Routledge Companion to Folk Horror

The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror offers a comprehensive guide to this popular genre. It explores its origins, canonical texts and thinkers, the crucial underlying themes of nostalgia and hauntology, as well as identifying new trends in the field.

List of contents

Introduction Robert Edgar and Wayne Johnson
PART I: Origins and Histories
1 Fear of the World: Folk Horror in Early British Literature Christopher Flavin
2 The Early Modern Popular Demonic and the Foundations of Twentieth Century British Folk Horror Brendan Walsh
3 'Banished to Woods and a Sickly Moon': The Old Gods in Folk Horror Katy Soar
4 'I Am the Writing on the Wall, the Whisper in the Classroom': The Changing Conception of the 'Folk' in the Western Folk Horror Tradition Craig Thomson
5 M.R. James and Folk Horror Darryl Jones
6 'Leave Something Witchy': Evolving Representations of Cults and New Religious Movements in Folk Horror Miranda Corcoran
7 The Spectacle of the Uncanny Revel: Thomas Hardy's Mephistophelian Visitants and 'Folk Provenance' Alan G. Smith
8 'We're Not in the Middle Ages': Alan Garner's Folk Horror Medievalism Charlotte Runcie
PART II: Folk Horror Landscapes and Relics
9 Terror in the Landscape: Folk Horror in the Stories of M.R. James Peter Bell
10 Folk Horror, HS2, and the Disenchanted Woods John Miller
11 Mind the Doors! Characterising the London Underground on Screen as a Folk Horror Space David Evans-Powell
12 Queer Folk: The Danger of Being Different Beth Kattelman
13 'Out of the Dust': Folk Horror and the Urban Wyrd in Too Old to Die Young and Other Works by Nicolas Winding Refn David Sweeney
14 Meeting the Gorse Mother: Feminist Approaches to Folk Horror in Contemporary British Fiction Catherine Spooner
15 Handicrafts of Evil: The Make-Culture of Folk Horror Ruth Heholt
16 Restoring Relics: (Re)-releasing Antrum (2018) and Film as Folk Horror Lauren Stephenson
PART III: Hauntology, Childhood, and Nostalgia
17 Yesterday's Memories of Tomorrow: Nostalgia, Hauntology, and Folk Horror Andy Paciorek
18 Ghosts in the Machine: Folklore and Technology On-screen in Ghostwatch (1992) and Host (2020) Diane A. Rodgers
19 The Pattern Under the Plough: Folk Horror in 1970s British Children's Television Douglas McNaughton
20 'This Calm, Serene Orb': A Personal Recollection of the Comforting Strangeness Found in the Worlds of Smallfilms Jez Conolly
21 'To Traumatise Kids for Life': The Influence of Folk Horror on 1970s Children's Television Jon Towlson
22 'That Haunted Feeling': Analogue Memories Bob Fischer
23 'Don't Be Frightened. I Told You We Were Privileged': The British Class System in Televised Folk Horror of the 1970s Stephen Brotherstone
24 The 4:45 Club: Folk Horror Before Teatime in the 1970s and 1980s Dave Lawrence
PART IV: Sound and Image in Folk Horror
25 The Idyllic Horrific: Field, Farm, Garden, Forest, and Machine Julianne Regan
26 "And the Devil He Came to the Farmer at Plough": November, Folk Horror and Folk Music Richard D. Craig
27 Sounding Folk Horror and the Strange Rural Julian Holloway
28 'Sounds of Our Past': The Electronic Music that Links Folk Horror and Hauntology Jason D. Brawn
29 Even in Death: The 'Folk Horror Chain' in Black Metal Joseph S. Norman
30 Toward 'Squire Horror': Genesis 1972-1973 Benjamin Halligan
31 Patterns beneath the Grid: The Haunted Spaces of Folk Horror Comics Barbara Chamberlin
32 From the Fibres, from the Forums, from the Fringe: Folk Horror from the Deep, Dark Web Max Jokschus
PART V: Regionality, Nationality, and Transnationality
33 'The Dark Is Here': The Third Day and Folk Horror's Anxiety about Birth Rates, Immigration, and Race Dawn Keetley
34 Hinterlands and SPAs: Folk Horror and Neo-liberal Desolation Robert Edgar
35 'Why Don't You Go Home?': The Folk Horror Revival in Contemporary Cornish Gothic Films Andrew M. Butler
36 Satire and the Folk Horror Revival Adam James Smith
37 English Nationalism, Folklore, and Indigeneity Matthew Cheeseman
38 Bound by Elusiveness: Transnational Cinema and Folk Horror Keith McDonald
39 Strange Permutations, Eerie Dis/locations: On the Cultural and Geographic Specificity of Japanese Folk Horror James Thurgill
40 'All the Little Devils are Proud of Hell': The First Wave of Australian Folk Horror Adam Spellicy

About the author

Robert Edgar is Professor of Writing and Popular Culture at York St John University, UK. His publications include The Language of Film, Second Edition (with John Marland and Steven Rawle 2015), Adaptation for Scriptwriters (with John Marland 2019), and Thomas Hardy and the Folk Horror Tradition (with Alan G. Smith and John Marland 2023).
Wayne Johnson is Senior Lecturer in Media and Film Studies at York St John University, UK. He is the co-author of Contemporary Gothic and Horror Film: Transnational Perspectives (with Keith McDonald 2021).

Product details

• Authors: Robert Johnson Edgar
• Assisted by: Edgar Robert (Editor), Johnson Wayne (Editor)
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 27.06.2025
• EAN: 9781032042879
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3204287-9
• No. of pages: 454
• Series: Routledge Literature Companions
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History; History, Media Studies, LITERARY CRITICISM / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Horror & Supernatural, Humanities, Literary studies: general, Literary theory