really. not supernatural but not real. usually very gory but not always... like Aliens and Monster.
been ages since i read The Loney—think i'm confusing it in memory with his second one, which i recall being witchier. but that's the kind of literary-realist approach to folk horror, i think: when it moves from the particular to the universal, it figures the universal as an earthy, place-bound reality that moderns can't really escape from, doomed to keep making the same ancient mistakes
the 2nd one is Devil Day. We spent a few days in the vale of bowland visiting the places indicated in the book (as far as we could work out or guess) beautiful area but not sadly as sinister as in the book. hes got a 4th novel out soon.
A lot to chew on Nick, just as I got struck down by a seasonal lurgi...
Others who are in better shape may be able to take up the gauntlet and draw out your fascinating notions.
I'll just say that your system seems to consider mainly genre trappings and genre externals... Like Poe famously did. Is there a deep thematic or content basis for folk horror, something it's fundamentally 'about'? Forgive me if you did specify that and I never picked it up, but as I said I'm feeling under the Halloween weather right now...
hi again... to highlight my thoughts i just noted Andrew Michael Hurleys latest book BARROWBECK is a collection of short stories all set in the same place through the ages and tales of how the place has something innate and wrong which impacts those who live there. Devil day and the Loney both rely on something inherent to the place. starve acre also concerns a malevolent force that resides in a place although i found the manifestation and possession aspects of that story to be a bit formulaic and done many times before.
Ivan also talks about Place being key to folk horror and in trying to capture what folk horror is about... I can't do any better than to say it is about nature, elemental forces of the earth. they manifest in a place. Folk in that place live with it and accept it but outsiders fall to it. It is the powerlessness in the face of nature.
In that context you have to wonder whether the recent popularity of folk horror is partly about anxiety of losing the particularity of places with tradition and culture, as nearly everywhere is becoming the same homogeneous space.
Folk Horror is definitely a thing, but it is nothing new. It is old, pagan, and superstitious. That it is labeled a new genre IS newer. It can be quiet, but not necessarily. I am a big fan of the books by Adam L G Nevill that are classed as FH, especially The Reddening.
That's an interesting way to categorize it - pagan. In which case classic Gothic is Christian and Lovecraft type cosmic horror is post-Christian?
Maybe, but cosmic horror can be all of those things.