The words ‘folk horror’ tend to evoke images from the 1970s – the beards, the flares and the knitted jumpers lend themselves perfectly to the vibe of discovering our inner hippies.
However, long before Britt Ekland’s bottom-double pranced in the nude to entice Edward Woodward in 1973’s The Wicker Man, folk horror was putting down roots in the 1960s – and earlier.
The essentials tended to include isolated rural landscapes, local superstition, a rationally minded stranger, and a slowly dawning, horrible truth that the “old ways” have not been left in the past. You can’t really blame the heathens – if sacrificing someone to guarantee the harvest worked, why wouldn’t you keep doing it?
British folk horror often subtly commented on class structure: authoritarian communities, patriarchal witch-hunters, and anyone trying to control the land itself. Pagan rituals were usually thrown in for good measure.
Directed by Robin Hardy, The Wicker Man is considered the Citizen Kane of British folk horror. The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1970) is another classic, while Witchfinder General (1968) completes a so-called unholy trinity of folk horror.
Directed by Robin Hardy and written by Anthony Shaffer, The Wicker Man stands as the absolute crown jewel of British Folk Horror, fundamentally defining the genre’s aesthetic of isolated communities, pagan customs, and escalating psychological dread.
The story follows Sergeant Neil Howie (Edward Woodward), a deeply devout, celibate Christian police officer who flies a seaplane to the remote Scottish island of Summerisle after receiving an anonymous tip about a missing schoolgirl, Rowan Morrison.
The islanders claim Rowan never existed, and he discovers they have entirely abandoned Christianity and – under the charismatic leadership of the island’s laird, Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee) – have openly embraced Celtic paganism, uninhibited sexuality, and pre-Christian fertility rituals.
There are no supernatural ghouls, jump scares, or traditional villains. The islanders are not psychopaths; they are joyful, polite, and completely rational within their own alternative moral framework. The true horror comes from their absolute, unified conviction that burning a man alive is a perfectly logical, necessary agricultural duty.
The movie that coined the phrase “folk horror” during an interview, giving a name to the entire subgenre. Alongside Witchfinder General (1968) and The Wicker Man (1973), it completes the revered “Unholy Trinity” of foundational folk horror films
Set in an isolated English village in the early 18th century, the terror begins when local ploughman Ralph Gower unearths a deformed, fur-covered skull with a bizarrely intact eyeball in a field. Though the artefact quickly vanishes, a sinister, primordial influence spreads through the local youth.
Led by the fiercely charismatic Angel Blake (Linda Hayden), the village children form a murderous, hedonistic neo-pagan cult. They begin practising dark rituals to rearrange and resurrect the devil piece by piece, manifesting as patches of coarse fur and claws appearing directly on their own skin (the “devil’s skin”).
As the youth descend into ritual violence, madness, and ecstasy, a visiting, hyper-rational magistrate known only as The Judge (Patrick Wymark) is forced to step in to ruthlessly purge the village
Set in 1645, Vincent Price plays a fictionalised version of real-life witch-hunter Matthew Hopkins. On his watch, anyone suspected of practising the dark arts — or cavorting with those who do — is fair game for gory punishment.
Another borderline title, The Devil Rides Out (1968) features Christopher Lee trying to rescue a young friend from a satanic cult. The Hammer horror doesn’t quite hit the points required; cosmopolitan secret societies don’t resemble provincial farming communities (being a bit outdoorsy doesn’t count).
Back to fine-tuning a definition: true folk horror requires a backwoods-esque, rural location with its own long-held traditions that threaten or transform a newcomer.
The BBC loved turning MR James’s supernatural tales into short films, which tended to be folklore-flavoured ghost stories.
This one – directed by Jonathan Miller – features Michael Hordern as a rational academic exploring a windswept East Anglian coastline. He finds an eerie, cursed whistle which summons a terrifying, spectral presence.
There’s no baying mob, but the isolation, the (formerly) level-headed stranger in town, and the uncanny happenings tick all the folk horror boxes.
Adapted by author Alan Garner from his award-winning 1967 fantasy novel of the same name, the series is widely regarded as a pioneering and profoundly eerie masterpiece of early folk horror and children’s television.
In a remote manor house in a Welsh valley, teenagers Alison, her stepbrother Roger, and Gwyn (the local housekeeper’s son) uncover a set of antique dinner plates hidden in the attic.
The decorative pattern on the plates forms the shape of owls. Tracing and cutting out paper models of the owls triggers a supernatural re-enactment of Blodeuwedd, an ancient legend from the medieval Welsh classic The Mabinogion, locking the teens into a repeating psychic cycle of love, jealousy, and tragic violence.
The series shocked and bewildered its Sunday teatime family audience and was labelled “deeply disturbing” for younger viewers due to its intense psychological weight, exploration of adolescent sexuality, and sharp commentary on British class friction.
It remains a cult classic, later preserved and released on home video.
Director John Gilling shot this straight after The Plague Of The Zombies, recycling cast, crew, and backdrops.
Newlyweds inherit a house in a neighbourhood suffering a spate of unexplained deaths, with a conspiracy of
silence from secretive villagers, among them John Laurie as the eccentric ‘Mad Peter’.
Is it folk horror? Again, the bewitchment has exotic origins, technically breaking the rules, but there’s plenty of atmospheric Cornish mist.
Joan Fontaine stars as the teacher who leaves Africa and comes to a bright, sunny English village, where she won’t find any of that nastiness. Or will she?
The screenplay was adapted by Nigel Kneale, whose name became synonymous with folk-adjacent horror, not to mention sci-fi (such as the Quatermass series), which occasionally dabbled in this direction.
Also known as Burn, Witch, Burn!, this classic bridges traditional gothic cinema and emerging folk terror as a rational, sceptical university professor discovers his wife has been secretly practising traditional witchcraft to protect his career from campus rivals.
Unfortunately, the title gives the plot away, although this crossover horror begins mysteriously, with a plague killing off the locals in 1860s Cornwall.
Surprise: the rich squire uses his knowledge of Haitian magic to create countless workers he won’t have to pay.
Originally broadcast as a BBC Play for Today, this deeply complex, surreal masterpiece of televised folk horror follows a conservative teenager in Worcestershire who experiences hallucinatory visions of angels, demons, and the ancient pagan King Penda, shattering his sense of identity and national history.
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