Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched

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Allow me to make a full confession from the get-go, which may or may not make this review somewhat interesting. This was not quite what I expected it to be, and truth be told, I didn't make the full three hours. In fact, I only really made it one hour. Personally speaking, it turns out that "folk horror" isn't A) up my alley and B) what I even thought it was in the first place... sort of.

See, the full title of this documentary is 'Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror'. Now, what I thought that meant was getting a history on things like urban legends, and perhaps delving into old fairy tales, the way they were originally written. About the closest I got was a film about Red Riding Hood. But otherwise, folk horror can actually be defined as the subgenre of horror that features modern day clashing with a society run by old thinking. Now I know, and knowing is half the battle! Such films include titles like 'Midsommar', or 'Children of the Corn', and this is a three-hour documentary talking about them, what they mean, and their impact on our culture.

Now, before watching this doc (or at least a third of it), my take on such movies was basically that they involved the horrific concepts of the old ways of thinking. As if those old ways aren't scary enough, the twist on these is that the mindset clashes with modern thinking. This is generally pulled off by having the modern characters come into the world of the old school, and just plain getting schooled on things like, say, what it is to be accused of being a witch. This doc delves much deeper into things, and right off the bat, I will HIGHLY recommend this to those into, not only this kind of horror, but really, really underground horror titles from way back when.

I should probably mention the "unholy trinity" of folk horror films that this brings up. Widely considered the three films that gave birth to the subgenre of folk horror, these titles include 1968's 'Witchfinder General', 1971's 'Blood on Satan's Claw', and 1973's non-Cage 'The Wicker Man'. If you're a fan of these flicks, or know of them and are interested, then definitely take the time to watch this doc if you have access to a Shudder account. Despite my being somewhat bored of things here, I can guarantee that this is just a matter of taste, and this is a pretty well done, thorough documentary when it all comes down to it.

Anyway, I sort of regret not trudging through this so as to give a better review, but I figured I could wing it, and it seems to have worked okay. After all, documentaries can be hard things to review, as all they are, really, is information on a subject. I also feel kind of silly for not realizing exactly what folk horror was, but I suppose because these types of movies aren't really my thing, it can't be too surprising that things didn't click right away for me. In the end, it's really quite simple - if you're into this kind of thing, I think it covers a lot of ground for the subject matter. If you're like me though, just keep in mind it's three hours of info.

​3/5

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