Description
Book SynopsisWhile the undisputed heyday of folk horror was Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, the genre has not only a rich cinematic and literary prehistory, but directors and novelists around the world have also been reinventing folk horror for the contemporary moment. This study sets out to rethink the assumptions that have guided critical writing on the genre in the face of such expansions, with chapters exploring a range of subjects from the fiction of E. F. Benson to Scooby-Doo, video games, and community engagement with the Lancashire witches. In looking beyond Britain, the essays collected here extend folk horror’s geographic terrain to map new conceptualisations of the genre now seen emerging from Italy, Ukraine, Thailand, Mexico and the Appalachian region of the US.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Dawn Keetley and Ruth Heholt Part One: Folk Horror’s Folklore Chapter One: The Frightening Folk: An Introduction to the Folkloresque in Horror Jeffrey A. Tolbert Chapter Two: Whose Folk? Community, Folklore, Landscape and the Case of the Lancashire Witches Catherine Spooner Chapter Three: Folkloric Origins of the Ukrainian Gothic Svitlana (Lana) Krys Chapter Four: ‘Wow, this place is spooky at night!’ Suburban Ennui, Legend Quests and What Folk Horror Shares with Scooby-Doo Ian Brodie Part Two: Re-Visioning Canonical Folk Horror Chapter Five: The Curse of the Cursive: The Horror of the Hand in Folk Horror Film Typography David Devanny Chapter Six: The Devil His Due: Folk Horror, Occulture and the Black Magic Story Timothy Jones Chapter Seven: Black Boxes: Tradition and Human Sacrifice in American Folk Horror Bernice M. Murphy Part Three: Folk Horror in New Places Chapter Eight: Sunny Landscapes, Dark Visions: E. F. Benson’s Weird Domestic Folk Horror Ruth Heholt Chapter Nine: Monsters in the Making: Phi Pop and Thai Folk Horror Katarzyna Ancuta Chaper Ten: Curses, Rites and Questionable Offerings: Ludic Folk Horror in Video Games Tanya Krzywinska Part Four: Folk Horror’s Politics Chapter Eleven: Catholicism, Unification and Liminal Landscape in Italian Folk Horror Cinema Marco Malvestio Chapter Twelve: ‘Me quitarán de quererte, Llorona, pero de olividarte nunca’: La Llorona, Colonial Trauma and Mexicanness Valeria Villegas Lindvall Chapter Thirteen: Sacrifice Zones in Appalachian Folk Horror Dawn Keetley
