I smelled autumn on the air during yesterday morning’s jog. Pseudo-non sequitur: Cambridge Elements are one of the many series of short books that academic publishers are promoting these days. Elements is divided into different categories, one of which is “The Gothic.” (Thus the pseudo.) When I saw that Dawn Keetley had written a volume on Folk Gothic I knew I had to read it. In some ways it reminded me of my own short book, The Wicker Man. Although I analyze that movie as holiday horror, it is widely known as a textbook example of folk horror. Just as many people haven’t heard of holiday horror as a category, I hadn’t heard of folk gothic. Autumn is a gothic time of year, and I enjoy folk horror, so I wanted to find out what this genre is all about.
Keetley is an able guide through all things horror. She co-runs Horror Homeroom, a wonderful website that sometimes publishes my own musings on horror and religion. There’s a lot packed in this brief book. One of the draws to these fascicle-like series is that you can learn a lot in a relatively short time. As a weary scholar, I do appreciate the monograph—I read plenty of those as well—but something that distills is also appreciated. So what is folk gothic? Well, if you want a good, short introduction, read this book. If I were haltingly to try to put it into a sentence, I would suggest that it is a form of horror with no obvious monsters; one that draws on folklore to set up a melancholy scenario that often involves violence. If you want a better definition, I would recommend reading what an expert has to say about it.
One of the films discussed in this Element is The Wicker Man. One of the early folk horror movies, it has no obvious monster. Folk horror often relies on the very landscape to create a sense of unease. This is something I always feel as autumn approaches. I still have a ton of summertime chores to do outside—the too hot summer weekends aren’t conducive to physical labor for a guy my age—but I enjoy the melancholy of that first whiff of autumn. It brings gothic sensitivities to the fore. I picked a good time to read Folk Gothic. I’ve seen nearly all of the movies discussed in the book, but some of the fiction I have yet to read. There’s so much to do to get ready for autumn’s chill.
