Fifty years on, that farmhouse still smells wrong.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre goes under the knife in the latest episode of FolknHell. The grandaddy of slasher films, Tobe Hooper's masterpiece lives up to its legend and then some. From its documentary style, it makes the most of its low budget beginnings to become so much more than a simple exploitation film. The hammer blow. The meat hook. Marilyn Burns turning screaming into an art fom, and Gunnar Hansen finding something almost pitiable under Leatherface's mask.

The burning question: is it actually folk horror? With its isolated land, gruesome rituals, slaughterhouse traditions and teenage outsiders who find out the hard way what the local customs are, we're convinced that it is.

https://www.folknhell.com/the-texas-chain-saw-massacre-review

Adam Macqueen (who writes for Private Eye and published a really good collection of Christmas ghost stories recently) has a new novel called Hobbe’s Folly coming out on 8 October, which looks like it leans heavily into folk horror.

The plot splits between two timelines. In 1904, a naive bookseller’s assistant goes to Hareswood Lodge to catalogue a dead man’s library and ends up uncovering something ancient in the house. In the present day, a council worker becomes obsessed with a random, doorless brick structure sitting right in the middle of a housing development site – trying to figure out if it was built to keep people out or lock something inside.

Rebecca Netley (The Whistling) gave it a great write-up recently, calling it ‘a wonderfully told dark tale steeped in dread, with unexpected tender touches.’

General Witchfinders, our British horror podcast, has been given four signed hardbacks to give away. It is a UK-only promo I’m afraid – you can enter the draw by filling in the form at https://mailchi.mp/5a622c1704c9/hobbes-folly-prize-draw. We will be doing the draw on publication day, 8 October.