“There’s not an inch of soil that’s still alive.” Nothing grows on the land where the town hanging tree once stood in Andrew Michael Hurley’s folk horror novel Starve Acre. Originally published in the UK in 2019, Starve Acre is being newly released in the U.S. tomorrow, July 4. Continue reading Review of Starve Acre—Slow-burn Folk Horror
Tag: folk horror
Folk Horror in Literature
Something ancient has been awakened in the woods…. This premise encapsulates the essence of many folk horror stories. I have briefly touched on folk horror before in my review of the YA folk horror anthology The Gathering Dark, but as this deeply rooted subgenre of horror experiences another wave of popularity, I figured it was time to dive into it more deeply and give you a few recommendations through which to explore the genre.
In my earlier post, I defined folk horror as “any horror tale that draws on regional folklore,” but this is a bit of a simplification. As with the Gothic, folk horror is difficult to nail down and define. Works in this category tend to deal not just with folklore but also with folk religion, customs, and rituals. In Western literature, this often involves elements of some pre-Christian pagan practice that has persisted in isolated communities despite the pressure to Christianize. Works of folk horror may draw on real life folklore, beliefs, and practices from a particular culture or region, or they may feature a fictional community with lore of the author’s own creation. Common themes and tropes in works of folk horror include a rural setting, a supernatural entity associated with the natural environment, and worship of or sacrifice to this entity. Continue reading Folk Horror in Literature
Review of The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror
It’s perhaps one of the earliest forms of horror fiction: the local legends of monsters, dark magic, or cursed places that are told in whispers, passed down from one generation to the next in every society. But, as with most things in the Gothic, everything old is new again. With the success of films like The Witch and Midsommar, folk horror is definitely having a moment, and here to ride that wave is The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror, edited by Tori Bovalino, which came out in September. Continue reading Review of The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror