The little shrines to Jesus and Mary that my grandmother and her friends made around their bingo cards? It also investigates the rift between science and religion. 22 ratings — She becomes determined to bring her true infant sons home. published 1999, avg rating 3.59 — The album is framed as the score to an abandoned ’70s film … Okay, this last one is a romance novel, but hear me out. If you’re a city dweller who gets anxious when the population starts to thin, the folk horror sub-genre is there to validate that feeling. published 2020, avg rating 3.70 — The novel explores the familiar myth of the changeling, an otherworldly creature swapped out for a human baby. Error rating book. I’ve written before how thought-provoking this novel is. 60,139 ratings — Folk horror often involves contemporary characters happening upon a setting that seems anachronistic, but The Gallows Pole is a fully historical folk horror novel, set in the late 18th century. Carmen Maria Machado’s writing is very influenced by horror and is often at the nexus of body horror and folk horror. published 2018, avg rating 3.72 — It’s the perfect time of year to pick up some folk horror books. 28 Must-Read Frightening Folk Horror Books show list info "Whether you're looking for deep meaning or abundant corn-based frights, folk horror is here for you. There are some books on this list hewing to the classic “outsider encountering a rural pagan death cult” trope. If you’ve ever marveled that something you thought was normal about your childhood was in fact quite strange, this book takes that premise to the extreme. Still, as far as folkloric horror goes, this is probably one of the best examples there is. published 2018, avg rating 3.97 — The urban legend originated as a meme in 2013, but was shared with the fervour of a bottle of hooch being passed around a campfire. Movies like The Witch and Midsommar have enjoyed mainstream success, while gems like … This book is not terrifying, with more flair for gothic melodrama (that is not a complaint!). 1,765 ratings — It triggered a real-life copycat … 10 Things You Might Not Know About Frank Herbert’s Dune. published 2019, avg rating 3.47 — published 2016, avg rating 3.36 — . It’s harvest time, spooky season, the days are shortening here in the Northern hemisphere. Horror; 5 Books About Folk Horror Cullen Bunn. The Métis story of the Rogarou, a werewolf-like creature, is the basis for this novel. Catholicism is a religion with a large official structure and people whose jobs it is to govern the practice of it. The Essex Serpent, a historical novel, features the return of a Loch Ness monster-like creature who gets blamed for mysterious deaths and disappearances. The folk horror book/movie that people are most likely to know is the Wicker Man from the 70s. 105 ratings — Whatever horror sub-genre, fright level, or mythology you’re looking to read, Tailored Book Recommendations can help find the exact book to fit your needs. Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful And Things Strange charts the summoning of these esoteric arts within the latter half of the twentieth century and beyond, using theories of psychogeography, hauntology, and topography to delve into the genre's output in film, television, and multimedia as its "sacred demon of ungovernableness" rises yet again in the twenty-first century." 2,425 ratings — The tale is narrated by a tabloid reporter who is investigating a story of a woman who’s been pregnant for 20 months with no end in sight. The Day the Sun Died is a great example of folk horror being used for allegorical purposes, in this case to question the optimism of the “Chinese Dream”—a counterpart to the so-called “American Dream”—outlined by president Xi Jingping. From Thomas Tryon's influential 'Harvest Home' to modern-day tales of pastoral terror, the folk horror books within conjure up nightmares as bright as the midnight sun. 2,687 ratings — 3,105 ratings — If you’d like to take a deeper plunge into the sub-genre, try one of these books. It is a tragic tale imbued with folklore and horror, first published in 1964. Discussion of folk horror either on the radio or on the stage (plays, audio or theatre adaptations of literary works, etc.) 1,905 ratings — Harvest Home book. The title refers to an ubume, a ghost that arises from the burial of a pregnant woman in Japanese folklore. published 2013, avg rating 3.69 — This novel was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019, but that isn’t why I chose it for this list. A good horror story can make the hair stand up at the back of your neck and give you Goosebumps. ‘I think it works as an excellent example of the folk horror narrative.’ This was the book that I read whilst my mind was heady with wine. published, avg rating 3.67 — This book is what happens when Daisy Jones and the Six has a baby with House of Leaves in rural England. In it, a woman comes to the Highlands to escape what happened to her in London. Who can say. 1,881 ratings — In it, a charismatic leader assembles a group to build a criminal coin-forging empire in his remote moorland home. The most interesting of these is the reverence for a trilogy of British films made at various spectrums of the counterculture era; high in the heady days of the late 1960s, to the last dying embers of optimism in the early 1970s. 15,323 ratings — 135 ratings — 3,342 ratings — Keep an eye on your inbox. published 1907, avg rating 4.09 — If watching a regular episode of Hoarders gives you the creeps, wait until you read The Twisted Ones. It’s not a typical folk horror novel; it’s more like the aftermath of one. Not all the stories in this book would be categorized as folk horror—it dips into post-apocalyptic horror and body horror as well—but a giant walrus god does await you in one of the tales. This is a good book for people looking to be only mildly creeped out. This book is slippery within the folk horror sub-genre, because it begins with a haunted house. published 2017, avg rating 4.18 — I won’t talk about the story - many other reviews will do that. 28,234 ratings — All are good reasons to dive into horror. Folk horror books. 2,086 ratings — This book also has a sequel featuring Danielle Cain wielding her newfound demon-hunting skills. These are books set in "our" world. 20,193 ratings — 14,035 ratings — This novella introduces Danielle Cain, a queer punk rock traveller venturing to a squatter utopia in Iowa, to investigate her friend’s mysterious death. The novel is set at Wake’s End, a large manor house in East Anglia that borders a bleak fen from which terrible things might be emanating. Where many folk horror novels involve outsiders traveling to remote, insular communities, Experimental Film has a found footage angle instead. 10,037 ratings — It would be roughly a decade before interest in folk horror took off again, with Mark Gatiss's A History Of Horror no doubt playing a role in the subgenre's resurgence. Read 686 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. published 2017, avg rating 4.10 — 80 ratings — 832 ratings — We collected the folklore using video and audio. published 1998, avg rating 4.07 — The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror, Taaqtumi: An Anthology of Arctic Horror Stories. There he learns of the local bogeyman character drawn by schoolchildren. published 2011, avg rating 4.08 — published 2017, avg rating 3.57 — This book of short stories includes the standout “The Husband Stitch,” which recounts a woman’s treatment during childbirth mixed with the folktale of the girl with the green ribbon around her neck. published 1890, avg rating 4.07 — The wealth of books and tales emerging in the last ten years simultaneously embrace and subvert the tenets of folk horror. So on with my own personal Top 10 British Folk Horror Films: published 2009, avg rating 4.20 — published 1984, avg rating 4.32 — Tags: books like midsommar, folk horror, midsommar, shirley jackson, the lottery, those midsommar nights. In one way, it pushes back on the notion that rural living is idyllic. Lots of culture has a mix of official and folk elements. 6 Essential Philip K. Dick Novels. It taps into our collective unconscious and awakens fears we had long forgotten we had. Detailed information on folk horror in literature – the book mentions this but does not focus on it and the author predominantly refers to books/short stories that were adapted for film without addressing the purely literary side of the genre. Now that might make a good horror novel premise…. 8,913 ratings — 62,145 ratings — 71 ratings — Adam Neville’s The Reddening does this expertly and the images he conjured from the red earth of Devon will stay with me for a long time. In it, a charismatic leader assembles a group to build a criminal coin-forging empire in his remote moorland home. 5,388 ratings — 2. Share. Ghost Wall’s premise is also rooted in academia, specifically an anthropological course in which a family lives as ancient Britons did in the North of England. Midsommar was an original property, but plenty of other horror films are based on novels or short stories, like the cult classic folk horror Children of the Corn. Mostly told in retrospect, it’s about a woman’s reflection on her youth in a rural Midwestern town where teenagers undergo an animalistic transition period before adulthood. Sure to give chills. All are good reasons to dive into horror. The unruly power of nature is often also a key element of folk horror novels. 10,025 ratings — Does foraging for food and building structures to ward off invaders invariably lead to human sacrifice? He’s now going by Revered Wolff and preaching the Christian gospel in a revival tent. By this token, one can read Shirley Jackson’s influential folk horror story “The Lottery,” in which ritual human sacrifice allegedly ensures the prosperity of the rest of the group, as a critique of capital punishment. Check TBR out today! While some ‘folk horror’ items may have supernatural elements to them they are far from compulsory, sometime traditional country folk and their ways are enough, with perhaps just a hint of rooks cawing in the background. It’s set in a rickety, gothic manor in Cornwall in the late 18th century, and features a woman who is facing harsh treatment for writing feminist tracts, including folk horror-esque threats. Appropriately, for a genre heavily connected with folklore, folk horror has developed its own set of folkloric ideologies. published 2019, avg rating 3.92 — Horror stories appeal to the internal fears of people. Fairytales are an element of folklore because there is no clear authorship on the stories; they belong to the people who share them. Refresh and try again. Introducing the Witcher: Explore the Books That Inspired Netflix’s New Fantasy Epic. Thank you to everyone who voted and especially to those who bought or worked on our books. I’m always invested in analyzing what horror is trying to explore beyond its capacity to provide chills and thrills. Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange, his first book, was published by Auteur in 2017. Another novel set in the Scottish Highlands, this one has a shifting sense of reality and magic. This is an offbeat book I wish more people would read. -- Publisher's description Simply put, it’s about a supernatural entity seeking revenge against four Native American men for a misdeed they were all party to years ago. Folk horror often involves contemporary characters happening upon a setting that seems anachronistic, but The Gallows Pole is a fully historical folk horror novel, set in the late 18th century. We have collected two types of horror folklore: campfire stories and urban legends. 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