“Folk horror ultimately asks… what if the old ways were right?”
In addition to being included with Severin’s folk horror box set All the Haunts Be Ours, which will be released in December, Keir-La Janisse‘s award-winning documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched (read Meagan’s review) will be coming to VOD in time for Halloween.
The 3-hour Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched comes to VOD on October 26.
Watch the trailer below, first shared by Gizmodo.
“Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched explores the folk horror phenomenon from its beginnings in a trilogy of films – Michael Reeves’ Witchfinder General (1968), Piers Haggard’s Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973) – through its proliferation on British television in the 1970s and its culturally specific manifestations in American, Asian, Australian and European horror, to the genre’s revival over the last decade.
“Touching on over 200 films and featuring over 50 interviewees, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched investigates the many ways that we alternately celebrate, conceal and manipulate our own histories in an attempt to find spiritual resonance in our surroundings.”
As Meagan writes in her review for Bloody Disgusting, “The documentary touches on over 200 films, many of them obscure or deep cuts, to pursue how history has influenced this subgenre, what exactly defines folk horror, and how we engage with our respective cultural histories to find meaning and spirituality in our surroundings.”
She adds, “For the cinephile or diehard horror fan, Woodlands is an extensive crash course that will teach you far more than you ever expected there was to know about folk horror.”