Woodland Haunts: A Folk Horror Overview (December 2021)

Inspired by Kier-La Janisse’s illuminating and comprehensive new documentary on the subject - Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror - this Saturnalia, Cinematheque presents a series of films exploring this strange and magical world of pagan gods and rites, haunted land, and sexual liberation. The films in this series portray people with a deep connection to the land they live on grappling with the changing of religious customs and social norms around them. They are films that share a reverence, sometimes a fear, for the past, and how it is often treated as an impediment to progress, development, and so-called ‘enlightenment’. For us viewers of these films, we feel a certain joy at the sloughing off of restrictive ways of thinking, reveling in that giving over to the Old Gods, and the Old Ways.
The past few years have seen a major resurgence of interest in so-called ‘Folk Horror’ films, with notable entries like The Witch, Kill-List, The Ritual, and Midsommar making huge splashes in the genre world and becoming instant classics. The world seems ripe and ready for a reopening of the themes and ideas of these progressive films. The climate crisis, Land Back movements, interests in traditional healing and treatments, and increasing secularism, make folk horror films feel especially timely and urgent.
Tickets & showtimes: www.winnipegfilmgroup.com/woo...