Let’s set the scene:
Your car stalls on a long, winding road at night. A thick fog rolls in. The scraping of antlers against trees makes your chest tighten. You pick up your phone to call for help but don’t have any service.
Without options, you step out of the car to try to get a signal, but from the woods comes a whisper, a whistle, a stench. It’s rotting meat and iron, damp moss and fur. Through the darkness, you see teeth. The stretch of two arms moving toward you.
When you turn to get back into your car, it’s gone. In its place is a grave. The last thing you hear before blood floods your mouth is the scream of a red fox.
It sounds like slaughter.
What is folk horror?
Folk horror is a subgenre that leads with strong themes of atmosphere and setting, and it typically references the occult in the form of cultural practices, urban legends, religion, or witchcraft. There’s also a strong pull toward the fairy tale — but we’re thinking more The Brothers Grimm than Disney here.
For instance, when I teach folk horror in my college classes, I always joke with my students and say that the one lesson everyone learns when studying with me is: never go into the woods.
Hansel and Gretel learned that the hard way. Little Red Riding Hood certainly came away with a few lessons. And don’t even get me started on Snow White. But all in all, the thing to remember here is that tradition is everything, monsters are real, and witches will eat you — and sometimes, they won’t even need an oven.
Folk horror stories question & distort convention
Folk horror notably encourages independent thought, critical thinking, spiritual examination, and emotional expression. It often does so by putting more “conventional” principles under a microscope.
Do you believe in a Christian God? Meet Adam Nevill’s Moder, a Norse nightmare with a cult following in his novel The Ritual.
Traditional medicine letting you down? Visit Ada in Sue Rainsford’s novel Follow Me to Ground and let her bury you for a few days, until your sickness shows up in a bowl in her kitchen.
Not getting enough to eat, even though you live in a fishing village? Sounds like you need to visit Tim McGregor’s village of Torgrimsvaer from his novella Lure — so you can breathe in that salt-kissed ocean air and seek a new source of sustenance.
The rise of folk horror
One of my own earliest encounters with folk horror occurred in middle school, when my language arts teacher assigned Shirley Jackson's short story “The Lottery” for homework. I went home, started reading about a town meeting, and didn’t think anything of it until (spoiler alert!) a woman was stoned to death as a sacrificial act for the well-being of her community.
Though most wouldn’t slot it into this category, “The Lottery” is a classic example of folk horror: it has all the makings of tradition, ancestral practices, conformity, and the delicate balance of peace and violence. Furthermore, it exists in a patriarchal system of control — and shows the consequences of blindly following and pledging one’s allegiance to acts of violence and/or leaders who could turn on you at any moment.
Folk horror in film
In the past decade or so, especially with movies like Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse (2017), Midsommar (2019), In the Earth (2021), Hellbender (2021), and Men (2022), there’s been a notable resurgence in folk horror with a focus on a return to nature and the exploration of female rage, generational trauma, and ancestral curses.
There’s also been increasing exploration of themes like purity, community, and the breaking and/or continuation of tradition — all of which address current political issues, including women's rights, birthright citizenship, and climate change.
How to write folk horror
If learning about siren cults, wendigos, and the fae has got your creative wheels turning, here are a few tips to consider as you sit down and start dropping breadcrumbs:
1. Consider your setting as a character in its own right
Does the wooden shack in the middle of the woods stand on chicken legs when no one is looking? Do the woods change their scent according to who walks through them? Does it never rain on a certain patch of land outside that one creepy village you drive by on your way home from work?
Folk horror is ripe for questions and stoking curiosity, so it’s important to think of your setting and the atmosphere within as predator, seducer, and alien all at once.
Ask yourself:
- What is unique about this place?
- What draws people in despite their better judgment?
- How and when does it feed?
- What is left behind when it does?
2. Write the history of your location according to its monsters
Here’s your chance to dust off your dark fantasy skills and let the horror bleed in. Write the history and lore of your setting according to the monsters — human or inhuman. This is an exercise I personally like to play with because it shows me how and why the “rules” came to be as they are.
It helps me answer a lot of questions about worldbuilding, weather, food sources, and religion, all of which you’ll ideally want to know before you write your opening sentence.
Following the “monsters-first” approach, I’d encourage you to write the history of your setting according to those who fear or worship them. Knowing both sides of the story, in addition to the cause and the effect, will help you craft a well-rounded narrative.
3. Develop protection rituals and know your sacrifice(s)
Ritual is a necessary evil in folk horror. It’s woven into the culture, usually executed in a daily fashion, and it’s how certain people have survived as long as they have.
Think about how people protect themselves in your story:
- Do they board up their windows and doors at night and turn off the lights?
- Do they leave candlelit pumpkins on their front porch?
- Do they craft wooden symbols and hang them in the trees?
This is a wonderful place to let your imagination soar, but I also want to encourage you to look up protection spells and practices from different cultures and religions — especially if your story has roots in a particular piece of lore or myth.
You should also consider what’s at risk if those protection rituals don’t work. What comes into the house? Who needs to be sacrificed and how in order to ensure a certain violence doesn’t happen again?
This is why writing the history of your location according to its monsters is important; if you’re aware of origins, you can amp up the tension here by making things worse for the current generation.
Learn more about folk horror
And there you have it: a basic rundown of folk horror. If you want more history on this subgenre, the documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched is an absolute must for any film buff, and the following nonfiction texts are worth adding to your bookshelves:
- Shapeshifters: A History by John B. Kachuba
- The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures by Aaron Mahnke
- Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic by Tabitha Stanmore.
For related subject matter, I also recommend checking out Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell and God’s Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the Bible by Esther J. Hamori.
With these films and texts in hand, you’ll be ready to dive into history, folklore, and mythology and build a world where the past continues to haunt the present. Bring your monsters and rituals to life in a way that resonates with authenticity and dread — but don’t forget to leave a light on in your room, just in case!
About the author
Stephanie M. Wytovich is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her work has been showcased in numerous venues such as Weird Tales, Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Fantastic Tales of Terror, Year's Best Hardcore Horror: Volume 2, The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 8, and more.
Wytovich is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, an adjunct at Western Connecticut State University, Southern New Hampshire University, and Point Park University, and a mentor with Crystal Lake Publishing. She is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and an active member of the Horror Writers Association.
Her Bram Stoker Award-winning poetry collection, Brothel, earned a home with Raw Dog Screaming Press alongside Hysteria: A Collection of Madness, Mourning Jewelry, An Exorcism of Angels, Sheet Music to My Acoustic Nightmare, and most recently, The Apocalyptic Mannequin. Her debut novel, The Eighth, is published with Dark Regions Press.
Follow Wytovich via her Substack and on Twitter @SWytovich.
