Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror

An exhaustive and almost exhausting at times documentary on one specific flavour of horror. It was certainly interesting, though, and I feel like it provided a good amount of insight into folk horror. It's one of those genres or sub-genres where you kind of know it when you see it, but it's harder to put into words. Thankfully, this documentary does put it into words.

Maybe too many words? I don't know if this had to be as long as it was, and it being over three hours is going to be something of an obstacle for a lot of people (maybe even myself included). But I still liked this, and there's a lot to like. It's just very, very in-depth and lengthy.

An outstanding look at the folk horror subgenre. There's lots here I didn't know and it's fun to watch and make a list of all the films you've yet to see, because I can promise you that there will be many you've never even heard of from all sorts of countries. The film is over 3 hours which might make it a bad idea for one seat viewing, but it's just as good if you want to watch it in smaller portions.

There's a lot packed into 3 hours here and while some of it is repetitive, you will definitely see a ton of movies to add to your to watch list. It might have been better served to be a series with different episodes focusing on different countries, but overall it's still a rich source of information and films, so worth checking out.

I really enjoyed this documentary, especially considering that it made me aware of at least two dozen lesser known films that I've watched since then and enjoyed tremendously. However, I'm really annoyed by the way every single damn film is analysed against the backdrop of either race-relations or feminism. Not everything in art, especially the horror genre, has to be turned into some political talking point. Sometimes a great film is just a great film. I would have been a lot more invested in the thing if they'd focused more on the craft of folk horror, such as scenery, archetypal characters etc. But overall this was enjoyable and certainly worth a watch, if just for the niche films that are discussed rather than the (sometimes) unnecessary commentary alongside them.

WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED is the folk horror documentary that many of us didn't even know we wanted. It's often a tour-de-force bit of filmmaking with a running time that flies past despite coming in in the region of three and a half hours. The first half is particularly good, charting the usual likes of THE WICKER MAN, WITCHFINDER GENERAL and BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW before looking at the origins of the genre and then moving to study the format in America and Australia. I thought the second half feels a lot more rushed; it turns into a virtual clip compilation and I would have liked much more insight and background into the intriguing foreign films shown.