By Mark Saldana
Rating: 3.5 (Out of 4 Stars)
This year, I began my virtual festival a day early with a couple of screeners. The first of which was a screener for a lengthy and comprehensive documentary detailing horror cinema’s and television’s offerings in the subgenre of folk horror. While this film might seem like an enjoyable refresher for die hard horror fanatics, it should prove to be educational for any novices or casual horror admirers. Writer/director Kier-La Janisse, a film writer and programmer, does a fantastic job of detailing the origins for folk horror movies, how well they effectively challenge conventions, enlighten audiences, and how they often simply scare the hell out of us.
Janisse, with the help of other film writers/journalists and filmmakers who have dabbled in the subgenre, gives the audience a rich history lesson in folk horror. The film reviews over a hundred films, featuring these films best clips, and describes their worth and impact. Not only is the film education, but Janisse and her contributors and crew keep the experience fun, exciting, spooky and atmospheric. It is a documentary that offers a wealth of information that people will either want to take notes, or just watch more than once. It is a film that should be presented for film students interested in learning much about horror and this specific subgenre.