This week on the Fully-Booked: Literary Podcast, we got deep into folk horror, and I’ve gotta say, if you’ve never quite understood why people love this eerie little subgenre, you’re not alone. Shirin came into the episode like a curious skeptic, while Meaghan showed up fully ready to guide us through the weird woods.
From the jump, they acknowledged that folk horror is beloved in niche horror spaces, but it’s still a bit of an outsider in the mainstream world.
Turns out, part of that disconnect comes from how under-the-radar and misunderstood folk horror can be. It’s not all monsters and gore. Instead, it’s packed with unsettling atmosphere, creepy rituals, and isolated rural settings that do a lot of heavy lifting emotionally and thematically.
And that’s exactly what Meaghan walked us through. She broke it down like this: folk horror usually happens in rural, remote places; woods, farmlands, tiny villages, edge-of-the-world kinds of places. It’s deeply tied to folklore, legend, superstition, and old traditions that seem “off” to modern characters (and readers).
And you almost always have an outsider stumbling into this strange little world. That outsider is us, the audience, wide-eyed and confused as everything around them gets more eerie and harder to explain.
If you’ve ever walked into a place and immediately felt like something wasn’t right, but couldn’t quite explain it, then congrats, you’ve lived the opening act of a folk horror story.
The Past Isn’t Dead: It’s Hiding In The Woods
One of the big takeaways from the episode is how folk horror often pits the past against the present. These stories are soaked in tension between tradition and change. The hosts talked about how characters often come face to face with old rituals or beliefs that the modern world has tried to move past.
Except… the people in these towns haven’t moved on. And they don’t want to.
Sometimes, those traditions are harmless. Sometimes they’re just weird. But often, they’re a little (or a lot) more dangerous than they seem. Meaghan pointed out how these stories let us explore the fear of change, from both sides.
It’s scary to confront a future where everything is unfamiliar. But it’s also terrifying to realize you’re surrounded by people who will do anything to preserve the past.
The conversation kept looping back to how setting is everything in folk horror. The place, be it a forest, village, or swamp, is almost a character on its own. It’s oppressive, it’s haunting, and it’s watching. That’s what builds the tension.
That’s what makes you feel like you’re not safe, even when nothing overtly horrifying has happened yet.
It’s not about jump scares. It’s about slow dread. Like you’re realizing too late that the people around you aren’t just weird, they’re waiting for something. And that something is probably not going to be great for you.
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Book And Film Recs That Get It Right
Meaghan didn’t just explain the genre; she brought receipts. She listed out several examples from books and movies that really capture what folk horror can be.
We started with Slewfoot by Brom, which is all about witchcraft, Puritan fear, and a misunderstood creature in the woods. Set in 1600s colonial New England, it blends themes of oppression, justice, and what really makes someone a villain. Is the ancient forest creature evil? Or are the witch-hunting Puritans the real danger?
Then there was The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones. This one explores Indigenous folklore and blends it with guilt, shame, and haunting memories of a violent act from the past. Meaghan noted how it leans into grief and generational trauma, making the horror feel deeply personal rather than just atmospheric. Shereen was especially intrigued by the dual timelines and the idea of past sins returning to collect their due.
They also brought up The Watchers by A.M. Shine, which recently got a film adaptation directed by M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter.
In this story, creatures from Irish folklore trap people inside a forest bunker and watch them every night through a glass wall. That alone is disturbing, but it’s made worse by the sense of confinement and paranoia.
According to Meaghan, this one tackles older, more menacing portrayals of fae and changelings, none of the pretty, flirty fairy princes from fantasy romance novels. Just raw, ancient menace.
Film-wise, they talked about The Wicker Man (not the Nicolas Cage disaster, thankfully, but the original), which centers on a city detective who visits a rural island and slowly discovers its twisted pagan rituals.
They also gave a shoutout to The Village by M. Night Shyamalan, which really captures that clash of old and new. An isolated community rejects the modern world entirely, until its young people start to uncover the truth.
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Both hosts agreed that The Village deserves more respect than it got when it first came out. It was mocked at the time, but in retrospect, it nails a lot of the unsettling questions that folk horror thrives on. What happens when you find out your entire life has been a lie, carefully curated to protect an outdated worldview?
Why It’s So Scary (And Why That Might Be Changing)
Shirin, still trying to pin down what makes folk horror scary, came at it from a new angle. It’s not monsters in the dark. It’s the fear of being the outsider. You’re in a place you don’t understand, surrounded by people who seem to know something you don’t, and they’re not telling you.
You can’t leave. You can’t figure out what’s happening. Everyone is speaking in riddles. The unease grows from that isolation and disorientation.
And when you throw in the fact that the setting itself seems alive, watching, shaping events, that’s when the horror really starts to settle in. It’s not gore or shock value. It’s that low hum of dread that never quite goes away.
They also tossed around the idea that as technology keeps accelerating, we might start seeing more sci-fi-infused folk horror.
Picture this: a rural town refuses to accept AI or other modern advancements. Maybe the horror isn’t just in the refusal to change, but in the tension between tradition and progress. That could make for some compelling stories, ones that touch on today’s anxieties about automation, surveillance, and tech-induced isolation.
As Meaghan pointed out, the best folk horror doesn’t take sides. It just explores fear, fear of the future, fear of the past, fear of losing control. That’s where the power of the genre lives.
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Folk Horror Deserves the Hype
By the end of the episode, Shirin was fully convinced. What started out as a skeptical dive into an odd little corner of horror turned into a full-on appreciation for how nuanced and layered folk horror really is.
It’s unsettling in all the right ways. It’s creepy without being cheap. And it taps into fears that feel deeply human.
We’ve all been the outsider. We’ve all walked into places where things felt off. Folk horror just cranks that feeling up to 100 and lets it simmer until your skin starts to crawl.
Meaghan made a strong case for more people giving the genre a chance, especially if you’re into witch stories, atmospheric fiction, or slow-burn horror that makes your stomach twist. Honestly, the recommendation list from this episode alone could keep you busy for weeks.
So if you’ve been sleeping on folk horror, maybe it’s time to pay it a visit. Just… don’t expect to leave the same as when you arrived.
