Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched

Definitely of interest to members of the Weird Tradition, Kier-La Janisse's folk horror documentary WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED (2021), is available on Amazon Prime for the price of a pittance rental. It's incredibly well done and is quite extensive thanks to its 3 hour and 12 minute running time. I actually filled up an entire page with film and book titles to look for. This is an important addition to the history of horror, but I found it a bit odd that Ramsey Campbell wasn't mentioned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee_0bC3MFYI

Curious, do you catalogue those "wish list" titles in your LT account somewhere, or do you keep that list separate?

I'm not an Amazon supporter so don't have Prime, but curious too for any other comments and reactions folks may have to the documentary.

>2 elenchus:

I just keep them in a file on my computer. Prime has a few, but mostly as rentals. One thing I still need to do is search YouTube, which will sometimes have a watchable full-length version available.

The doc and a good number of the titles mentioned therein are included in the massive All the Haunts Be Ours box set from Severin Films. They're listed here:

https://severinfilms.com/shop/folk-horror-box/

It's expensive but I'm thinking it might be very worthwhile.

>2 elenchus:

I don't keep my wishlist on LT, in part because it's essentially a list of works and LT only lets me catalogue books.

>4 AndreasJ:

I don't like LT's inability to distinguish practically between works and books, either, but have opted to list more-or-less arbitrary books in separate collections for wishlist titles, and candidates for wishlist. I much prefer having all in LT rather than in separate files, which I did once.

I'm in the same boat; where I wishlist a work with what I think would be the "optimal" book for my purposes. My wishlist is for both acquisition and borrowing anyway, and having it on LT is awfully handy. I also like that it factors into my recommendations, even though I don't use LT recommendations that much.

And back to the original topic, all this folk horror stuff looks awfully tasty. My Other Reader doesn't really dig Yog-Sothothery, but she likes folk horror just as much as I do. She read The Blessing of Pan years before I got around to it.

Greetings, Weirdos! :)

I'm making up my mind about getting this set too... meanwhile a heads-up that we've been talking about "folk horror" for a decade now over in Gothic group, please join us. Housefulofpaper has the distinction of being the first (as far as I can make out with LT's wobbly search function) to use the phrase in the group, back in 2012:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/136220#3682423

and also a dedicated thread in 2020:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/322684#

Incidentally, the last I posted on the topic concerned the limitations of the term "horror" -- and being in this group, I'm thinking "folk weird" may be a better because more encompassing label. Not that the naming ship hasn't sailed...

>8 LolaWalser:
Thanks for the heads-up, Lola. I'll check out the Gothic group.

For what it's worth, here is my list of films plus a couple of books that seemed especially interesting. Keep in mind that these were hastily scrawled in the dark, while watching the doc assisted by glasses of merlot. In some cases they'll be "I'll know 'em when I see 'em" as far as looking them up. The trailer for the Severin box set follows below.

Films
The Moon & the Sledgehammer 1971 doc
I Start Counting 1970 Jenny Agutter
Whistle & I’ll Come to You Brit TV
Requiem for a Village 1975 Gladwell
Beasts: Baby
The Stone Tape Nigel Kneale
Red Shift 1978 Mackenzie
Penda’s Fen 1974 Alan Clarke
The Living Grave 1980
Robin Redbreast 1970 Mactaggart
Escape Into the Night 1972 Bramall
Moondial 1978
The Owl Service 1969 Plummer Brit TV
Revenge
Anchoress 1993 Newby
Murrain 1975 Cooper
Hagazussa
The Wind
Lake Mungo
Bedevil Moffat
The Dreaming 1988 Avs
Demon 2015
La Llorona
Lake of the Dead 1958
When the Mountains Tremble 1983
Celia
Love from Mother Only
The Demon 1963
Tilbury
Juniper Tree
Wakewood
The Ritual 2017
The Sermon

Books
Gothic & the Power of Race
The Rural Gothic in American Culture by Bernice Murphy

All the Haunts Be Ours trailer: https://youtu.be/2-5UBxgiRiQ

>8 LolaWalser:

"Folk Weird".... I like it because the terms do seem quite complementary to each other. Still, I have to think of the intense horror that's the payoff for something like "The Lottery", KILL LIST or THE WICKER MAN. Weird can engender a sense of the uncanny or awe without quite going as far as out-and-out horror. Maybe we're talking (*gulp*) sub-genre siblings!

I like the totally un-scary sort of folk horror that is just intended to give Christians the heebie-jeebies. With no blasphemy taboo, such stories are just so charming.

Weird can engender a sense of the uncanny or awe without quite going as far as out-and-out horror.

Yes, that "sense of the uncanny or awe" is what I'm missing from "horror", but it's probably incorrect to posit "weird" might be a looser term... the question of definition is also left open in Scovell's Folk horror : hours dreadful and things strange -- "I know it when I see it" may end up being as precise as we can get.

>11 paradoxosalpha:

I'd love examples!