Witchfinder General was released in 1968 and The Blood on Satan’s Claw is 1971, but in 1973 The Wicker Man came to define the sub-genre of Folk Horror. What started as a cult film has become one of Horror’s most influential pictures as future generations of filmmakers have drawn from The Wicker Man’s mysterious power.
The film has only grown in esteem, receiving no damage from the terrible 2006 remake and a 2011 sequel made by the same director that’s even worse than the remake. Their failure only points up the special magic created by this film getting so many unusual choices right. It even exists in multiple versions – I’ve seen at least three – and the combination of vivid photography, wiccan music, memorable costumes and masks, a solid mystery and one of the definitive ‘stranger in a strange land’ settings, all leading to one of the great gut-punch climaxes never fails to impress anyone I’ve shown the film to.
Folk Horror is often very British, though Midsommar is the most successful recent film of this type. Hot Fuzz is a personal favorite in part because it uses a lot of familiar elements but is not a Horror film at all. (It’ll be appearing on the other list in about a month.) It’s one of my favorite Horror sub-genres and I look forward to future posts about The VVitch, Kill List, Apostle, The Ritual and many others.
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