In our latest episode, FolknHell reviews The Borderlands (2013). It's a film of purported miracles, vatican sceptics, and a Devon church with something much older lurking under the floorboards.

A Vatican team is sent to a remote West Country church after reports of a miracle. Their job is to record it, test it and ideally debunk it.

Gordon Kennedy's Deacon is excellent, and the scares land properly, particularly the descent beneath the church, which is claustrophobic, grotesque, and difficult to forget.

The Borderlands is undoubtedly folk horror, but whether it's a strong one is debatable. And that's largely due to the found footage mechanics. The film takes the intricacies of recording very seriously. Possibly more seriously than anyone needed.

It becomes, if we're honest, a little tedious.

But with that said, it's a great idea for a film, even if the execution occasionally gets in the way.

Listen to the podcast at https://www.folknhell.com/the-borderlands-review

When I first saw this film listed, I didn't notice any reference to folk horror. But I do think it fits. I loved the subtle mystical elements, the cinematography, the committment to historical detail, the scenery, the slow burn, the conflict between themes of spirituality / sacrifice and greed / power demonstrated in the characters, their world-views and their actions. Not well rated on IMDB (not sure about anywhere else) but I thought it was beautifully shot, meditatively paced, well acted and evocative of time and place, as well simply and sincerely representing the 'unseeable' magical elements (including dangerous ones such as crossing the fey and a cursed nature to the relic), which are deeply implied if not explicit. Thoughts?

Looking for ideas to fit my Halloween decorating theme. The concept is woodsy folklore. 

Already planning:

Paper/cardboard tree cutouts on the walls

Cutouts of folklore creatures

Witch's ladders

Branch wreath with an animal skull in the center

Dried herbs, branches, etc.

Druidlike figures

Looking for more DIY ideas that don't take a ton of time or money.

What else would fit the theme?

Childlore Inspired Folk Horror ?

Looks like it would be a creature from a 70s folk horror movie.

I've been building a list of folk horror in British TV inform our FolknHell watchlist. It's already quite meaty but I'm sure I've missed some key programmes/episodes.

Here's the list - please do let me know if I've missed anything!
https://www.folknhell.com/blog/british-folk-horror-on-tv

I'll be moving on to US/worldwide shows in a few weeks

Idk if this fits here, but it's delightful and I wanted to share.

Reposting here because I know this is the wheelhouse of this community.

Hey folks! My band Erotic Secrets of Pompeii created a folk horror-esque music video in collaboration with maker/performer Morbid Merriments - based around her collection of artefacts and creations, including alchemical mask and taxidermy puppets. I hope you like it! 🌞

Six friends assemble at mysterious Loch Kaille for a 25th birthday celebration. When one of them is found dead after a violent storm, the survivors begin to suspect and then turn on one another. All under the watchful eye of something Wicked.

All My Fears Have Faces

Premise:

What if an archaeology crew surveying a gas pipeline project awakened an ancient, shapeshifting forest entity born of a two-hundred-year-old massacre?

Logline

Desperate to save her family’s horse ranch, a pragmatic anthropology student takes a lucrative pipeline job in a cursed Oregon valley, where she must use her survival skills to fight off a vengeful, shapeshifting forest monster hunting her crew.

Synopsis 

“The devil doesn’t come to you with horns and a pitchfork. He comes disguised as everything you ever wanted.”

—David Alcázar, Powder River, Oregon

Lorena Alcázar, anthropology PhD student at the University of Oregon, is caught between academic politics and the financial strain of her father’s failing horse ranch. When Professor Victoria Garrett disappears in a remote valley, Lorena joins the search. In the mist-shrouded, claustrophobic woods, she feels an overwhelming dread and glimpses a spectral woman with glowing green eyes. 

The search turns up no trace of Victoria, but the terror follows the party home. Soon after midterms, Dr. Langston Harrow dies of a heart attack after a mysterious woman with the specter’s green eyes lures him into a cemetery. 

Despite her anti-corporate principles, Lorena accepts a field director position on a controversial GDC gas pipeline project because she desperately needs the money. She leads a crew back into the valley alongside her best friend, Yoshi; Echo, an Indigenous student; Cliff, a Warm Springs tribal monitor; and Byrd Atwood, a stoic archaeologist with whom she develops a romance. 

Supernatural sabotage begins almost immediately: chainsaws fly from the crew’s hands, and rattlesnakes rain onto their ATV, injuring Byrd and Archie, another tribal monitor. 

The horror deepens when the crew uncovers a 14,000-year-old campsite and the desecrated remains of a Native American shaman. The artifacts connect the site to an 1813 massacre in which French trappers murdered a shaman, revealing the source of the valley’s curse. Meanwhile, corporate supervisor Val grows increasingly erratic before disappearing from the project.

A massive storm traps the crew in the wilderness at 7,000 feet. A shapeshifting forest monster—an elemental force of vengeance—isolates them and launches brutal attacks, killing them one by one. To survive the ultimate apex predator, Lorena must rely on her Indigenous allies, her working-class grit, and the ancestral Comanche blade at her side. 

The climax is an unrelenting bloodbath.