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The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror
The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror offers a comprehensive guide to this popular genre. It explores its origins, canonical texts and thinkers, the crucial underlying themes of nostalgia and hauntology, and identifies new trends in the field. Divided into five parts, the first focuses on the history of Folk Horror from medieval texts to the present day. It considers the first wave of contemporary Folk Horror through the films of the ‘unholy trinity’, as well as discussing the influence of ancient gods and early Folk Horror. Part 2 looks at the spaces, landscapes, and cultural relics, which form a central focus for Folk Horror. In Part 3, the contributors examine the rich history of the use of folklore in children’s fiction. The next part discusses recent examples of Folk Horror-infused music and image. Chapters consider the relationship between different genres of music to Folk Horror (such as folk music, black metal, and new wave), sound and performance, comic books, and the Dark Web. Often regarded as British in origin, the final part analyses texts which break this link, as the contributors reveal the larger realms of regional, national, international, and transnational Folk Horror. Featuring 40 contributions, this authoritative collection brings together leading voices in the field. It is an invaluable resource for students and scholars interested in this vibrant genre and its enduring influence on literature, film, music, and culture.
- GenresHorror
454 pages, Hardcover
Published October 9, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 2, 2025
A good collection of essays on folk horror in its many forms. Like most academic collections, this one has a fairly comprehensive overview of the genre in the introductory section followed by a number of essays that add nuance and depth to the overview. Also like most collections in this style, there is a lot of repetition since each essay is written as a stand-alone perspective. Almost every essay in this book mentions and describes, to varying degrees, Adam Scovell's "folk horror chain" concept which makes sense, but it'll be burned into your brain for good unless you skip it after the first 5 instances. My favorite essays tended to be those describing the folk horror trends in old UK chlidren's television programming. I grew up in the States and so these essays were packed with new information for me. That said, the whole book is worth a read. Look for it at your local university library, otherwise it'll cost a pretty-penny.
February 6, 2024
This book retails for £200. How can that possibly be acceptable?
I was very excited to see this collection, but to borrow from Nick Lowe, 'all too soon the magic was in a moment gone.' Why? First, there are too many essays on similar topics, with the results that the same reference points, critical quotations, and incidents are discussed by multiple contributors (often to the same end). Why did the editors not give the writers a clearer sense of what was happening in other contributions? Second, there's an awful blokey tone to many of the essays, which are both tediously autobiographical ('I used to love watching Pipkins and often wondered if Pig was an avatar of an ancient god while I was having my tea') and lazily written. It's often like wading through blog posts in that there is a lot of enthusiasm but little genuine critical insight. When you get a quotation from Mark Fisher, or you read Catherine Spooner's essay and see what the book could (and should) have been like, you can only feel disappointed that it turned into a transcription of pub chat or lazy lectures. 'Blood on Satan's Claw is much more of a folk horror text than Cry of the Banshee, but then, I've seen Blood and I've only read about the other one in books about folk horror.' Too much nostalgia for the 1970s, too little sense of what powers these narratives in the first place. Did the topic even merit a 'Companion'? It might have been better to have a slimmed own essay collection featuring the best contributors and costing, o, maybe a mere £100.
I was very excited to see this collection, but to borrow from Nick Lowe, 'all too soon the magic was in a moment gone.' Why? First, there are too many essays on similar topics, with the results that the same reference points, critical quotations, and incidents are discussed by multiple contributors (often to the same end). Why did the editors not give the writers a clearer sense of what was happening in other contributions? Second, there's an awful blokey tone to many of the essays, which are both tediously autobiographical ('I used to love watching Pipkins and often wondered if Pig was an avatar of an ancient god while I was having my tea') and lazily written. It's often like wading through blog posts in that there is a lot of enthusiasm but little genuine critical insight. When you get a quotation from Mark Fisher, or you read Catherine Spooner's essay and see what the book could (and should) have been like, you can only feel disappointed that it turned into a transcription of pub chat or lazy lectures. 'Blood on Satan's Claw is much more of a folk horror text than Cry of the Banshee, but then, I've seen Blood and I've only read about the other one in books about folk horror.' Too much nostalgia for the 1970s, too little sense of what powers these narratives in the first place. Did the topic even merit a 'Companion'? It might have been better to have a slimmed own essay collection featuring the best contributors and costing, o, maybe a mere £100.
November 15, 2025
Comprehensive and almost definitive. Probably too much about literature when weird modern films deserve more attention.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews