Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror

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.

If you're a horror fan, I have to recommend Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror now available on Shudder A documentary on how regional folklore has been used in horror films.

Beginning with British cinema, then covers this type of horror around the world. It has some examples of this in early silent films, but is primarily how modern filmmakers, since the mid-20th Century have used lore and legends in their films. Often looking at older eras to point out problems in our own.

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.

This is a documentary about the history of folk horror; while a good number of writers are cited (M. R. James, H. P. Lovecraft, Stephen King), the focus is primarily on film and, in some cases, television programs. Starting with an exploration of such films in the UK and moving on to the very different origins of American folk horror, the film spends its last hour or so talking about folk horror films around the world, particularly in Australia, Brazil, Japan and parts of the former Soviet Union. It's a *very* long film, more than three hours, but the interested viewer will not feel that time drag at all, so engrossing is the topic and so fascinating are the talking heads - and, of course, so terrific are the film clips. I've been interested in folklore and mythology for, oh, 40 years or so now, but this is the first time I've seen such scholarship applied so rigorously to films, many of which were considered schlocky in their time, some considered classics now. Absolutely riveting - but watch at your own peril, because you will find yourself wanting to track down a massive number of films after seeing tantalizing moments from the hundreds referenced here!